I hardly know how to start this post. This day was so full - full of emotions, full of sorrow, full of new friends, and full of gratitude. Our tour had seven stops, so that is how I'm breaking up my posts (after posting this, I remembered one more thing, so there are now eight parts to this day.) Paula helped us book this through Viator - "Normandy American D-Day Beaches Full Day Tour from Bayeux." This tour was a 10 out of 10. Our guide, Sophie, was outstanding - absolutely the best tour guide we have had anywhere. There were only 8 customers so there was very little waiting to get in and out of the van and move on to our next location. We felt that we finished the day with new friends.
We met Sophie at the town center of Bayeux. There wasn't any public parking, so we followed her to the train station where she was picking up another couple. She paid for our parking there and we joined the others in the van.
Our first stop was the village of Saint-Mère-Église, which had been occupied by the Germans since June 1940. The town played a significant part in the World War II Normandy landings because of its position in the middle of route N13, which the Germans would have used on any counterattack on the troops landing on Utah and Omaha Beaches. In the early morning of June 6, 1944 mixed units of the U.S. 82nd Airborne and U.S. 101st Airborne Divisions occupied the town in Mission Boston, making it one of the first towns liberated in the invasion.
The early airborne landings, at about 01:40 a.m., resulted in heavy
casualties. The poor weather conditions – low cloud on the northern part of the
Cotentin Peninsula and ground fog over the drop zones – altered the
visibility of the marker flares installed by the pathfinders. Drops of both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions
were scattered over an area four times larger than the scheduled one. Some buildings in town caught fire that night, illuminating
the sky, and making easy targets of the descending men. Some were killed
by the fire. Many hanging from trees and utility poles were shot.
A well-known incident involved paratrooper John Steele of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment
(PIR), whose parachute caught on the spire of the town church. He hung
there for two hours and watched helplessly as the Germans shot his comrades around him. He pretended to be dead until the Germans took him
prisoner. Steele later escaped and rejoined his division when US troops
of the 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment attacked the
village, capturing thirty Germans and killing eleven.
Sophie gathered us beneath the spire of the church, then led us into the church. Inside there are two stained glass windows. There are a three paratroopers in the foreground. But if you look
closely, you’ll see dozens of parachutes in the background falling to
the ground.
The other one has at the bottom in French “Ils sont revenus” — also in English, “they have
returned.” This piece celebrates the return of American veteran
paratroopers on June 6, 1969 for the 25th anniversary of D-Day.
The
inhabitants of Sainte-Mère-Eglise paid a heavy price during the
liberation of Normandy: forty-three civilians were killed from May to
August 1944 (in particular eighteen on June 6, 1944.)
Americans set up three temporary cemeteries around the village where
nearly 14,000 soldiers were buried. The
bodies of two-thirds of them have been relocated to the United States, while the remaining third has been moved to the military cemetery of
Colleville-sur-Mer which we would visit later this same day.
While standing in the church with Sophie, I was in awe of the leadership and planning that went in to D-Day. Sophie had some maps that showed where troops were suppose to be dropped and where they actually landed, but it was still such a detailed plan. You can read a "simplified" timeline here, but there was nothing simple about D-Day. This was without any of the modern technology we are use to today.
Outside the church we had a little time to wander the village. "They Gave Their Tomorrows for Our Today." Listed on this memorial are the number of casualties that occurred on D-Day.
This number is not exact because no one truly knows how many perished that day. Soldiers who were gunned down as they stepped on to the beaches were often swept out to sea, others were destroyed in violent plane crashes.
This was the coldest we had been on our entire trip, but it fit the mood of the day. The village was actually quite busy - we were there on June 1st and preparations for D-Day celebrations were in full swing.
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