{"id":67616,"date":"2024-06-07T05:40:07","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T05:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/07\/for-the-first-french-town-liberated-on-d-day-history-is-personal\/"},"modified":"2024-06-07T05:40:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T05:40:07","slug":"for-the-first-french-town-liberated-on-d-day-history-is-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/07\/for-the-first-french-town-liberated-on-d-day-history-is-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"For the First French Town Liberated on D-Day, History Is Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/07\/multimedia\/07DDay-Town-dispatch-01-fkvt-promo\/07DDay-Town-dispatch-01-fkvt-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"For the First French Town Liberated on D-Day, History Is Personal\" title=\"For the First French Town Liberated on D-Day, History Is Personal\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">American soldiers in uniforms spill out from the bars and cafes all around June 6 Square, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Phil Collins blares from loudspeakers. American flags flutter from chimneys and windows, on overhead lines and even from around the neck of a golden retriever trotting by with her owner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Is this really France?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is the 53rd state,\u201d Philippe Nekrassoff, a local deputy mayor, said as he made his way across the square, with its Roman milestone and medieval church, while U.S. paratroopers wearing maroon berets played soccer with a group of local teenagers. \u201cAmericans are at home here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Here is Ste.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise, a slip of a town in northwest Normandy with one main street. About<strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\"> <\/strong>3,000 residents live in the town and its surrounding region, with its fields of cows and towering hedges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hundreds of U.S. paratroopers landed in the immediate area in the early hours of June 6, 1944. Four hours later \u2014 even before the world\u2019s largest armada arrived to the nearby Normandy beaches \u2014 one of those soldiers hauled down the Nazi flag and hoisted an American one up over city hall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis was the first town to be liberated on the western front,\u201d read two marble plaques, one in French and one in English, in front of the building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The story of that liberation is now deeply threaded into the town\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While most villages across Normandy hold annual D-Day commemorations, little Ste.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise hosts six parades, 10 ceremonies, 11 concerts and a parachute jump by current U.S. paratroopers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Statues, plaques and historical panels dot many street corners. Shops have names like D-Day, Bistrot 44 and Hair\u2019born salon. There\u2019s a mannequin of John Steele, the American paratrooper immortalized in the 1962 film \u201cThe Longest Day,\u201d hanging from the church steeple as he did on June 6, 1944, his parachute billowing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At first blush, the town seems, well, too unabashedly and in-your-face American for a country that revels in self-criticism and understatement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But stick around a bit, and the town reveals a relationship with U.S. paratroopers that is deep, sincere and disarmingly beautiful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is a sense of welcome here that\u2019s nothing like anything else in the region,\u201d said Jacques Villain, a photographer who has documented the village\u2019s celebration for 25 years and was the driving force behind the just-published bilingual book \u201cSte.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise: We Will Remember Them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The town\u2019s first D-Day commemoration was small and took place even while the war in Europe was still raging, he pointed out. On the first anniversary, Maj. Gen. James Gavin, by then the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, sent 30 soldiers back from Germany for the ceremonies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Just after midnight on June 6, 1944, wave after wave of low-flying airplanes roared over Ste.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise and the surrounding area. Spilling from them were thousands of parachutes, flitting across the sky like confetti.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One parachute floated right down into a trench dug in Georgette Flais\u2019 backyard, where she was huddled with her parents and a neighbor. Attached to it was Cliff Maughan. Ms. Flais refers to him as \u201cour American.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe represented, for me, something extraordinary \u2014 liberation,\u201d said Ms. Flais, now 96.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She recalled how the German soldier billeted in her house burst into view, his rifle pointed into the trench. Ms. Flais\u2019 father jumped up and begged the German not to shoot. Miraculously, he agreed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Soon after, the German soldier realized the Americans had taken the town and surrendered to Mr. Maughan, who Ms. Flais described as preternaturally calm, handing out chewing gum, chocolate and cigarettes. He curled up on his parachute for a quick nap before heading out at dawn to fight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe kissed him warmly goodbye,\u201d Ms. Flais said. \u201cA friendship was born.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As the first place to be liberated, Ste.