the top priority of U.S. operations the joining of the lodgments through Isigny and Carentan. VII Corps received the Carentan assignment and assigned the 101st Airborne Division, closest to the city, "the sole task of capturing Carentan." Geography Carentan is a port city located in Normandy, France, in the Douve River valley at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula. At the time of the Second World War, Carentan's civilian population was about four thousand. Four major highways and a railroad converged in the city, from Cherbourg to the northwest, Bayeux and Caen to the east, Saint-Lô to the southeast, and Coutances to the southwest. The city is dominated by high ground to the southwest and southeast, all of which was under German control during the battle. Its other three approaches are bordered by watercourses: the Douve River to the west and north, a boat basin to the northeast, and the Vire-Taute Canal to the east. The Germans flooded much of the Douve River floodplain prior to the invasion, resulting in a marshland impassable to vehicles and difficult to cross by infantry, a tactic once used by Napoleon Bonaparte at the same location. The highway from Saint Côme-du-Mont crossed the floodplain via a narrow 1 mile (2 km) long causeway having banks rising six to nine feet (2–3 m) above the marsh. Four bridges spanned the Douve and several tributaries along the causeway. Troops in the open under fire could find cover only by digging in on the sloping eastern bank of the causeway. In retreating from Saint Côme-du-Mont, the Germans had blown up Bridge No. 2 on the causeway and a portion of the railroad embankment as well. Forces Carentan was defended by two battalions of Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 6 (6th Parachute Regiment) of the 2nd Fallschirmjäger-Division, commanded by Oberst Friedrich von der Heydte, and remnants of 91 Air Landing Division's Grenadier-Regiment 1058. Both had escaped from nearby Saint Côme-du-Mont on 8 June when the village was captured by the 101st Airborne Division. II./FJR6 and III./FJR6 (2nd and 3rd Battalions, 6th Parachute Regiment) were still intact as fighting formations, but III./GR1058 had been nearly destroyed in three days of combat and was no longer effective as a unit. The German LXXXIV Corps (84.Korps) reinforced the 6th Parachute Regiment (FJR6) with survivors of Grenadier-Regiment 914 (German 352nd Infantry Division) following its 9 June defeat at Isigny. Army Group B commander Field Marshal Erwin