IN REMBERANCE OF D-DAY LANDINGS UTAH BEACH 6TH OF JUNE 1944
This month on the 5th of June 1944 an
armada of ships left the shores of England bound for the Normandy beaches of
Utah, Omaha, Juno and Sword. Recently I re-visited the hallowed ground of Utah
Beach and the towns of Ste Marie Eglise and Ste Marie-Du-Mont where the
landings are remembered on monuments, in war museums, in the local souvenir
shops and the tanks, guns and troop carriers, blockhouses are preserved along
the sand dunes. This is the place in time that Cornelius Ryan wrote about in
the book The Longest Day and was
subsequently made into a blockbuster of a movie of the same name.
The guns are silent now, the sands on the beach
which geysered several feet into the air with the dropping of bombs and shells
on D-Day is now no different to Curracloe or Brittas Bay beaches. Yet the
greatest war epic of all time was played out here with the free-world awaiting
the result.Would the Allied forces breach the famous Atlantic Wall, the Germans
held all the advantages, they were playing on their “home ground” that they
invaded, the Americans would have to disembark at low tide and run under
intense fire across the beach, cut the barbed wire to gain whatever cover they
could in the sand dunes. However, the Allied Forces won the day with their raw
courage, their never say die attitude and their indomitable will to win. This
is the epic of the longest day the 6th of June 1944,historically the
most important day in history of the world when so much is owed by so many to so
many.
With tears in his eyes on June the 5th
the Supreme Commander General Eisenhower saw the American 101 and 82 Airborne
Division take off on their sacrificial mission. Later that night they would
land in the fields, orchards and hedgerows in Normandy. Paratrooper John Steele
would get his parachute entangled on the steeple of the church in Ste Marie
Eglise, his efficacy still hangs there on the steeple of the very beautiful and
famous church. The 101st Airborne Division mission was to keep the
four roads open leading from Utah Beach so that the landing craft on the
beaches would not get bogged down their. The 13,000 American troops fell like
confetti from the Normandy skies to kick-off the D-Day landings code named
Operation Overlord and the beginning of the end of German Occupied Europe.In
the going down of the sun let them never be forgotten.
Ste. Marie
Eglise has the distinction of being the first town in France to be liberated
from the Germans on the night of June the 5th.It is situated just
off the main carriageway about an hour’s drive from Cherbourg. The links with
the D-Day landings and Ste Marie Eglise are very strong with Hotel 6th
of June, Hotel John Steele, the 101 Airborne Museum and the numerous souvenir
shops in the town. Because of its D-Day notoriety thousands of tourists visit
Ste Marie Eglise during the summer months and its church is one of the most
photographed in the world .This church is the town mascot being depicted on
postcards, wall-plates and all other souvenir’s of Ste. Marie Eglise. The
French gratitude to the Americans is well noted in Ste Marie Eglise, the stars
and stripes flutters in the breeze in unison with the French tricolour outside
our hotel, the rest is history and I shall return.