Normandy, Part I - The Airborne Invasion

As you travel north in France, two things happen:  street and boulevard names change to those of US Presidents and British Prime Ministers, and the air becomes heavy with memories of World War II battles with staggering casualties.  Now, to be honest, no one else in the car felt this heaviness, and maybe I miss my grandfathers too much, or maybe I watched too many movies about the D-Day landings, but it seems every town name, bridge, and historic marker is a sober reminder of WWII losses and the tragedy felt there and at home.

By the time we reached the parking lot of the US Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach, it felt like we were outside a funeral home about to attend the wake of someone close to us.  I felt the same desire to flee, the same heaviness on my chest, and the same fear that any poignant comment would cause a breakdown of emotion.  (On a related note, don't forget your sunglasses when you visit.)  I can't explain why nearly 70 years isn't enough time to dull the power of this place, but it isn't...it doesn't come close. 

What is also moving about Normandy are the abundance of Allied flags, pictures, monuments, and warm messages of welcome.  It seems every public building displays a US flag and every business displays pictures of Allied soldiers liberating their town.  The hospital in St. Lo is named the "Franco-American Memorial Hospital" and there is a monument in the center of town thanking the city of Baltimore, Maryland for providing the funds to rebuild.  Although US/French relations have suffered in the last 30 years, and many Americans think that the sacrifices of our grandfathers have been forgotten, this point and this distance are not in any way evident in the towns of Northern France. 

If you want some perspective on how many US flags you can expect to see in Normandy, imagine Washington, DC on the 4th of July, then remember that this region is decorated this way every day of the year.

Flags in Bayeux, France

A welcome sign in St. Mere-Eglise, France.  If you know anything about the French, you know that putting the English word for "Welcome" before the French word is a painfully sincere sentiment of gratitude.

A restaurant sign in Bayeux, France

A picture hanging on the street in St. Mere-Eglise, France

(Above): Monuments to the 101st and 82nd Airborne in St. Mere-Eglise.

D-Day (June 6, 1944 - Midnight - 2am):

No matter how much you think you know about D-Day, it's impossible to visit Normandy without learning fascinating new details you wish your teachers had shared with you in high school. In fact, you may tell yourself repeatedly that if these facts were made known to you back then, you would have paid attention.  You might even have grabbed an extra book from the library and called your grandparents to ask what they were doing on D-Day.  Where were they, and how did they know invasion was underway?

Before we arrived in St. Mere-Eglise, our first battlefield stop, I knew that the Airborne dropped into France during the early morning hours of D-Day.  I also knew that they were miss-dropped all over the French countryside, but sadly, this knowledge can be traced to watching Saving Private Ryan rather than my high school history classes.  In my teachers' defense, the WWII chapters were at the end of the textbooks which we didn't reach until the end of the year...which was about the same time the teachers were rushing to cover material before summer break, and the students were daydreaming about the end of school and the possibility of one month of warm weather (slight Wisconsin summer exaggeration).  So, it's possible we learned about the 82nd and 101st Airborne dropping and drowning in flooded fields, dropping into burning buildings as their munitions blew up, and getting stuck on church steeples while German soldiers shot at them from the square below, but I think I would have remembered that lecture.  I also would have remembered hearing that the British paratroopers dropped into France and landed in wooden gliders in complete darkness near Caen at the same time the Americans jumped out of airplanes near St. Mere-Eglise (see below map of Airborne drop zones), but this must have been in the last chapter of our textbooks--the one no one got a chance to read.

What we definitely learned in Normandy--with the assistance of our children who wouldn't stop repeatedly pressing dog training clickers in the Utah Beach gift shop--was that clickers were used by the Airborne to communicate with one another in the dark after their drop. We also learned that the misdrops were in some way an advantage to the Allies since the Germans were paralyzed by the numerous sightings which made them overestimate the size of Allied Airborne troops.  And we learned that the French Resistance played a major role in the intelligence behind the operation, as well as disrupting German communications once the invasion was underway.

St. Mere-Eglise:

St. Mere-Eglise (see map above) was the first town liberated after D-Day, and when you walk to the Our Lady of Peace Church, it is easy to see why. The Airborne dropped directly into the town and into direct combat with the Germans. Our Lady of Peace is a good place to start your visit since it displays the figure of an American paratrooper hanging off the outside (see picture below), and stained glass memorials to those paratroopers on the inside (also below). 

If you're like me, you'll feel a flash of anger at seeing the 82nd Airborne paratrooper, John Steele, hanging from the steeple before you realize that this is a tribute and not a jab.  (Apparently, trust is not something I freely give....though the picture of John Steele below seems to indicate a similar lack of trust.) You may also experience shock at seeing military depictions on church stained glass, but you will soon remember that there are a lot of military figures in European churches (Joan of Arc, various knights, etc); the original glass was probably destroyed during the war and not punched-out to make room for the paratroopers; and at the end of the day, they're our military figures. 

A statue of John Steele hanging off the Our Lady of Peace church steeple.  An interesting tidbit is that the ringing bells of the church caused him temporary deafness.

A picture of John Steele taken during a return trip to St. Mere-Eglise.

Stained glass inside Our Lady of Peace Church in St. Mere-Eglise.  Note the Airborne symbol on the upper left; the parachutes throughout upper middle; "6 June 1944" on the middle left and right; the quote, "In memory of those who through their sacrifice liberated St. Mere-Eglise," on the bottom left; "They came back" in the bottom middle; and on the right side, middle, the word "Ready" - Presumably a reference to the 82nd Airborne's Ready Brigade.

Stained glass inside Our Lady of Peace Church in St. Mere-Eglise.  Note the parachutes throughout the picture and the quote at the bottom that reads "...in memory of those who by their courage and their sacrifice have liberated St. Mere-Eglise and France."

We found no reference to how John Steele stayed alive hanging helplessly from the Our Lady of Peace Church steeple, however, the answer came at the US Cemetery at Omaha Beach when we found the below tribute to Sgt John Ray who landed in the courtyard of the church, mortally wounded, but was still able to kill a German soldier before that soldier could kill John Steele.

© 2012 Nicole Wirth

Author of:  Letters to Salthill