June 14, 1944. US and British soldiers look on as French civilians lay a wreath at the Great War monument to commemorate Carentans dead. Place de la République, Carentan.
The inscription on the memorial reads “Carentan à ses enfants morts pour la France 1914-1918.”
(“Carentan to her children who died for France.”)
The Battle of Carentan was an engagement during the Battle of Normandy, between 10 and 15 June 1944, on the approaches to and within the city of Carentan, France.
Carentan was defended by the 6th Parachute Regiment, two Ost battalions and remnants of other German forces. The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, ordered to reinforce Carentan, was delayed by transport shortages and attacks by Allied aircraft.
The attacking US 101st Airborne Division, landed by parachute on
6 June as part of the American airborne landings in Normandy, was ordered to seize Carentan.
On 9 June the 101st finished consolidating, with the 502nd PIR guarding the right flank along the upper Douve River, the 506th PIR deployed across the Carentan highway, and the 327th GIR on the left in positions along the Douve River opposite Brévands.
The 501st PIR was the division’s reserve and guarding the left flank east ofthe 327.
Patrols and aerial reconnaissance of Carentan indicated that the town might be lightly defended, and a plan tocapture the city by a double envelopment was contrived, using the 502nd PIR on the right and the 327th GIR onthe left, scheduled to jump off just after midnight 10 June.
Then 502nd’s mission was to force the bridges and capture high ground southwest of the town along the Périers highway (Hill 30) to block withdrawal.
The 327th was to cross the Douve at Brévands, circle a mile to the east, and come in on the road west from Isigny to take the town.
Leading the attack of the 502nd, the 3rd Battalion (3rd/502nd PIR) under Lt Col. Robert G. Cole found Bridge No. 2 (the Douve bridge) un-repaired and the engineers assigned to the task pinned down by fire from an 88mm gun. Cole sent his S-2, 1st Lt. Ralph B. Gehauf, with a patrol across the river in a small boat. They made their way to the last bridge, which they found blocked by a Belgian gate. The patrol was able to push the obstacle aside only 18 inches, just enough for one soldier at a time to negotiate.The patrol soon came under flare illumination, mortar, and machine gun fire and eventually returned at 05:30, when the attack was postponed.
Most of the fire appeared to be coming from a large farmhouse (49°18′44.6″N 1°15′37.2″W) and a hedgerow on higher ground
250 yards to the right of the highway beyond Bridge No. 4.
The 327 1st and 2nd Battalions crossed the Douve River during the early morning hours of June 10th.
1st Battalion received friendly fire casualties from US mortars during the crossing by rubber boat. Some units waded across the river.
After reaching the east bank in the early daylight hours the 327 swung south towards Catz. 1st Battalion attacked on the south side of the Isigny highway and 2nd Battalion was on the north side. With Company G in the 2nd Battalion lead, heavy casualties were received as they approached Carentan. G was placed in reserve
and was attached to the 3d Battalion of the 327 (401).
In the early daylight hours of the 11th, Company A of the 401
(3Bn) and Co G attacked southward along the Bassin a Flot, again taking heavy casualties.
At 01:45 1st/327th GIR began crossing the footbridges over the lower Douve, and by 06:00, under cover of artillery fire, the entire regiment was across. It captured Brévands and began the three-mile (5 km) movement south and west.
Company A of the 401st GIR, accompanied by the Division Assistant G-3, left the column and marched east toward Auville-sur-le-Vey to link up with the U.S. 29th Infantry Division.
The 327th did not encounter serious opposition until it approached the bridges spanning the Vire-Taute Canal east of Carentan at 18:00. It went into the attack with two battalions on line and by midnight held the east bank.
The Douve bridge was still not repaired when 3rd/502d PIR returned at noon. The paratroopers used engineer materials at hand to improvise a footbridge and began their attack shortly after 13:00. Moving single file downthe causeway and advancing by crouching and crawling, the point of the 400-man battalion reached Bridge No.4 at about 16:00, with most of the unit past Bridge No. 3. Under artillery and mortar fire, and then sniper and machine gun fire as they got within range, casualties among the 3rd/502nd PIR became heavy. Nightfall ended the advance but not the casualties, when an attack at 23:30 by two low-flying German Ju 87 Stukas strafing the causeway killed 30 men and knocked I Company completely out of the battle. The severe casualties suffered by the 3rd/502d PIR, estimated at 67% of the original force, resulted in the nickname “Purple Heart Lane” applied to that portion of the Carentan-Sainte-Mère-Église highway.
Cole’s charge, 11 June
During the night German fire subsided. Company H crept through the opening in the obstacle, and when it did not suffer any casualties, at 04:00 Company G and the Headquarters Company followed, taking cover on both sides of the highway. Scouts in the point nearly reached the main farmhouse in the morning twilight when they were cut down by German fire. Lt. Col. Cole immediately called for artillery support, but the German fire did not cease. At 06:15, using a smoke screen for concealment, Lt Col. Cole ordered his executive officer, Major John P. Stopka, to pass word to the battalion that it would have to charge the German positions to eliminate them.
Using a whistle to signal the attack, Cole led a bayonet charge that overwhelmed the defenders in savage close combat, for which Cole was later awarded the Medal of Honor. At first only a small portion of the battalion, approximately 20 men, charged, but Stopka quickly followed with 50 more. The attack picked up impetus as the other paratroopers observed it in progress and joined it, crossing a ditch. Overrunning the empty farmhouse,
men of Company H found many German Fallschirmjäger dug in along the hedgerow behind it. Companies H and G killed them with hand grenades and bayonets but at severe cost to themselves.
