Five minutes

Try a decision

One call, with the ending sealed. The facts below are what you have, and they do not make the call simple. The full case is longer.

You are a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company of paratroopers. The company jumped into Normandy between one and two o'clock this morning, and within an hour, before dawn, you had nine men in ten accounted for, which on this night is a kind of miracle. Your regiment's job is a stone bridge over a small river two miles west of the town the division is taking. The bridge carries the only road across a valley the Germans have flooded. Beyond it, a causeway five hundred yards long runs across the water to the far bank. Whoever holds the bridge decides whether German armor gets to the beaches or American armor gets inland.

Map: where you are. The beaches lie to the east. Sainte-Mère-Église is inland. About two miles west of the town, the road crosses the flooded Merderet at the bridge at La Fière, where you are. The enemy, with tanks, is west of the river. — **Where you are, the morning of 7 June 1944. The bridge carries the only road across the flooded valley.**Map drawn by Lived Path. Simplified, not to scale.Open the map full size

The Merderet valley under water beside the La Fière bridge, seen from the east bank. — **The valley in flood beside the bridge, seen from the east bank, where you are. A modern photograph of the ground.**Photo: Romain Bréget, CC BY-SA 4.0.

This morning cost you. Approaching the bridge, one of your lieutenants went forward with the scouts and was killed with one of them by machine-gun fire. The battalion executive officer, walking with you, was killed instantly by fire from a hedgerow. The manor house that commands the bridge was taken by early afternoon by men from several units who had drifted together. Then most of them drifted on to their own objectives, and the east end of the bridge became yours.

The stone manor house beside the La Fière bridge, seen from the road, with the end of the bridge parapet in the foreground. — **The manor house that commands the bridge, on the east bank, where you are.**Photo: John Fenzel.

You built the position with what you had. A disabled German truck was pushed onto the bridge as a roadblock. Anti-tank mines were laid on the road surface behind it, in plain view, because there was no time to bury them and a mine the enemy can see still stops a tank. Two bazooka teams dug in below road level on either side of the bridge, two men each. A single 57mm anti-tank gun sits a hundred and fifty yards back on a bend in the road, where it has cover and a field of fire, with six rounds. Three light machine guns and a few mortars. Perhaps a hundred men.

Map: the bridge this morning. The causeway runs about five hundred yards west across the water to Cauquigny, where the enemy is. Your positions hold the east bank. The numbered items are listed below the map. — **The bridge this morning, as you know it.**Map drawn by Lived Path from the company commander's account. Not to scale.Open the map full size
1. A disabled German truck, pushed onto the bridge as a roadblock.
2. Anti-tank mines on the road behind it, in plain view.
3. Two bazooka teams, two men each, dug in below the road on either side.
4. The 57mm anti-tank gun, about 150 yards back on the bend, with six rounds.
5. The manor house that commands the bridge.
6. The platoon on the left: a sergeant and about fifteen men, nearly out of ammunition.
7. You, now the senior officer at the bridge.
Dashed line: your company, perhaps a hundred men. Red: the enemy, the attack this morning, and the shelling.

The narrow road over the La Fière bridge between low stone parapets, with open fields on either side. — **The road over the bridge today. The disabled truck was pushed across this road as the roadblock.**Photo: John Fenzel.

The stone arch of the La Fière bridge seen from the bank, with the Merderet running beneath it. — **The arch over the Merderet. The bazooka teams dug in below the level of the road, on either side.**Photo: John Fenzel.

At four o'clock yesterday afternoon a scout came back to say tanks were coming. After an artillery preparation, three tanks and about two hundred German infantry came down the causeway. The bazooka teams stopped the first two at the roadblock and the anti-tank gun stopped the third. The infantry came on and were driven back. During the fight the battalion commander was killed by a mortar round while bringing ammunition forward, and the operations officer was concussed and later died. You are now the senior officer at the bridge. Battalion is a captain somewhere behind you, division is a general who has other bridges, and the regiment has no one to send.

Green pasture with grazing sheep beyond the stone parapet of the bridge, stretching west toward a distant tree line. — **The valley west of the bridge, as it is today. In June 1944 all of this was under water, and the causeway was the only way across.**Photo: John Fenzel.

This morning the Germans came again. First the shelling, heavier than yesterday, with tree bursts along the hedgerows where your men are dug in. Then two tanks and infantry on the causeway. The platoon on the left is led by a sergeant, because its lieutenant is dead. He has about fifteen men still able to fight. A private has just come from him to you at a crouching run. The sergeant reports that the platoon is nearly out of ammunition and asks permission to fall back.

The private is waiting. Whatever you say will go back to fifteen men lying in a ditch, and it will go by mouth.

What do you do?Fall back and let the bridge goPull the company back through the hedgerows to the town, where the rest of the regiment is, and leave the bridge empty. The men are spent and the ammunition is nearly gone. A company destroyed on this bank holds nothing. Fresh troops can retake the bridge when armor comes from the beach. You keep the men you have left, and the road across the valley goes to an enemy with tanks.Stay and hold the bridgeTell the runner the platoon holds, and follow the word with a note, because a shout through shellfire gets lost. Stay on this bank. Spread what ammunition is left from the dead and the wounded. The roadblock, the bazookas and the gun are still in place, and the men know this ground. If the enemy comes again, they meet him here. The ammunition will not last another long fight.Counterattack across the causewayGo over the bridge and across the causeway now, while the enemy is regrouping, and take the far bank. Waiting on this bank means another bombardment. The crossing gets the company onto the enemy bank and out from under those guns. It is five hundred yards of open road, water on both sides, with a hundred tired men, no armor, and six rounds for the gun. Send that order back with the runner.