TWO DAYS AFTER the battle for the La Fière Bridge began it was still going strong, with neither side showing any inclination of giving up this important crossing over the Merderet. When Harry Lewis’ 325th Glider Infantry Regiment arrived, Ridgway ordered it to force a crossing in the flooded area to the north of the manor and attack the Germans to the west of the bridge from the rear in order to relieve the pressure on Timmes’s stranded battalion. Lewis sent Major Teddy Sanford’s 1st Battalion into the area under cover of darkness, where it was to make a flanking maneuver through the marsh about 850 yards north of the bridge. Taking the lead would be C Company, followed by A and B Companies.
The glider troops—virgins to combat—were determined to do well, but while fording the marsh shortly after midnight on 8–9 June, B and C Companies lost contact with one another. C Company proceeded over a slight rise through a wheat field, entered an orchard, and reached a sunken road. In the dark, wild, intermittent firing broke out and much of the company was decimated.1
One man stood tall—literally. Private first class Charles DeGlopper from Grand Island, New York, was a big man—a very big man. Six foot six and over 200 pounds, he towered over everyone else in C Company. While his size made him appear more formidable than the mild-mannered twenty-two-year-old he actually was, it also made him an inviting target on the battlefield. DeGlopper was advancing with the forward platoon when it came under enemy fire.
The platoon leader, Lieutenant Bruester Johnston, was killed. Knowing that his platoon was on the verge of being slaughtered, DeGlopper yelled for his buddies to take off for a hedgerow in the rear while he kept the Germans at bay with his Browning Automatic Rifle. Standing on a roadway in full view of the Germans and drawing their fire to him instead of his buddies, DeGlopper sprayed the enemy despite being hit several times. Enemy bullets found their mark but DeGlopper remained firing until his wounds brought him to his knees. Even then he did not quit and continued firing until he ran out of ammunition and fell mortally wounded. Afterwards, members of his company found the ground strewn with dead Germans and many machine guns and automatic weapons that he had knocked out of action.2
The only thing more surprising than DeGlopper’s sacrificial heroism is that, considering the innumerable acts of courage that took place in Normandy, he was one of only two members of an airborne or glider unit to have been awarded the Medal of Honor for extraordinarily heroic actions performed during Operation Overlord/Neptune. Strange to say, no British or Canadian airborne soldiers were awarded the Victoria Cross—Britain’s highest military honor—during the battle for Normandy.
EARLY ON THE morning of 9 June, Shanley’s dwindling force on Hill 30 was about to get some sorely needed relief. With the Chef-du-Pont bridge and causeway under American control, the 358th Infantry Regiment of the 90th Division passed through the 508th’s lines and attacked westward; also attacking was the 357th Infantry, passing through the lines of the 2nd Battalion, 401st GIR. To Shanley’s hungry and wounded men still clinging to their positions, the troops of the Texas-Oklahoma division were a beautiful sight.3
The Germans were of no mind to abandon the La Fière Bridge, and thus continued pouring resources into the area. So did the Americans. Because the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment had only two battalions instead of the customary three that most infantry regiments had, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Carrell’s 2nd Battalion, 401st GIR, had been attached to the 325th as its third battalion. Lewis’ 1st Battalion was across the river battling Germans north of Cauquigny, and Timmes’ 2nd Battalion had moved out of the orchard and was now far to the northwest with the 505th at Montebourg Station. To break the stalemate at the bridge, Gavin told Lewis at mid-morning on 9 June to employ Carrell’s battalion, along with a dozen Shermans from the 746th Tank Battalion and 155mm guns from the 90th Division Artillery, and make one final push to secure the bridge. As waiting would serve no purpose, he told Lewis to get the attack started immediately. Lewis—despite believing it was suicidal to charge a mass of men through such a narrow, strongly guarded space as the bridge and causeway—gave Carrell the order to carry out the attack.
Carrell, feeling that his battalion had been unfairly singled out as sacrificial lambs, reluctantly gathered his company commanders and out-lined what they were expected to do. Captain John Sauls’ G Company, 401st, would lead the attack followed by Captain Charles Murphy’s E/401st; Captain James Harney’s F/401st would cross last. Once across the bridge, Saul’s company would turn left, E Company would turn right, and Harney’s men would dash straight ahead toward Cauquigny—a distance of over 500 yards—and to le Motey, just beyond. Everyone agreed that the charge was suicidal, but an order was an order.
