NI Photowalk - Airborne Museum

The Airborne Museum is located in St. Mere Eglise because of the role that the 101st and 82nd Airborne units played in securing the town.

This sculpture, with desperate hands reaching out to catch the paratroopers from the country of France, sits near the entrance.

Elements around the base include a paratroopers rifle, a model of the church at St. Mere Eglise with the parachute caught on the steeple, the German beach fortifications, and a ladder propped against a steep cliff to represent the rangers scaling Pont du Hoc.

A Sherman tank, a transport truck, and an anti-aircraft cannon were some of the items displayed outside the three buildings that comprise the museum.

The first building contained display cases with artifacts that soldiers would have carried.

This one was my favorite.  It has a box of Rice Krispies in it.

A model of a Liberty Ship, the boats that carried American troops across the Atlantic to England.

The building also included an airplane that you could walk through and see how the soldiers would have been seated as they prepared to make their drop.

Regimental patches of D-Day participants, including the Ivy patch of the Fourth Division (IV Division), Eston's Division.

As I moved through various museums, I took pictures of pictures of the 4th Division in action leading up to their capture of Cherbourg, which is where Eston died.

I forget what this little vehicle is called.

The second building included another airplane, uniforms, and more information about the landings.  This was the building that had the cemetery pictures that I shared in the St. Mere Eglise Photowalk.

There were also flags representing the homes of the participating troops, including Tennessee.

The third, and newest building, is the Operation Neptune building, which was the code name of the entire D-Day operation.

A parachute was laid out in the floor as you entered the building.

You then walked through a mock-up of a dark airplane.  You could hear and feel the thrum of the aircraft engine.

When you stepped out of the airplane, you were over an aerial view of the French countryside, with bombs exploding and lighting up the air around you.  Wind hit you as you stepped out, and you were in the point of view of a paratrooper as they rushed toward the earth.

Continuing through the building, there were several dioramas that recreated life for the soldiers as they moved through Normandy.

This one was a representation of the bocage, or hedgerow, country.

The final exhibit highlighted the press coverage of the Invasion.

NI Photowalk: St. Mere Eglise

The town of St. Mere Eglise, located just a few miles from Utah Beach, was a crucial place for the Allies to secure in order to move their troops off the beaches and into the interior of the Normandy Peninsular region.  During the night before the landings, Allied troops parachuted into the area surrounding this small town and fought through the morning to secure it.

Like most towns in Europe, the church forms the heart of the town.  The steeple dominates the skyline, but was also an excellent spot for a sniper's nest.  The main square of the town is located beside the church, and much of the fighting happened in this area.

One paratrooper was unfortunate enough to be snagged on the steeple as he descended.  As he hung there, he watched the fighting beneath him and played dead so that he would not be shot.  The Germans eventually shot him in the foot to see if he was alive, and then took him prisoner.  He was not a prisoner for long, though, as the Allies secured the town by the end of the first day of fighting.  The town has placed a memorial to this soldier on the steeple, albeit on the opposite side of where he was actually caught.

The interior of the church is filled with stained glass.  While most of it was original work, this was a newer piece of glass that commemorated the arrival of the US Airborne troops.  We're always told how rude the French are to Americans, but they do remember the role that we played in liberating them from the Nazi Regime.  I've always joined in the jokes about the French surrendering quickly, and villianized them for collaborating with the Nazis during the war, but through studying the war during the Institute, I came to a new understanding of how quickly the Germans moved, how helpless Europe was before the German war machine, and how the Nazis held the French people hostage.

Only people who have traveled in Europe will understand this, but I love the smell of old churches.

One of the things that we learned while visiting the National Archives was that our soldier, Eston A. Baxter, was originally buried in a temporary cemetery at St. Mere. Eglise.  It was cemetery #1, plot B, row 6, grave 5.  Later, those soldiers buried in the temporary cemeteries were moved to Colleville-sur-Mer above Omaha Beach.  I had never thought about the fact that they were moved, though it made sense once I thought about it.  The formal cemetery would not have been planned till later, and something had to be done with those who had been killed.

St. Mere Eglise is the location of an Airborne Museum, which I will cover in a different photo blog, but one of the exhibits talked about the temporary cemeteries.

This is cemetery #1.  You can see the steeple of the church in the background.  I pulled up the picture of the map of the cemetery and compared it to this photo.  I think based on the angles and layout of the plots, that the plot in the foreground of the picture is Plot B, though Eston's grave is not pictured here.

Cemetery #2 is in the foreground and cemetery #1 is in the background, to the left.

There was a video about the temporary cemeteries and the creation of the permanent one at Colleville-sur-Mer. According to this placard, the location of the temporary cemeteries were marked.  When I went outside, I looked at the steeple, and then in the direction where our bus was parked from the Museum, and thought that cemetery #1 must be nearby.

The bus was parked next to this soccer field.

As we were boarding, someone noticed two flags flying in front of the field.  We ran over, and it was a marker for the temporary cemetery.  I don't know that someone who has not been deeply involved in this type of research can understand, but this was one of the significant moments for me on the trip.  It was like a detective uncovering a valuable clue, for us to find the place where our solider was originally interred.