American airborne troops

American parachute drops

To capture the port of Cherbourg, the Allies decided in December 1943 to add another beach to the west of the Baie des Veys: Utah Beach. To protect this new sector, they decided to launch their American airborne troops. Two parachute divisions were dropped over Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and Sainte-Mère-Église. The 82nd ^and 101st ^Airborne Divisions , under Generals Ridgway and Taylor, were dropped during the night before D-Day to prevent any German counter-attack towards the beaches. To achieve this, the paratroopers had to take control of the four roads leading out of Utah Beach, destroy the bridges over the Douve River, establish a bridgehead west of the Merderet River, and finally, establish themselves at Sainte-Mère-Église.

The operations began at 00:15 a.m. with the drop of 260 pathfinders aboard 40 aircraft. These men were tasked with marking the areas assigned to the paratroopers and gliders. Among them was Captain Frank Lillyman, head of the pathfinders for the 101st ^Airborne Division, likely the first American soldier to set foot in Normandy.

Captain Frank Lillyman, pictured here in the 50s. ©DR.

On June 6, 1944, Captain Franck Lillyman, belonging to the 502nd ^Regiment , commanded the reconnaissance team of the 101st ^Airborne Division, whose mission was to mark the drop zones and landing areas for gliders. He jumped first in the lead aircraft at approximately 00:15 a.m. Wounded during the operation, he was evacuated to a British hospital before joining the Normandy front some time later.

The 101 drop^e Airborne

Between 1:00 and 2:00, 900 C-47 Dakotas dropped men from the 82nd ^and 101st ^Divisions.

The 101st Airborne ^{Division was} the first to jump in the Sainte-Marie-du-Mont sector. That morning, General Taylor, commanding the division's 6900 paratroopers, became the first American general to set foot in France. Formed during the summer of 1942, the 101st ^Airborne Division and its three regiments (501st ^, 502nd ^, and 506th ⁾ experienced their baptism of fire that morning. The pilots' inexperience, flak fire, and flooded marshes resulted in heavy losses and widespread dispersal of the troops.

Colonel Moseley's 502nd Regiment parachuted over Drop Zone A (Turqueville) before heading towards the Saint-Martin-de-Varreville battery. Having broken his leg upon landing, Moseley had to relinquish command to his second-in-command, Colonel Michaelis. Following a poorly executed airdrop, Colonel Cassidy, commanding the regiment's 1st ^{Battalion ,} was only able to muster 250 men to secure the Foucarville and Beuzeuville-au-Plain sector.

At 01:15, part of the 501st ^and 506th ^regiments was disastrously dropped into Drop Zones C and D near Hiesville, Saint-Côme-du-Mont, Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, and Vierville. Under the command of General Taylor, two groups managed to advance towards the Utah and Pouppeville exits.

At 01:30, Colonel Johnson, commanding the 501st ^Regiment , parachuted south of Angoville-au-Plain. He gathered 150 men around him to march towards the bridges over the Douve River.

General Taylor, the first American general to land in Normandy

A West Point alumnus, Maxwell Davenport Taylor was promoted to general in 1942 at the age of 41. One of his assignments was to assist Major General Ridgway in converting the 82nd ^Airborne Division into an airborne unit in 1942. He participated in the Italian Campaign in 1943 before being appointed by Eisenhower to command the 101st Airborne Division in March 1944. ^He parachuted into the Cotentin Peninsula shortly before 1:00 a.m. and fought all day at the head of the men he had managed to regroup. He saw action with the 101st ^until the division's withdrawal at the end of June 1944. After the war, he commanded the U.S. Eighth ^Army in Korea before playing a prominent political role during the Cold War. He died in 1987.

The 82 drop^e Airborne

The 82nd ^Division was a highly experienced airborne division, having seen action in North Africa in 1942 and then in Sicily and Italy in 1943. Organized into four regiments, it fielded nearly 7500 men on the eve of D-Day. 6,400 men were preparing to be deployed to the Cotentin Peninsula, transported aboard 377 aircraft and 52 gliders.

The 505th ^, 507th ^and 508th ^Parachute Regiments of the 82nd ^Airborne Division were dropped at 2:00 AM. The objectives were clear: to seize the road junction at Sainte-Mère-Eglise and the bridges over the Merderet River.

