June 6 marks the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of France on D-Day during World War II.
However many years it has been around, most of us today only know D-Day through Hollywood, whether it’s the movie “Saving Private Ryan” or the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers.”
Two years ago, after a fellowship in Paris, I was fortunate enough to take a few vacation days, rent a car and drive to the far northwest of France to visit Pierrick Benoist, an exchange student at our home during my senior year at Hagerstown High. School. He and his wife, Marie-Cecile, live in a 200-year-old house on the Atlantic coast, near the border between the historic French regions of Brittany and Normandy.
While visiting them, Pierrick took me to the Brittany American Cemetery, where he has “adopted” the graves of two Indiana soldiers buried there by periodically decorating them. When we went there, he brought flowers from his garden, along with the American and Indiana flags for each grave.
The day before D-Day, Supreme Headquarters Commander General Dwight Eisenhower of the Allied Expeditionary Force sent his Order of the Day, which began: “Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark on the Great Crusade that we have been pursuing for the past few months. The eyes of the world are on you.”
The night before D-Day, 13,348 paratroopers from the US Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, along with paratroopers from the British and Canadian armies, were dropped behind enemy lines in Normandy. This included soldiers from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, whose surviving members of E Company (or Easy Company) were interviewed during ‘Band of Brothers’. The mission was to destroy as much as possible the German defenses on the high ground above the beaches.
Pierrick drove us into Normandy, where we first visited the town of Sainte-Mère-Église (Holy Mother Church in French). While most Americans know about the June 6, 1944 D-Day landings at Omaha Beach and Utah Beach, fewer are familiar with what happened in this small town.
Thirty paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division landed in Sainte-Mère-Église.
Private John Steele of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment jumped from his plane. His parachute became entangled in the top of the church tower. For two hours he pretended to be dead. But German soldiers eventually cut his ropes and captured him.
Four hours later he escaped through a window and rejoined his regiment, which liberated the city.
Today there is a replica of John Steele and his parachute hanging on the church! Thanks to his efforts, and those of other members of the 82nd “All-American” Airborne Division, Sainte-Mère-Église became the first city to be liberated after D-Day.
Pierrick then drove us to the American Cemetery in Normandy. It sits peacefully atop the cliffs above Omaha Beach.
On Omaha Beach they left behind some of the Germans’ gigantic steel barricades, making it even more difficult for the Allied landing craft, not to mention the many departing soldiers.
Eisenhower ended his Order of the Day with, “And let us all invoke the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”
We cannot fully appreciate what members of the Greatest Generation went through on D-Day and elsewhere to secure our freedom and that of so many others. On this Memorial Day, let us remember those we lost in World War II.
Nate LaMar, an international director, also serves as Military Academy Liaison Officer (West Point Recruiter) for East Central Indiana, and served as Henry County Council Chairman from 2009 to 2019.
This article originally appeared in the Lafayette Journal & Courier: Nate Lamar: Remembering the 80th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944
