Sainte-Mère-Église: The Liberators Arrive
The French village of Sainte-Mère-Église, 80 years after D-Day, May 2024. Flags of the Allied nations flutter in anticipation of the celebrations to come in June.
In the early hours of June 6, 1944, paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions began descending on Sainte-Mère-Église, a French village located at the center of a web of roads that link Paris to the east and Cherbourg on the Cotentin Peninsula. With the paratroopers arrival, the invasion of Fortress Europe had begun. Their trip across the channel had not been easy: heavy German flak and anti-aircraft fire forced many to leap from their aircraft well before they reached their drop zones. Many landed far off-target in the dark woodlands and bocage surrounding Sainte-Mère-Église, while others descended on the town square. These were the unluckiest ones, as the square was ablaze, the townspeople frantically trying to extinguish a fulminating fire that had engulfed a home.
Located just miles from a section of the French shoreline that would soon become known as Utah Beach, Sainte-Mère-Église had been under German control since 1940. Citizens lived under a restrictive curfew, forced to set their clocks to Berlin time and perhaps most galling, forced to reserve copious amounts of their signature apple brandy Calvados for their German masters. Mayor Alexandre Renaud, a veteran of the first World War, was in a tough spot—managing German demands to furnish tools and laborers to build fortifications against the coming invasion, and a citizenry determined not to cooperate with any of if. When the fire broke out in the early hours of June 6, Renaud had to get permission from the Germans to wake townspeople to form a bucket brigade to save his neighbors’ house.
Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, Sainte-Mère-Église
As they tried to get the fire under control, the citizens—and the Germans overseeing their fire-fighting efforts—heard Allied aircraft overhead. Soon after, they saw paratroopers descending, illuminated by the flames rapidly consuming the house. The paratroopers were easy targets for the Germans, who picked them off as they dropped and shot those who got snagged in trees. The parachute of Private John Steele became entangled in the bell tower of the Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, the church that sits adjacent the village square. Steele hung there for hours, playing dead, as the battle and the fire raged around him. An homage to Steele hangs there to this day—a paratrooper laden with equipment, unable to free himself from the tower.
While the memorial faces the square, in truth Steele hung on the other side of the church, the side of the building still bathed in shadow. It shielded him from view for a period of time, most likely saving his life. Steele was eventually taken prisoner by the Germans but survived the war. A version of his story is depicted in the movie The Longest Day, with Red Buttons portraying the plucky private.
Our tour group arrived at Sainte-Mère-Église 80 years after the paratroopers did and enjoyed a much more serene welcome. A farmer’s market played out across the town square, featuring bins of fresh produce, buckets of vivid flowers, jewelry vendors, and open air grills and food trucks. We picnicked on delicious sausages right off the grill (magnifique!), wrapped in baguettes, with a side of French fries. The picnic tables were situated under lines of fluttering flags representing the Allied countries that freed this village. Ringing the square are stores that sell wartime souvenirs and commemorative clothing—American flags, military uniform patches, t-shirts and more—a reflection of the continued interest in what happened here all those years ago. The liberation of this village by the Allies—the very first place to be wrested from the fascist grip—has shaped the identity of this lovely place, the heroic story told from generation to grateful generation.
In the weeks before the 80th D-Day Anniversary, store windows heralded the celebration to come. Many shops in Sainte-Mère-Église sell wartime memorabilia, the shopkeepers delighted to welcome Americans to town.
Just off the square is The Airborne Museum, which sprang from a deeply-held wish of Mayor Renaud. He sent letters to American and French decision-makers soon after the war, soliciting financial support for a memorial to showcase wartime artifacts.
Renaud also wanted to tell the story of the brave fight his villagers waged throughout the Occupation, and the welcome and support they offered the Allied soldiers who came to liberate them. It took a number of years, but finally, The Airborne Museum was founded in 1964. It sits on the very spot of the house that caught fire on that fateful day, the street now named Rue Eisenhower. Since then, the museum has expanded to five buildings with artifacts ranging from battlefield uniforms to a C-47 Skytrain and a restored Waco CG4A glider. While the website recommends visitors reserve two hours for their visit, I could have stayed an entire day, learning new aspects of the Occupation, the Resistance, and the eventual Liberation as experienced by the villagers here.
A restored C-47 Skytrain, the aircraft that brought the paratroopers to Normandy, on display at the Airborne Museum.
The life-size glider exhibit at the Airborne Museum
This panel hangs in the museum and details the development of the French Resistance.
The Airborne Museum is a marvel but not unique. We visited a series of astonishing, expansive, illuminating museums all across Europe: the D-Day Experience Museum and Dead Man’s Corner Museum in Carenten, the 101st Airborne Museum in Bastogne, Belgium among others. Each offered powerful interactive experiences meant to communicate the high stakes and suffering the war entailed. Our European brethren do not want to forget. So they study their history, dissect what happened, tell the stories of tyranny and bravery to one another. They remember this history much more deeply than we seem to. At this moment when Ukraine is in peril and the future of NATO uncertain—when the idea of American isolationism is reasserting itself—I find myself wondering if we will ever again witness the kind of American courage that was required to free Fortress Europe. The selfless concern for others, the belief that we as Americans—blessed with so very much—are called to come to the aid of oppressed peoples, that global crises of this sort require our action and our resources: do we still believe this? The Allied victory in World War Two ushered in the American century, in which American leadership emerged as an essential guardian of freedom across the world. Today, it’s not clear that we will continue to demonstrate this kind of leadership in the world, or that we even that we wish to.
Two miles from Sainte-Mère-Église, at Beuzeville au Plain, sits a memorial to Lt. Thomas Meehan, the commander of Easy Company who perished on D-Day. His plane was shot down, killing everyone on board. When we visited the crash site, Robin Laing, the Scottish actor on our tour who appeared in Band of Brothers and knows this history so well, read from a letter Lt. Meehan had sent his wife just weeks before he died. He wrote in part:
We’re fortunate in being Americans. At least we don’t step on the underdog. I wonder if that’s because there are no “Americans”—only a stew of immigrants; or if it’s because the earth from which we exist has been so kind to us and our forefathers; or if it’s because the “American” is the offspring of the logical European who hated oppression and loved freedom beyond life? … For everyone of our millions who has that treasure in his hand there’s another million crying for that victory of life. And for each of us who wants to live in happiness and give happiness, there’s another different sort of person wanting to take it away.
Robin Laing reads at the Lt Thomas Meehan memorial, Beuzeville au Plain
Meehan was just 23 when he wrote that letter, demonstrating a depth of understanding that is all too rare today. May we learn from his words and continue to fight for freedom for all.
We’ll go next to Omaha Beach, site of Brecourt Manor where members of Easy Company took out a German battery so expertly, that the operation has been studied for decades at West Point.