^{Colonel Vandervoort 's} 505th Regiment was dropped into Drop Zone 0 before setting up camp at Neuville-au-Plain, north of Sainte-Mère-Église. Despite breaking his leg on landing, Vandervoort withstood repeated counterattacks from the German 91st ^Division . Only a few men were dropped directly onto the German-defended town of Sainte-Mère. Among them was Private John Steele, wounded upon landing on the church steeple, who played dead for two hours before being rescued by a German soldier.

The 507th ⁽ Colonel Millett) and 508th ⁽ Colonel Lindquist) regiments were dropped catastrophically west of the Merderet on Drop Zone N. Colonel Shaney, who commanded the 2nd ^Battalion of the 508th ^Regiment , gathered 300 men near Picauville to reach Hill 130, the regiment's assembly point.

John Steele, the man from the Sainte-Mère bell tower

Private John Steele, from Illinois, parachuted with the 505th ^Regiment of the 82nd ^Airborne Division over the village of Sainte-Mère-Église. He landed on the church steeple around 4:00 a.m. Wounded by shrapnel, Steele played dead for two ^hours to avoid being killed. Pulled from the steeple by a German soldier at dawn, he was immediately taken prisoner. Barely recovered, he managed to escape three days later and rejoin his unit, with which he contributed to the American victory at Sainte-Mère-Église.

The fate of John Steele on June 6, 1944, became one of the most famous sequences in the film The Longest Day.

Paratroopers' ground combat

While few American men were quickly operational once on the ground, the confusion was even worse on the German side, exacerbated by the enormous dispersal of their troops into numerous heterogeneous groups. At 4:00 a.m., Colonel Cole (502nd ^Regiment ) reached his objective with 120 men. He could only observe the destruction of the Saint-Martin battery, obliterated by Allied bombardment. He then headed towards the exits of Utah Beach, where he would link up with the first elements of the 04th ^Infantry Division in the early afternoon.

Sainte-Mère-Eglise was taken at 4:30 a.m. by 250 paratroopers from the 82nd ^, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Krause, commander of the 3rd ^battalion of the 505th ^regiment.

At the same time, General Pratt, second-in-command of the 101st ^Airborne , was killed during the landing of his glider.

Sainte-Marie-du-Mont was liberated in the afternoon by paratroopers from the 501st ^and 506th ^regiments (101st ^Airborne ) regrouped by Captain Lloyd Patch who had to repel a counter-attack by Colonel von der Heydte's 6th ^Parachute Regiment.

Sainte-Mère-Église owes its current renown as much to the Hollywood film *The Longest Day*, which features it prominently, as to the events that unfolded there in the early hours of June 6th. When the first paratroopers of the 101st ^Airborne Division mistakenly landed in the middle of the village shortly before 1:00 AM, civilians and Germans were busy extinguishing a fire that had broken out near the church. Targeted by the Germans, the paratroopers of the 101st ^and then those of the 82nd ^were immediately killed, some before they even touched down. Suspended for two hours by his parachute from the church railings, John Steele became, immediately after the war, a symbol of the heroism and sacrifice of the American paratroopers of June 6th. The village was finally liberated around 4:30 AM by the men of Lieutenant Colonel Krause. Link-up with the troops from Utah Beach was not achieved until the following day. Since then, Sainte-Mère-Eglise has been vying with Ranville – which was liberated by the British at 2:30 am – for the title of the first village liberated in France.

The bridges over the Douve and the Merderet

The paratroopers of the 101st ^Airborne advanced towards the bridges over the Douve. At 4:30 a.m., the Brévands bridge was reached by a handful of men from the 3rd ^Battalion of the 506th ^Regiment under Captain Shettle, who immediately established themselves on the right bank facing the Germans defending the access to Carentan.

Half an hour later, it was Colonel Johnson's (501st Regiment) turn, ^with about fifty men, to seize their objective, the Barquette lock on the Douve estuary, north of Carentan.

The airdrops west of the Merderet proved the most disastrous in the entire area; it would take the men of the 82nd Airborne several days ^to rejoin their units. Despite this setback, General Gavin, with a few men from the 507th and 508th ^Regiments , managed to seize the bridges over the Merderet, including the Pont de la Fière, shortly after 11:00 AM.

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