One aspect of combat that people who have never experienced war fail to appreciate is the tremendous amount of noise made by modern munitions. The sound is truly terrifying—a literal assault on the eardrums as well as the other senses. The very act of standing up and charging into such a maelstrom—unceasing shattering blasts, booming explosions, the cringe-inducing rattle of machine-gun and rifle fire, and concussions that batter the chest and can, in themselves, cause death by bursting the heart and lungs—is an act of courage beyond the ken of anyone who has not experienced it.
So, with shells bursting and bullets cutting the air over the small bridge and the unbelievable din of battle physically hammering the very roots of their being, it was not surprising that Carrell’s men hesitated to expose themselves to the fire of both friend and foe. Gavin personally ordered Carrell to get the attack going, but he had been slightly injured in the glider landing and said he did not feel up to the challenge. When Gavin again ordered him to move out, Carrell lost his nerve and declined, claiming that he was sick. Relieving Carrell on the spot, Lewis turned to Major Arthur Gardner, the 325th’s S-2 (Intelligence) officer, and appointed him battalion commander.4
Gavin was not happy about the sacking of Carrell, a fellow West Pointer. “Carrell had never been in combat, never been in a position like that,” he wrote. “But I had to do it. The whole battle was hanging by a thread.”5
To support the attack, the 155mm guns of the 90th Infantry Division Artillery slammed their huge shells into the enemy’s positions, and then laid down a smoke screen. But smoke does not stop bullets or shells, and the Germans continued firing blindly through the fog at the bridge and manor. Two tank platoons from the 746th Tank Battalion added to the Americans’ supporting fire.
Gathering his courage, Captain Sauls yelled, “Follow me!” and led his men from the safety of a stone wall at the manor into the firestorm. Many were cut down as they began their charge, and soon the bridge and causeway beyond were littered with dead and dying Americans.6
Gavin noted, “I was quite apprehensive about the ability of the 325th to make the crossing, since they, too, had not been in battle before. I was quite confident that enough men could make the crossing to establish a bridgehead if they had the courage and tactical skill to seize that brief opportunity between the lifting of our fires and the closing with the Germans. I had one company of paratroopers commanded by Captain R. D. Rae. I talked the situation over with him and told him that I wanted every weapon he had to fire in support of the 325th, once the crossing began. I told him also that I was a little afraid that the 325th might break in the fury of the battle. I said that if they did and any of them started drifting back across the causeway, I would signal to him and he was to lead the paratroopers in a charge across the causeway into the German positions. I figured that the momentum of this action would take the 325th along with it.”7
At 1000 hours, every American near La Fière Bridge opened up—riflemen, machine gunners, tankers, artillerymen—shocking the Germans with the violence of the assault. When he was sure that the enemy was reeling from the force of the overwhelming attack, Gavin signaled the glidermen to begin their charge. With great apprehension, normal for troops going into their first battle or their fifteenth, the 325th/401st cautiously started moving forward.8
Lieutenant Lee Travelstead, a heavy machine-gun platoon leader, re-called feeling that the order to charge all the way to Cauquigny was “a Kamikaze charge if there ever was one,” in which his men, being slowed down by heavy weapons and ammunition, “would be a bull’s eye kind of target.” But orders were orders and Travelstead and his men followed the 325th/401st GIR riflemen. “We moved through the fire like a mule pack train,” he said.9
Some minutes later, unable to see through all the smoke and dust and debris, and worried that the 325th/401st’s attack had stalled, Gavin ordered Captain Rae and his ninety paratroopers to move onto the bridge. Rae remembered: “As the 325th’s attack got underway, the causeway became a mass of stagnant humanity. It became obvious more men were needed on the west bank to secure a viable bridgehead. At the time the 325th’s attack wasn’t moving forward, so General Gavin came over to me and said ‘Rae, you’ve got to go and keep going!’ We came out shouting, forcing our way through the log-jam of dead and dying soldiers and some soldiers refusing to continue the attack. We continued running until we reached the west bank. After we knocked out the German positions on the other side, I split my force, sending half down a dirt road to the south where the 325th was having trouble.” Rae’s force was followed by the Sherman tanks. (For his brave leadership, Rae received the Distinguished Service Cross.)10
Unknown to Gavin, the glidermen’s assault was moving. Sauls had reached the western end of the causeway, blasting Germans with his Tommy gun as he went, miraculously untouched by enemy fire. One of his platoon leaders, Lieutenant Donald Wason, wasn’t so lucky. He was killed while taking out a machine-gun nest at Cauquigny.11
Gavin suddenly felt the need to be where the action was, and both he and Ridgway crossed the bridge during the battle. Gavin noted later, “When I had gone across, I knew I had not realized the extent of the German strength on the far side. In a field a hundred yards from the bridge were a dozen mortars dug in in huge square holes in the earth. There was a great deal of artillery, half-tracks, self-propelled guns. Much of their artillery was horse-drawn, and horses killed and wounded were still in harness.”12
Lieutenant Travelstead said, “Dead and wounded were everywhere as I moved steadily along. Then I saw General Ridgway in the causeway trying to remove a cable from the track of a tank to clear the way. It was bad enough for any of us to be there, but a two-star general?”
