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U. S. TROOPS MOVING INTO CARENTAN, 12 June (top). A 105-mm. howitzer M3 firing at enemy positions during the fighting at Carentan (bottom). During the night of 11–12 June, Carentan was set ablaze by artillery and naval gunfire, and early on the morning of 12 June U. S. troops entered the town. Its fall marked the effective junction of the two U. S. beachheads and the linking up of the two corps of the First U. S. Army.
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U. S. PARATROOPERS PATROLLING THE STREETS OF CARENTAN in a captured German Volkswagen (1. Pkw. K. 1 (typ 82)) (top). Airborne troops in a jeep towing a British 6-pounder Mark III antitank gun in Carentan (bottom). The enemy counterattacks against the U. S. forces in Carentan were unsuccessful in their attempts to recapture the city, but were persistent enough to limit the U. S. advance to gains measured in hundreds of yards. However, on 17 June 1944 U. S. troops reached the west coast in the vicinity of Barneville, cutting the German forces into two groups, one south of the Carentan-Barneville line, the other in the Cherbourg area.
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