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Tully Mars · 06-09-2009, 01:46 PM

And Phil for the win!

I am hanging out in Ste-Mère-Église Private John M. Steele style-

From Wiki-

Quote:

On the night of the D-Day (June 5-6, 1944), American soldiers of the 82nd Airborne parachuted into the area west of Ste-Mère-Église in successive waves. The town had been the target of an aerial attack and a stray incendiary bomb had set fire to a house east of the town square. The church bell was rung to alert the town of the emergency and townspeople turned out in large numbers to form a bucket brigade supervised by members of the German garrison. By 0100hrs, the town square was well-lit and filled with German soldiers and villagers when two sticks from the 1st and 2nd battalions were dropped in error directly over the village.

The paratroopers were easy targets and Steele was one of only a few non-casualties. His parachute was caught in the steeple of the village church in Ste-Mère-Église, leaving him hanging from its roof-top to witness the carnage. The wounded paratrooper hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead, before the Germans took him prisoner. Steele later escaped from the Germans and rejoined his division when US troops of the 3rd Battalion, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment attacked the village capturing thirty Germans and killing another eleven. For these actions and his wounds, Steele was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart.
Window from Ste. Mere Eglise Church depicting the Virgin Mary and Paratroopers descending on the town

John Steele born November 29, 1912, his Social Security card was issued in Illinois, died of cancer on May 16, 1969 in Fayetteville, NC, just two weeks short of the 25th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Today, these events are commemorated by the Airborne Forces Museum in Place du 6 juin in the centre of Ste-Mère-Église and in the village church where a parachute with an effigy of Private Steele in his Airborne uniform hangs from the steeple. Bullet holes are still visible in the church's stone walls. Inside, there are stained glass windows, with one depicting the Virgin Mary with paratroopers falling in the foreground.

Though injured and deafened by the church bells, Private Steele survived his ordeal. He continued to visit the town throughout his life and was an honorary citizen of Ste. Mère Église. The tavern, Auberge John Steele, stands adjacent to the square and maintains his memory through photos, letters and articles hung on its walls.

Someday I'm going to visit the beaches of Normandy and a few of these towns where so many gave so much. Also planning on seeing a Nazi concentration camp museum. After that I think I'll need to spend a few days or a week in some of the Italian beach towns Shell spoke of above.

You up Phil, go hide.

I still got cable to run.