The battle went on without pause. Travelstead saw the men around him being felled by German bullets but Ridgway “kept working at the tank, apparently oblivious to all else.” General Gavin soon appeared on the scene. “What was going on?” Travelstead asked himself. “It seemed like chaos in front, and here, almost by my side, were both General Ridgway and General Gavin, division commander and assistant division commander of some 10,000 troops, down here on that murderous causeway. Was it so important? Where were all the other troops?”13
Side by side the paratroops and glidermen fought against the common enemy. At one point, Travelstead was standing in the center of the causeway when two paratroopers suddenly appeared at his side. An instant later the trio was blown into the ditch by an explosion. Both paratroopers had shielded Travelstead from the blast and were now dead; the lieutenant was wounded but alive. Making his way back to the aid station, he “could not, and cannot, forget the two paratroopers who in a matter of a second, almost as angels, had stepped to my side, taken the explosion and shrapnel from me, and died instantly. Why?” he would wonder forever.14
NOW IT WAS E/401st’s turn. Captain Murphy’s men hunched their shoulders, lowered their heads, said a last prayer, and lurched forward, zigzagging across the bridge and leaping over bodies strewn everywhere. Bullets thwacked into running soldiers, spinning them to the ground; thirty-five would die that day on the bridge and causeway. Suddenly Murphy went down, wounded in the face.15
Somehow, bespectacled Lieutenant Richard B. Johnson, leading an E Company platoon, continued into the teeth of a barrage but was hit in the ankle and then in the arm.
Undeterred, he crawled forward and reached Cauquigny. One of his men kicked in the door to one of the six houses in the hamlet and was killed by fire from Germans inside; a grenade silenced the enemy. Johnson’s platoon sergeant, Henry Howell, was wounded in the arm and Johnson did his best to patch it up and gave him a shot of morphine. “Blood was flowing more than I could account for,” Johnson said, puzzled, “until I realized that a lot of it was mine, coming from that shrapnel slice in my left arm.”16
Johnson’s men captured thirty Germans, plus another twelve at le Motey. Sherman tanks were on their heels, as were Generals Ridgway and Gavin. One soldier, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Norris, commanding the 90th’s 345th Field Artillery Battalion, was astounded. “The most memorable sight that day was Ridgway, Gavin, and [Lieutenant Colonel Arthur] Maloney [the 507th’s XO] standing right there where it was the hottest. The point is that every soldier who hit that causeway saw every general officer, and the regimental and battalion commanders, right there. It was truly an inspirational effort.”17
At about 1130 hours, Captain Harney led his F Company out to mop up behind G and E Companies.18
That evening, Gavin was informed that the Germans were again trying to wrest the bridge at la Fière away from the Americans, and so another battle broke out. Gavin threw everyone he had into stopping the German assault on the bridge—cooks, clerks, anybody who could hold a rifle. It took a bit of doing, but when the advance elements of the 90th Infantry Division finally arrived from the beach, the American position at Manoir de la Fière was unassailable.19
La Fière/Cauquigny was just one battle in a whole host of others. The names of a score of heretofore unknown French towns and villages would, within a week, go down in glory in American military history: Sainte-Mère-Église, Sainte Marie-du-Mont, Saint-Côme-du-Mont, Saint Martin-de-Varaville, Saint Germain-de-Varaville, Saint Marcouf, Pouppeville, Angoville-au-Plain, Foucarville, Neuville-au-Plain, Beauvais, Picauville, Beuzeville, and so many others. Yet the battle for Normandy was not over.