Lieutenant-Colonel Robert G. Cole - Carentan - 24/06/1944 - 1/2 - DDay-Overlord

Thanks SGT John " Mac " McConnell for honoring LTC Robert G. Cole who was assigned to the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division who was a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions at Carentan, France which was a strategic crossroads location between Omaha and Utah beaches.
The narrative for the justification of his Medal of Honor citation concludes:
"The glider landings were supported by P47 Thunderbolts fighter planes and Cole ordered his radio man and friend Robert Doran to call for air support. The call was answered and the airplanes circled over third battalions positions. At the moment the fighter planes were about to attack, enemy artillery intensified and one of the shells landed on the edge of Robert Doran’s foxhole killing him instantly. Robert Cole was shocked. Just like Normandy, his battalion was stuck at Best, the Germans had the upper hand and his best friend died in front of his eyes. To make matters even worse the airplanes circling over head started to fire into American lines. Cole was outraged and ordered some of his men to place airplane recognition panels. The men around call didn’t respond quickly enough so Cole ran into the field in front of him and placed the panels there himself. The airplanes saw the panels and now started firing into the German lines, with full effect. The Germans stopped firing. For a moment Robert Cole placed his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun, while he looked for the planes with his eyes. While looking up a single shot rang out across the field, the bullet hit Cole in his temple. He died on the spot."


Images:
1. 1944-10 Map, The Attack on Carentan;
2. 1944-06-14 Passing the bodies of Germans and men from their own unit killed in earlier fighting by German snipers, troops of the 101st Airborne Division;
3. 1944-06-15 101st Airborne Division, Carentan;
4. 1944-06-10 German Paratroopers at Carentan
Below is an excerpt for the 101st Airborne page
"Capturing Carentan
Allied bombers destroyed the German long-range guns the division was ordered to neutralize as one of its first objectives in Normandy. Over the next five days and nights, the Screaming Eagles fought countless skirmishes, consolidated forces, and pushed southward.

“What sticks in my mind was the 11th of June, and that was on a Sunday,” Bowser explains. “That’s when we moved toward Carentan.”

Capturing the small Normandy town of Carentan with about 4,000 inhabitants was a high-priority assignment given to the Screaming Eagles. If left in German hands, it could be used as a corridor for a counterattack against American ground forces of the 4th and 90th Infantry Divisions moving inland from Utah Beach. Also, its main highway and railroad connected the strategic seaport of Cherbourg to the northwest, St. Lo to the southeast, and Caen to the east. Whoever controlled Carentan could conceivably control the entire Cotentin Peninsula.

While the 101st was an untested fighting force, German troops in the Carentan area included battle-experienced men of the 6th Fallschïrmjager Regiment (airborne) under the command of Major Friedrich von der Heydte. He was given orders to defend the area to the last man.

Purple Heart Lane
The main path of attack for the Screaming Eagles was a one-mile stretch of roadway that began at the south of St. Come du Mont and ended at the outskirts of Carentan. Today, this unassuming stretch of highway has been modernized, still straight and narrow, and rises only a few meters above the boggy marshes located on either side of it. But for two days in 1944, June 10 and 11, many Screaming Eagles died there and many more were wounded. So inspiring was the battle that two soldiers from Headquarters Company of the 502nd, Raymond D. Cready and Robert H. Bryant, wrote a dramatic poem of the attack that they titled “Purple Heart Lane” in memory of those who perished.
The causeway featured four stone bridges crossing canals and the Douve and Madeleine Rivers before leading into Carentan. The terrain on either side of the road prevented troops from digging in, which exposed them to direct enemy fire. Part of the plan to seize the town called for the 3rd Battalion of the 502nd, led by Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole, to attack from the north straight down the causeway, in the open and without cover.

This modern view of Purple Heart Lane looking south from Dead Man's Corner at St. Comte du Mont bellies the violent fighting that took place near the town of Carentan in June 1944.
This modern view of Purple Heart Lane looking south from Dead Man’s Corner at St. Comte du Mont bellies the violent fighting that took place near the town of Carentan in June 1944.

After crossing Bridge No. 1 on June 10, paratroopers found the second bridge destroyed by retreating Germans. Airborne engineers tried for hours to repair it but could not, stymied by enemy fire from mortars and 88mm cannons, one of the most feared weapons the Germans used during the war. Frustrated at their lack of progress, Cole and three others jury-rigged a footbridge with material left by the engineers. It enabled the men to cross the waterway in single file.

What followed was a slow and methodical progression down Purple Heart Lane. Screaming Eagles were extended in long columns hugging both sides of the road and were under sporadic fire from enemy artillery. That changed dramatically when the men reached Bridge No. 4, blocked by a massive iron and concrete Belgian gate that the troopers could open only about 18 inches, allowing just one man through at a time.

Here, German fire increased greatly. Snipers and machine guns opened up from the front and on both sides of the causeway. For several hours, 3rd Battalion men, clinging to both sides of the road, were mauled badly and picked off at an alarming rate. Only a handful managed to squeeze through the Belgian gate, cross the bridge, and flop in a ditch, pinned down with a 200-yard open field facing them.

This fourth bridge, built of stone, still stands today, located just off of the road that leads into Carentan.
The American attack petered out, and mercifully division artillery and the Normandy darkness halted the carnage, that is until around midnight when two enemy planes from seemingly out of nowhere bombed and strafed the battalion huddled along the causeway. The bleeding and dying troopers were left where they had fallen. The destroyed second bridge prevented wounded from being taken out and reinforcements from being brought in.

