The Carentan Causeway battle .

By June 8, 1944 the 101^st Airborne Division had met all their D-Day objectives.  At this time the 506 held a line from Les Quesnils along the Dove River. The 502 held a line from Les Quenils northward and the 327^th from La Barquette to the mouth of the Dove. The 501st was in reserve in the vicinity of Vierville. 

On June 8 an Engineer reconnaissance party was sent out to look over the route which the 327^th would take the next morning to move across the Dove River. The route they would take would have them advance north along the main highway out of St. Come Du Mont. The main problem was that this was an elevated highway, which was surrounded on both sides by marshland.  This was wide-open terrain and provided no cover to advancing troops. 

The 506 had a outpost just short of bridge 2 on the main highway. On June 9 Col. Sink  the 506 Regimental Commander decided to go up and take look at the situation  for himself. When he arrived he had realized that his out post was not actually on the bridges but in a house short of the bridge. Col. Sink ripped into the Lieutenant and told him to get his men out on the bridges and keep them covered. Sink then proceeded out on his fact-finding mission. He crossed the 1^st bridge and came to the second, which had been destroyed by the retreating Germans. They forged their way across bridge 2 and started to cross bridge 3 when they came under heavy machine gun fire.  At this point Sink withdrew leaving two men on the far side of bridge 2. 

Upon Sinks return he reported his finding to Division HQ. Division then relayed this information to the 502 Regiment, which was in the process of scouting the same area for its new objective La Billonneria.  For some reason the information that got sent to the 502 reported that the area in and around Carentan was lightly held.  Hearing this Lt. Ralph B. Gehauf, S2 of 3^Rd Battalion, jumped into a L-4 reconnaissance plane to have a look for himself. This ride was almost a waste as far as fact-finding because Lt. Gehauf could neither confirm nor deny the information about the enemy position & strength he received from the G2 prior to his recon mission. 

At about 9:00 PM on June 9^th, 3^rd battalion of the 502 received orders from Division to attack toward Carentan with a goal of reaching bridge 2 by 3:00 AM on the morning of June 10. Prior to 3^rd Battalions jump off, one last attempt was made to find an alternate route. Capt. Henry G. Plitt the Regimental S-3 jumped into a Piper Cub and flew out from Houesville to scout the railway line south of the Douve River. Plitt flew over the area for about thirty minutes. He noticed a 10-yard section of the causeway and track that had been blown out and therefore concluded that the railway line was not an option. During the entire flight Plitt’s plane never came under enemy fire and Plitt concluded by this that the Germans must have already evacuated the area. 

The Carentan Causeway 1944

Some time on the night of June 9 members of the 326^th Engineer Battalion set out to repair the 12-foot gap in Bridge number 2. 3^rd Battalion was told this bridge would be made passable by the time they would arrive. At about 12:15 AM on the morning of June 10 Lt. Gehauf, SGT. Robert O’Reilly and 10 men let out on foot to recon the route that 3^rd battalion would move through in the next 2 hours. At about 1:30 AM they reached bridge 2 only to find that it had not been repaired by the engineers as promised. The patrol found the bank littered with the material to repair the bridge but no one working at  the task.  Several engineers where found under cover and when question by Gehauf they told him the German 88 had found the range and they where forced to stop work and take cover. Gehauf was puzzled by this explanation after all it was quiet now and there were no dead or wounded around.  With the bridge still not repaired the patrol found a small boat and started across the river three men at a time. As the men crossed they learned what the engineers had told them was true because 8 rounds of German 88 artillery rained down on them as they attempted to reach the far bank. 

