![]() The Germans used Carentan as an armor repair depot and kept several self-propelled guns there. ![]() An east-west railroad line bisected the town, and the Douve River flows to its south. Home to some 3,200 French citizens living mostly in old stone three-story row homes above shops, Carentan also possessed a road heading south, away from the Normandy hedgerows, the tree-covered dirt mounds that divided Normandy’s farms into a checkerboard pattern, making them a formidable defense grid for the Germans. Once the Americans held Cherbourg’s harbor, they could start bringing in more supplies for their advancing armies. The Americans had to take Carentan, not only to unite their forces, but also to access the town’s important crossroads linking the American, British, and Canadian beaches with the Cherbourg Peninsula to the west. With their two main forces divided, the Americans were susceptible to enemy flank attacks while they rapidly built up strength on the shore. The German grip on the town prevented the two American forces from uniting. Somehow Winters had to get his men moving.Ĭarentan stood like an island of resistance between the two slowly expanding American D-Day beachheads at Omaha and Utah Beaches in France’s Normandy region. To the north, two companies of the 327th Glider Regiment were pushing south, while on Easy’s left, Fox Company was also attacking. Other units were already attacking the vital town. Easy Company men eventually knocked out the nest by firing rifle grenades at it from across the street. Lieutenant Richard Winters had to furiously cajole his men forward down the road to the left. The Germans set up a machine-gun nest in the second-story window of the center building with the red awning. Easy Company’s route into Carentan is shown in a recent photograph. “You’re gonna die here! Move!” he shouted at them. If he could not get them moving, the Germans would eventually start picking them off. Worse, the men bunched up along the road made for a perfect stationary target. If he could not get the rest of his company to join the isolated spearhead, those men would be killed and the attack delayed. He had led some of these men on a successful attack just six days earlier and nothing like this had happened. Up ahead, Welsh and a handful of his men dueled with the machine gunner, while Welsh tried to figure out what happened to the rest of his platoon. Enraged and unable to reinforce Welsh’s tiny force, Winters crossed back to the left side, enemy bullets snapping by or ricocheting off the road, and tried again. Then he ran to the right side of the road and continued cajoling the men to join the attack. Tossing off his gear, Winters dashed to the ditches on the left side of road and, while kicking some of the cowering men, shouted, “Get going!” and spouted more expletives. “Get them moving, Winters! Get them moving!” The battalion officers, seeing the critical breakdown, shouted at Winters. No one moved, some even burrowed into the ground with their hands. When they wouldn’t budge he jumped into middle of the road and furiously shouted, “Move out! Move out!” and started cursing. “Keep moving! Keep moving!” Winters shouted at the men. Six of the charging paratroopers stayed with Welsh while the rest dove for ditches on either side of the road, hiding from the fire. Bullets popped by the men’s ears and struck the ground, spraying them with dirt and rocks. His men followed until someone yelled, “Look o-o-o-u-u-u-t!” A German machine gunner in a second-story window perpendicular to the road opened up, firing rounds straight down the street. Lieutenant Harry Welsh dashed forward, leading his 1st Platoon over a small rise and down the slope into the town. It was 6 o’clock on the morning of June 12, 1944, and Easy Company’s paratroopers braced themselves to attack the southern section of Carentan. “Move out!” shouted Lieutenant Richard “Dick” Winters to the men of Easy Company.
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