Colonel John H. Michaelis, 502nd regimental commander, was quick to order Cole to renew the attack on Carentan. The antsy Cole, always eager for a fight, gladly obliged. At 4 am on June 11, under cover of darkness and during a break in enemy fire, paratroopers began moving through the Belgian gate and across the fourth bridge. The men made it to an open expanse of farmland when German fire erupted again. It came from a farmhouse and outbuildings owned by the Ingouf family, which were being used by Major von der Heydte as his headquarters. The Americans who crossed the bridge were hung out to dry along the field and unable to advance. Cole called for division artillery to target known enemy positions. It had little effect, and the German guns continued to fire.

Faced with the destruction of his battalion, Cole made a desperate decision and ordered a bayonet charge on the farmhouse, a rarity in World War II. His order was relayed to Major John P. Stopka, 3rd Battalion’s executive officer. Under cover of a smoke screen, Cole blew his whistle and rose to his feet. Some accounts report he held and fired his .45-caliber pistol as he charged. Others say he picked up a fallen man’s M1 Garand rifle and affixed a bayonet during the assault. Of the approximate 250 paratroopers who should have followed him, only about 20 did so because of confusion and poor communication. Some 50 followed Major Stopka. The attack became known as Cole’s Charge, and according to author and military historian John C. McManus, the bloodshed was horrendous.

“Cole and the others at the front of the charge had made it across the open area (roughly the length of two football fields), closed with the Germans in the Ingouf farm and either killed them or put them to flight. The Americans howled like demons as they charged. It was grisly—warfare at its most elemental. Dead and dismembered Germans lay everywhere—in foxholes, behind embankments, outside the farm buildings and behind hedgerows. Very few of them had been bayoneted, although some had. Most had been killed by rifle fire or grenades at close range. The rest were retreating west, in the direction of the Cherbourg-Paris railroad. First Sergeant Kenneth Sprecher [who would be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions] and Private George Roach shot the lock off the door of the main farmhouse and charged inside, only to find the place abandoned. Cole followed and used the place as his command post.”
“Fix Bayonets”
Warfare is fraught with the mixing of units, and Bowser, a member of 2nd Battalion, found himself with Major Stopka and 3rd Battalion during the charge. His crossing of Bridge No. 4 was not through the Belgian gate. He crossed the Madeleine River underneath the span.

“We had a column on each side of the road, and we went to the fourth bridge and that’s where we stopped,” he says. “The Germans were covering the bridge with small arms. We went down under the bridge, and there was a jump rope. Someone ahead of us put that jump rope there, and I was the first one to use it. I threw my rifle over my shoulder and jumped and went head over heels into the water. The river was deeper than we figured.

“We stayed under that bridge on the bank. What stands out is there was an 88 that came whistling over us. I was assistant squad leader, and I had positioned myself over this machine gun. Another 88 came and I said, ‘That one’s carrying the mail.’ So we hit the ground, and I landed between the gunner, [Joseph] Malliawski, and the assistant gunner, who was a German-born barber from New York. Then Malliawski said, ‘There’s something in my shoulder.’ I looked, and I said, ‘Yea, there’s a piece a steel.’ He said to pull it out. So I pulled it out. It was about an inch long, but he wasn’t bleeding much. I never reported it, so he never got a Purple Heart. Malliawski was the only man who saw every day of combat in our company. If I had known, I would’ve let the medic take care of it, and he would’ve gotten the Purple Heart.”

Shortly afterward, Cole gave his order to charge.
“The units were badly mixed up, but it was mostly Cole’s outfit. We started to advance, and the Germans had us pinned down in an open field and the only place I could get to was a dead furrow, a deep ditch,” recalled Bowser. “They pinned us down there, and I was head to head to my squad leader, Sergeant [Robert E.] Pope, and I said, ‘What do we do now?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. Let’s have a smoke.’ So he lit a cigarette and tore it in two. My half was all soaking wet. And the first thing I can recall is that an order came down the line, all the way from Cole: ‘Fix bayonets.’ So we fixed bayonets, and on Cole’s command, ‘Everybody up and at ’em.’ And we went in. But the Germans didn’t stay to fight. They left. Then we kept driving into Carentan. To this day I don’t know whether we got credit for taking Carentan, or if the 506 (Parachute Infantry Regiment) did.”

Recalling his participation in Cole’s Charge reminds Bowser of an incident that had taken place two years earlier. “I remember in basic training, it was hot and everybody was tired. We were training for a bayonet charge. I made the mistake of saying that was from World War I, why do we have to take bayonet training? For that I went down and did push-ups.”

WORLD WAR II: FRANCE, 1944. American paratroopers move through a field in Carentan, France, passing members of their own unit killed by German snipers. Photographed 14 June 1944.
Passing the bodies of Germans and men from their own unit killed in earlier fighting by German snipers, troops of the 101st Airborne Division approach the village of Carentan on June 14, 1944.

Carentan was liberated by the 101st on June 12. For his heroic actions on June 11, Cole was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but he did not live to receive it. On September 18 in Holland, he was on the radio with an Allied pilot who requested that orange panels be placed in front of American lines near Best to indicate airborne positions. Cole did it himself and was shot dead by a German sniper. His family was presented his Medal of Honor posthumously. Cole’s body is interred at the American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands.

Stopka was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Carentan. He replaced Cole as commanding officer of 3rd Battalion. Stopka was killed on January 14, 1945, near Michamps, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge, when American planes bombed his position by mistake. His body is buried at the Luxembourg American Cemetery near Hamm, Luxembourg."
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/a-101st-airborne-paratroopers-combat-journey/


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STRIKE!!! AIR ASSAULT!!!

Thank you John for the awesome read on LTC Robert G. Cole. Great video also.