Safely across the Patrol moved out in two lines 6 men on each side of the road. They moved up and through bridge 3 with out incident and arrived at bridge 4 only to find it blocked by a big iron gate, which was placed there by the retreating Germans. Unable to remove the obstacle the men managed to push an 18-inch gap open on one side of the gate. Led by Pfc. J. Roach & J. Pace the patrol squeezed through the gate and moved out about 50 yards beyond bridge 4. Gehauf reached Roach & Pace and told them not to advance any further. He wanted to give the rest of the Battalion a chance to catch up to their position.  Just than a mortar shell landed with in a few yards of their position causing the men to dive for cover. Then the sky light up with enemy flares and all hell broke loose. The small force was under heavy mortar and machine gun fire from the front and right of their position. The men could see the muzzle flashes like fireflies in the night from out front. Sgt. Robert O’Reilly counted five machine guns while Gehauf figured seven. One man in the group squeezed off a burst from his Thompson and Gehauf told the men to hold their fire, as it would give away their position.  At this point Lt. Gehauf decided to send back a runner to the lead company to tell them to bring up the mortars to deal with the enemy machine guns. Pvt. Willis Nichols and Pvt. Roy Hilton were chosen for this task. Under machine gun fire the two men scamper across bridge 4 over bridge 3 and back to a small boat at bridge two. The small boat was in pour shape at this time half under water. The two men managed to make quick repairs to the craft and cross over back to the far side of the bank. When the two men reached the other side they meet Col. Robert Cole and Nichols told Cole “Lt. Gehauf says don’t bring the Battalion through because the fire is too heavy.”  No one can explain why Nichols gave the complete opposite message to Cole that Gehauf intended the runner to report. This erroneous information turned out to be insignificant because at 0400 Col. Michaelis called off the attack for the night. Michaelis sited the failure by the engineers to repair bridge 2 as the reason.  At 0500 Gehauf , not receiving any information back from Nichols dispatched PFC. Allen Bryant back to find out what Battalion’s plan of action was. Unable to find Battalion because they had pulled back to Quesnils, Bryant reported back to Gehauf.  In the meantime Pvt. Roach had decided to check bridge 4 and found it wired for demolition. Seeing this Roach climbed down and cut all the demolition wires saving it from destruction. By this time Gehauf and O’Reilly decided they could not learn any more or server any useful purpose by maintaining their position. They agreed to pull back to see if they could locate Battalion and report their findings.  The patrol pulled out with out incident and successfully found the rest of the Battalion and reported back to Col. Cole.   

The rest for 3^rd Battalion was short lived because at 9:30 AM that morning it received word that it would again make an attack down the causeway. This time the Battalion would be supported by Artillery from the 377^th Field Artillery Battalion, 90^th  Battalion and the 65^th Armored Field Artillery. The positions on which they would rain their deadly payload on were based on the information that Lt. Gehauf’s patrol brought back. 

Col. Cole and Lt. Gehauf went down to bridge 2 once again to see if had been repaired. They wanted use the bridge for the impending advance by 3^rd Battalion. Once again they arrived to find it still in unusable condition. Seeing this Cole told Capt. Robert Clement, CO of G-Company, to grab two enlisted men and try to see if they could make a footbridge. Using the materials left behind by the engineers that night, Clements, Cole, Gehauf and the two enlisted men went to work constructing a foot bridge made of wood planking, rope and heavy fencing. The work was complete at around 2:00 PM that afternoon. Around 3:00 PM Lt. Gehauf and Pvt Bryant crossed bridge 2 and made way the positions they held earlier that morning. They were followed shortly by G-Company’s 1^st platoon. With this 3^rd Battalion had begun its march on Carentan filing across bridge 2 in single file man after man.  

As the battalion crossed the bridge the Germans harassed them with intermittent fire from their 88mm guns. Other than this attempt by the enemy to stampede the crossing the first portion of the advance went along relatively uneventful. When Cpl. Ellis and Pvt. Williams reached the far side of bridge two they came under sniper fire from a patch of ground a couple hundred yards off to the right. Pvt. Williams set out after the sniper by crawling along a ditch until he was close enough to toss a grenade over the hedge.  Williams waited a few minutes to see if he had finished the job. By this time Sgt. A.L. Zeroske had crawled up behind Williams to lend a hand. At this point the two men made visual contact with their target and opened fire. When the sniper screamed out and fell Williams and Zeroske debated as to who’s shot did the job. Mean while the advance across bridge two continued and by the time three hours had passed all of the battalion except half of H-Company was on the far side.  

