Site à visiter

Sainte-Mere-Eglise

Strategically situated on the main N13 highway to Cherbourg and only a few miles away from the coast, this farming community became the very center of the huge airborne operation (with 15.000 U.S paratroopers) that started during the night before D-day.

In order to stop the German counter-attacks from the north, the village was planned to be taken rapidly by the nearby-dropped 505th P.I.R. But some of these soldiers had the misfortune to end up here, right on the town full of Germans.

John Steele the most famous of them (because depicted in “The Longest Day”) survived the war and returned here several times to look at the charming old church and its belltower where he had remained hanging for about two hours. When they came back, all the veterans were moved on discovering the memorial stained-glass window of “Virgin Mary surrounded by paratroopers”.