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.