As Lt. Gehauf Intelligence Section and 5 men from G-Company’s 1^st platoon pushed passed bridge number 4 the enemy opened fire on the causeway from all sides. The men on the point position received heavy small arms and automatic fire from a position of high ground forward and to the right of bridge four. The bullets bounced off the pavement like hail but luckly did not find their mark. The men immediately dove for cover from the bouncing lead. Realizing the enemy was not very accurate they once again began crawling forward on their hands and knees. By this time they were receiving fire from the left as well as the right side of their position. Pvt. Carl Deyak and Pvt. James White the two lead scouts were about 15 yards ahead of Cpl. Washko and Pvt. De Leon.

De Leon looked back and saw that there was no one coming up behind him, so he yelled to Deyak and White to hold up.  A few seconds later a mortar round fell near Deyak and White. The two men took cover in a ditch on the side of the road. Then a second burst exploded hitting Deyak in the face. Bullets started to zing past, one right through White’s hair. Five yards back De Leon yelled to Washko, I’m hit! I’m hit!  Washko rushed over to De Leon and saw his arm bleeding badly and applied a tourniquet to it.  The four men realized that they had crawled out a little to far and that the enemy machines guns had zeroed in on their position. They decide to push back a few yards where they would have cover from the German guns. 

With his lead platoon being shot up, Lt Gehauf was now convinced that the real problem for the Battalion would be crossing bridge 4 rather than bridge 2. Bridge 4 was right under the eye of the enemy. To make matters worse the Iron Gate still blocked the bridge and the men could only muster through one at a time. Gehauf also took a good look at both the enemy and American fire. He realized that the American shells were dropping far beyond the German positions. He told Sgt. Delwin Mc Kinney to have the artillery lower its fire about 200 yards. Mc Kinney ran back to bridge 4 and yelled a message to LT. David Irvin of G-company who was on the other side. Irvin put the message on the radio, but for some unexplained reason when the message was received it was 2200 yards. By this time 3^rd Battalion’s attack had been held in check for over four hours. The head of its column had come under heavy fire and the right side was taking fire from its flank. The destroyed bridge two restricted any type of withdrawal. One both sides of the column were marshes. With the situation being the way it was the Battalion had become immobilized through the remainder of the day. At this point the main effort of the command and Gehauf, who remained at bridge 4, was to supply the artillery with as complete fire data as possible. The guns worked over the enemy positions from about 4:00 PM – 11:30 PM, when darkness closed down the action. The shelling seem to do little or no good as the bullet fire from the house continued to build up steadily. 

Men of G-Company, second and third platoons followed first platoon across bridges one, two and three. Upon reaching bridge number three second platoon deployed to the left along a thick dyke. Rifleman and machine gunners dug in along the embankment to build a strong fire position frontward.  Behind this position and to the right another machine gun was setup to provide a base of fire on the farmhouse. These positions were ordered to open fire as the rest of the men from the company tried to make their way through the narrow opening in the road block at bridge four. The first six men made it through the narrow gap but the seventh man Sgt. Joe Clements was hit as he tried to wiggle by. Capt. Clements then ordered the rest of the company to hold up. He wanted to see if they could  force a bigger opening in the gate at bridge four. Capt. Clements  order some men to bring up some ropes and levers.  The men pulled and pried at the gate to no avail. The gate would not budge and this forced the men of G-company to stay behind bridge number four.  The order was given to the men to spread out to left along the dyke.  They worked over the enemy position in front of the farm house with machine gun, riffle and mortar fire for about two hours. Ammunition ran low at this period and the company had to send back for more. 