The survivors of 3rd/502nd PIR set up defensive positions and requested 1st Battalion 502nd PIR continue the attack. Lt Col. Patrick F. Cassidy’s battalion, however, also took serious casualties from mortar fire and could only strengthen Lt Col. Cole’s defensive line, taking up positions from the 3rd Battalion command post in the farmhouse to the highway. During a 2-hour truce at mid-day in which U.S. forces attempted to negotiate for removal of casualties, Company C 502nd moved forward from Bridge No. 4 into a cabbage patch between the second and third hedgerows. Company A 502nd moved up just behind Company C and extended its line across the highway. Fighting at the cabbage patch during the afternoon often took place at extremely close range with the contending forces on opposite sides of the same hedgerow.
Except for the noon truce, which FJR6 also used to resupply and reorganize, the American forces repelled repeated attacks. The final one nearly succeeded in overwhelming the 3rd/502nd PIR at 1830, gaining all but the final hedgerow between it and the Douve River. However, Lt Col. Cole’s artillery officer, able to overcome jamming of his radio, called down a concentration of VII Corps Artillery so close that several Americans were also killed. The
overwhelming violence of the 5-minute barrage rolled back the last German counterattack.
Patrols from the 327th had discovered a partially destroyed footbridge over the Vire-Taute Canal at the point where
it connected with the Douve, northeast of the city. The bridge was repaired by 10:00, and a company each of the 2nd (Company G) and 3rd battalions (Company A 401) crossed and attacked down the forested banks of the boat basin (Bassin à Flot), but like the 502nd, were stopped a half mile (1 km) short of Carentan by machine gun and mortar fires that artillery could not suppress.
FJR6, nearly out of ammunition, withdrew during the night, leaving only a small rear guard. A Luftwaffe parachute resupply drop that night seven miles (11 km) to the southwest arrived too late to help. The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division (Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Werner Ostendorff), on the road toward Carentan since D-Day, had been delayed by air attack and lack of fuel. By nightfall on 11 June only a few advanced elements had reached the division’s
assembly areas.
Carentan captured, 12 June
US 7th corps jeep passes under the French flag as civilians thank the Americans after liberating the town. To complete the capture of Carentan, Gen. Courtney Hodges of First Army created a task force under Gen. Anthony McAuliffe to coordinate the final assault. The mission to take Hill 30 was reassigned to the 506th PIR, the attack along the Bassin à Flot was renewed, and the 501st PIR was relieved of its defensive positions to circle behind the 327th
GIR and approach Hill 30 from the east. The movements were covered by an all-night artillery bombardment of Carentan using naval gunfire, Corps artillery, 4.2-inch mortars, and tank destroyers that had joined the 327th GIR along the eastern canal.
Two battalions of the 506th moved down the Carentan causeway after dark, passed through the 2nd/502nd PIR at 02:00 on 12 June, and marched cross country to Hill 30 (the village of la Billonnerie), which they captured by 05:00. The 1st Battalion took up defensive positions facing south across the highway, while the 2nd Battalion was ordered north to attack the city. The 501st PIR during the night moved into position behind the 327th Glider Infantry, crossed the canal, and reached Hill 30 by 06:30.
At 06:00 Carentan was attacked from the north by 1st/401st GIR and the south by 2nd/506th PIR. Both units
encountered machine gun fire from the rear guard, but the 2nd/506th was also sporadically shelled by artillery to
the south of Carentan. Despite this, both units swiftly cleaned out the rear guard in a short fight near the railway
station and met at 07:30 in the centre of town. The 1st/506th PIR engaged in more serious combat south of town
when it had to rescue Col. Sink’s command post, surrounded because it had pushed too far towards the German
lines in the dark.
In the afternoon both the 506th and 501st advanced southwest but after a mile were stopped by heavy contacts with new German units including a few tanks. The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division had intended to counterattack to retake Carentan, but its assault guns were held up in the assembly areas by Allied air attacks. Instead infantry units dug in on higher ground below the city and battled the paratroopers until dark.
Bloody Gulch, 13 June
At dawn on 13 June, the 101st Airborne was about to attack the German line when it was attacked by tanks and assault guns. Two battalions of the 37th Panzergrenadier Regiment, supported by the 17th Panzer Battalion and III./FJR6, struck hard at the 501st PIR on the American left, which fell back under heavy pressure. The left flank companies (Dog and Fox Companies) of the 506th then gave way, and by noon the spearheads of the German attack
were within 500 yards of Carentan. However, Company E (Easy) of the 506th, commanded by 1st Lt. Richard D. Winters, anchored its right flank against a railroad embankment and held its position. Reinforced by the 2nd/502nd PIR taking position on its right, Easy Company slowed the German attack until American tanks could be
brought up.
Reacting to an Ultra warning of the size and threat of the counterattack, Lieutenant General Bradley diverted CCA
U.S. 2nd Armored Division (commanded by Brig. Gen. Maurice Rose and near Isigny sur mer) to Carentan at 10:30.
At 14:00 CCA attacked, supported by the self-propelled howitzers of the 14th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. One task force of tanks and mechanized infantry surged down the road to Baupte in the 2nd/506th’s area and shattered the main German thrust. A second task force drove back German forces along the Périers highway, inflicting heavy losses in men and equipment. CCA, followed by the 502nd PIR, then pushed west a mile beyond the original lines.
