OSPREY BLOGS

Battlefield visit to Bloody Gully, Carentan

June 9, 2009 12:00 AM

On a recent visit to France I visited the site of ‘Bloody Gully’ a small battle that occurred South West of Carentan on June 12, 1944. The battle is detailed along with a map in the Osprey book Tonight We Die As Men and is also featured in episode three of Band of Brothers.

It was fascinating to see Bloody Gully for the first time and how the Germans controlled the high ground just 100 metres west of the gully. The gully itself is quite deep and would have offered some cover to the American soldiers though I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to charge the German positions from such a disadvantage as they were forced to do.

Directly west of the gully and behind the farm house is an apple orchard. According to the book Tonight We Die As Men a small number of the unit tried to make their way to the orchard along the hedgerow that separated ‘G’ and ‘I’ Companies to neutralise a German heavy weapon position located there. The unit tried but couldn’t get to the orchard due to heavy German resistance. Obviously the hedgerow has changed a lot since then but this must have been a nightmare to navigate through while under heavy fire. While walking along the hedgerow I found an empty rifle casing. After cleaning the casing up I identified the markings ‘A T 3 32’ on the base and think it was fired from a M1 Garand though I’m not entirely sure. Can anyone help me?

I’ve been to a number of battlefields in the past but this is the one that I found the most interesting. The whole battle was conducted in a such small area and must have been extremely intense. If anyone knows of any other material written on this battle then I’d love to read it.

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