At around 1800 hours, Col. Robert Cole left the situation at Bridge two in charge of Major John Stopka his EXO.  Cole worked his way forward through the column and up to the head of G-Company. As he was moving up he found men from one of his companies hugging the ground along the grassy embankment. He yelled at them “God damn it, start firing and keep firing.” He barked at their company officers keep these men firing. As he came up on the machine gun position on the left side of the road he noticed the gunner was just spraying lead at the enemy wildly. He told him short traversed burst.  Cole stayed up with forward company for about four hours. He witnessed his men being ground up by enemy fire. The casualties mounted not because the enemy fire was accurate but because the bullets were ricocheting off the road and Iron Gate and into the men’s foxholes. Cole had to do something to move his men forward and out of this shooting gallery. He told Capt. Clements to make ready to swim his company across the last canal and look for a suitable location for the rest of the Battalion to cross. His thought was if he could get one company on the other side they could through ropes over and the rest of the men could climb over hand over hand. 

Clements crossed and found the area to be void of proper cover for his men.  Finding this to be the situation he held his men at bridge four.  The time was now about 2330 (11:30 PM).  The soldiers of G-Company were now bunched up around bridge four and because of this were still taking high casualties from enemy machine gun fire off to the right.  At about this time men further back on the causeway, saw and herd a plane coming from the direction of Carentan.   The plane came in and dropped its deadly payload over I-Company’s position.  Six to eight small bombs landed along the flank of the road.  Another enemy plane came down over the road and strafed it with machine gun fire. The bombing and strafing accounted for about 30 men killed or wounded.  Many of the soldiers along the line fell victim to drowsiness caused by heavy shock losses. This made it difficult for Lt. Roberts Burnes as he tried to assess the damage to his men. He could not tell the sleepers from those who were wounded.  Four the next four hours Company I laid static in their position. 

At around 0200, Col. Cole confirmed the positions of his companies. At this time he ordered H-Company to the lead over G-company. Col. Cole considered G-company the more beat-up of the two companies and Clements and his men dropped back to support Simmons’s men. At 0400 Simmons and his men began passing through the gap in the gate at bridge four at a rate of one man a minute. The enemy was suspiciously quit and Col. Cole saw a perfect opportunity to get his companies across bridge four. He ordered Simmons to rush his men through as fast as he could and not to worry about bunching them up. Before long H-Company was across without a casualty. After H-Company’s successful passing of bridge four, G-Company rushed through the opening next. 

84 men strong, H-Company moved up along both sides of the road towards the hedgerows and the farmhouse. Company G with 60 men and HQ. 3^rd with 121 men moved up on solid ground to the left side of the road. Pvt Albert Dieter, the lead scout moved his way up to with in five yards of the hedgerow.  The rest of the platoons were strung out behind Dieter in squad formation for about 200 yards. As Pvt. Dieter edged to within a few steps of the hedgerow the Germans opened up with rifle, mortar and machine gun fire all along the company line. It wasn’t clear at this time if the Germans were caught off guard or if they simply held fire until H-company’s men were at easy range.  Dieter being up front got the full effect of the German fire. The opening volley shredded his arm from shoulder to wrist.  He calmly walked back down line and reported to Simmons. He said “Captain, I am hit bad, aren’t I”  Simmons replied,  “You sure are!”  Then Dieter said “ Well I didn’t Fxxx-up on you, did I Captain?” Simmons responded, “No, you sure didn’t!” Then he was sent back down the line to an aid station and medical attention. 

Just prior to the wounding of Dieter Cole yelled over to Simmons, “ The Company is too bunched up. Those God-damned Germans are here. They must know we’re here,  now look around survey the damage”.  Five or six men from the leading platoons had been hit and they crawled off to the ditches at the side of the road.  Simmons seeing this crawled over to see if he could help the men.  One young mans arm need to be splinted and Simmons needed a table of some kind to perform this task. Just about them Simmons spotted a dead German soldier lying cold and stiff in the ditch. He took the corpse’s pack off, rested it on the stomach and went to work with a first aid pack. Another man crawled over to Simmons position with a bad arm wound, spurting blood from a cut artery. Simmons told the man that he had no tourniquet and could help him. The man said maybe there’s something in this medical kit I have in my pocket. Simmons looked into the kit and found a pair of hemostats in which he used to pinch of the blood flow. 

