Here's where it all began...
The 18th June 1940, the German army marches into Sainte-Mère-Eglise - it's the beginning of the occupation.
After four long and terrible years, on the fifth of June 1944, 811 C47 transport planes drop 14,238 men of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions over St Mère Eglise and the countryside up to Carentan in order to secure the sector protecting Utah Beach where the D-Day landings will take place just a few hours later.
Sainte-Mère-Eglise became the very first town liberated by the allies for which it will always remember those brave young men. One of the liberating troops became famous in spite of himself. John Steele of the 82nd Airborne landed on the belltower of the church and his parachute became entangled in the stonework, leaving him dangling for over two hours. So as not to attract enemy gunfire he played dead before being unhooked by his comrades and he lived to tell the tale. John came back to Sainte-Mère-Eglise several times for D-Day commemoration services before he died in his small North Carolina village at the age of 57 in 1969. A life sized paratrooper mannequin hangs from the tower to this day in homage to his memory.
Recognition and gratitude to our liberators is omnipresent in Ste Mère Eglise with numerous monuments and rememberance plaques, and also the museum dedicated to the Airborne divisions.