At around 0500 Col. Cole crawled back along the ditch with Capt. Rosemond, the artillery liaison officer. Cole asked him to lay some fire down onto the farmhouse ahead. Capt. Rosemond told Cole that he couldn’t do that because the artillery commander wasn’t present at the Gun position to approve the request. Hearing this Cole said “ God damn it! We need artillery fire and can’t wait for a general.” Rosemond must of got Cole’s point because shells began landing 15 minutes later.  They pounded the hedgerows around the farmhouse for the next 25 minutes. Cole & Rosemond lay in the ditch watching the fire hit the German positions. Still the enemy fire did not weaken and Cole then ordered the artillery to switch from air burst to delay charges and then back again. This made no difference in the strength of the enemy fire. 

The artillery bombing had no affect on the enemy and this puzzled Cole. He was unsure what his next movement should be.  On impulse he yelled over to Maj. Stopka on the other side of the road. “We’re going to order smoke from the artillery and then make a bayonet charge on the house.” Stopka yelled back “OK!“ Cole then told Rosemond he wanted a smoke barrage.  In a few minutes the smoke was being laid in an arc with the house as its center and the Madeleine River as the boundary on the right and the main road to Carentan as the edge on the left. The Artillery laid smoke in under Cole’s watchful eye for about twenty minutes. During this time Cole called in several adjustments for wind. He wanted to make sure the smoke was just right before he through is men forward in the assault on the enemy position.  

Cole passed the word to Stopka to fix bayonets and reload rifles with a full clip. This was supposed to have been passed down to the Company commanders and from them to the men. HQ Company 3^rd Battallion, G-Company and H-Company were supposed to have received this order. At 0615, Cole gave the command. The Smoke barrage lifted and the artillery fire was moved back to the railroad tracks just behind the farm house.  As soon as Cole heard the whistle of shells go over his position he blew his whistle and took off across the ditch with only 20 men in tow. Stopka who was over on the left side had about 50 men with him , he shouted “Let’s go! Over the hedge!”   Much to his surprise very few men followed.  As Cole looked back his was stunned at what he saw. There was only a small group of men with him. He immediately thought his men let him down.  What he did not know was the word was never completely passed down to the command during the heat of the battle. Some men herd the words “whistle” and “bayonet” and nothing else. Others got no word at all of what the plan of action was.  Cole, half way across the field at this point , stopped knelt down on one knee and looked back. The enemy fire was snapping in the grass all around him. The soldiers that followed him were in a single file line behind him. He waved both arm at them tring to get them to fan out. Instead they men hit the dirt. One at a time he coaxed them up and onward firing his colt side arm wildly in the direction of the enemy. As Cole fired he yelled out “God damn, I don’t know what I’m shooting at but I gotta keep on”.  At this time Cole’s radio operator , T5 Robert Doran caught up with his commander. The two of them continued onward across the filed running side by side. The smoke was starting to lift and the farm house could be seen through the haze. As they got closer Cole leaped a ditch and landed neck deep in water. He yelled back to Doran, ”don’t follow me!”  Doran heard Cole and was able to avoid the wet mess that Cole found himself in. Climbing out of his soggy predicament Cole continued on to the side of the farmhouse. There he stood waving is men right past him and into the positions around the house.  Company G and I were ordered to take up position in a brush pile behind the house. Company H and HQ were ordered to the right side of the farm. This action forced the Germans to abandon the farmhouse and to fall back to the railroad tracks. Many of their rank lay dead, littering the farmhouse grounds. 

Cole taking a random estimate of his strength at the farmhouse, sent Pvt. Doyle Bootle of HQ Company back to Lt. Col Pat Cassidy of 1^st battalion to tell him to bring his men on up. He figured 3^rd battalion had little effective battle strength left and need reinforcements to head off any enemy counter attack and continue onto his objective which was Hill 30.  Bootle ran back across the field onto the Carentan road dogging sniper fire all the way. There he met Sgt. Joseph Gillion of H-Company who he passed on Cole’s order to. Gillion carried this back to the Regimental CP where it was relayed to 1^st Battalion.  

By the time 1^st battalion jumped off to help Cole the Engineers had rigged a temporary span at Bridge number 2 and had torn away the jammed gate at Bridge number 4.  This made it possible for vehicles to come through to the farmhouse. Cole was in the court yard were is was caring for his wounded men when an ambulance duly arrived carrying ammunition. It brought ammunition up and took the wounded back, under fire in both directions. There were so many wounded that were carried out double deck, some riding in the body of the truck while others were carried in stretchers across the top. Two jeeps were also pressed into service to help. On the third return trip the ambulance returned with a group of medics from the First Army to help Cole’s wounded battalion. 

As leading elements of 1^st battalion reached Cole’s position he warned them that the CP (farmhouse) was becoming a target for enemy artillery and mortar fire. He told them to move quickly past his position and into the area beyond the CP. Lt. Robert Rogers of B-Company quickly moved his men into the area’s where the surviving members of Col’s battalion were holding the line.  Rogers was amazed at what he saw. Only small factions of squads from 3^rd battalion were holding the grounds around the CP. Seeing this he disposed his men among them. They deployed along the hedgerows along the right side of the farmhouse and on the far side of the road, which ran alongside the house. As his men deployed any preconceived notion of advancing beyond this point for the time being had been put to rest. The advance of the company stamped the small number of the enemy who had continued to cling to the immediate foreground. The Germans were pursed beyond houses at the crossroads. A small group led by Lt. Homer J Combs managed to push out to the railroad tracks. As the reached the tracks the spotted 6 enemy soldiers off to their left. Before the could get accurate fire on them they Germans managed to vanish. Combs men wanted to continue the hunt for their prey but Combs figured that they were getting to far away from the main body and led them back. They reached the road along the front of the houses and distributed themselves in the hedgerows. Not long after they reached these defensive positions the Germans came back to the road line and took up positions in the ditches on the other side of the road from Combs men. Here a grenade dual took place and at one point the men turned the Germans back at bayonet point. 

While this action was tacking place, men of Company A were on the move to reinforce the main line of resistance. As the two leading platoons came over the causeway and through bridge number four they encountered heavy artillery and mortar attack. They continued onto and across the field under this rain of fire. A heavy concentration had fallen on the men as they reached the middle of the field. This took out 15 of their rank. The shock scattered the other men sending them running in all directions seeking cover. Some headed for water filled ditches diving in head-first other scrambled back to bridge four. The end result of this heavy shelling was that the A-Company men did not join the MLR until some one and half hours later. 

The Battle raged on all day around the farmhouse causing casualties up and down the 1^st and 3^rd battalion defensive line. The men claimed that the only time they saw the enemy was when they came across their dead bodies. Many said it was like fighting a phantom army. Keeping well covered, the Germans advanced along the perpendicular hedgerows and ditches, then moved to the flank on the inside of the hedgerows which ran at right angles to the road. They understood this manner of advance very well and rarely exposed more than a shoulder or the tip of a helmet. The paratroopers fought on pouring small arms and machine gun fire into the hedgerows, hoping to hit the unseen enemy and keep him at bay. 

Both Cole & Cassidy realized the weakness of their position, as there was no rear in their command. This meant that if the front line cracked there would be nothing to fall back on. Anybody that could walk would have to fall back to bridge 4 leaving there wounded behind. Capt. Rosemond sat in a second story room trying to blindly direct mortar fire down on the enemy to help the situation that 1^st and 3^rd battalion found themselves in. The rattle of the enemy burp guns seemed to be creeping closer and closer. This was making the situation seem bleak.

 At this time C-Company was making it’s way up to help the situation. After a short conversation between Cole and Cassidy it was decided that they should deploy in a field of Cabbages along the main road to Carentan. The cabbages provide excellent concealment for the men of C-Company and it was hoped that this would stop any flow of enemy troops coming in as rein enforcements from Carentan. This movement would set the stage for the Battle Among the Cabbages.