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise quickly became the place where fallen American soldiers were first buried \u2014 13,800 in three fields turned cemeteries around the village. Local men dug the graves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt was just a little village of 1,300 inhabitants,\u201d said Marc Lef\u00e8vre, the town\u2019s mayor for 30 years who left office in 2014. \u201cThey were witness to the price of sacrifice, with all those trucks of coffins. That left a huge impact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One of the graves was for Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who died of a heart attack five weeks after landing on Utah Beach. He was the eldest son of Theodore Roosevelt, the former U.S. president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Simone Renaud, the mayor\u2019s wife, was captured laying flowers on his tomb by a Life magazine photographer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The reaction from grieving mothers in the United States was immediate. Hundreds sent Ms. Renaud letters, pleading for her to visit their son\u2019s graves and send back photos. She complied.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Henri-Jean Renaud, 89, recently flipped through albums of carefully sorted letters to his mother, written in longhand, from 80 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some of the women later came to visit the graves themselves. They ate dinner with the Renauds and sometimes stayed in their home. \u201cI am still in touch with a family that had a kid my age,\u201d Mr. Renaud said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He still visits the grave of one soldier \u201cfrom time to time, to say a little hello to him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Years later, American veterans began to make pilgrimages to Ste.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise for its annual D-Day commemorations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The town had only one hotel, since renamed after Mr. Steele. So Ms. Renaud, who died in 1988, formed the Friends of American Veterans association, and many locals joined and hosted the visitors in their homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Volunteers spent afternoons driving around, trying to help the veterans find the exact spot in a field or marsh or tree where they first landed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cFor most of them, it was there they had their first losses, their first powerful emotions, the first friend killed, the first wounded,\u201d Mr. Renaud said. \u201cThose are things that mark you for life. So they were always trying to find that beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By 1984, Ms. Flais was teaching Greek and Latin in a high school in Alen\u00e7on, about 140 miles away. On June 6 of that year, she was watching television when she saw on the screen an American soldier who had come back to Ste.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise. He was broader, and wore a baseball hat instead of a helmet. But he had that same laid-back demeanor. She jumped in the car and rushed back to her childhood town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt was my American,\u201d she said. \u201cWe fell into one another\u2019s arms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Today, 80 years later, there are few veterans left. Their successors now crowd the town square, where Mr. Steele and his fellow World War II parachutists are celebrated and remembered as veritable gods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They are joined by the thousands of re-enactment enthusiasts, tourists and French citizens who come to pay their respects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming,\u201d said Jonathan Smith, 43, whose trip here was a retirement present after 18 and a half years of service with the 82nd Airborne Division. \u201cI didn\u2019t make it 10 paces this morning without kids stopping me to ask for a photo and shake my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The local tourism office is expecting one million people to come into town over the 10 days of commemorations and celebrations this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Among them are the children and grandchildren of the Americans who were in charge on D-Day, from General Roosevelt Jr. to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander in chief of the Allied forces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI find I need to be here and be a part of it,\u201d said Chloe Gavin, the daughter of General Gavin, who himself came back regularly before he died.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On a recent night, local families welcomed more 200 American soldiers into their homes for dinner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Across the street from city hall, where the American flag that soldiers hung up in 1944 now hangs framed on a wall, three generations of the Auvray family sat in their garden with three U.S. paratroopers from Puerto Rico. The family matriarch, Andr\u00e9e Auvray, regaled them with her memories of D-Day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She was nine months pregnant and living on a horse farm just outside town that had been requisitioned by a battalion of soldiers with the German army. Just days before the Allies\u2019 landing, the soldiers departed for Cherbourg, France, convinced the Allies would attack there, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe were so lucky,\u201d said Ms. Auvray, now 97 and a great-grandmother of 13. \u201cIt would have been a blood bath.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Three American paratroopers landed in her garden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An American military hospital was quickly erected next door. Her farm became the health clinic and a temporary home for civilians, fleeing the battle that ensued after German troops tried to retake Ste.-M\u00e8re-\u00c9glise. They fed 120 people for a month. She gave birth to her son, Michel-Yves, on a camp bed because her bed had been given to the injured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Michel-Yves will turn 80 soon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Auvray described the missiles exploding nearby, the gnawing fear that the Germans would retake the town and her gratitude that they did not.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe lived through such anguish together,\u201d she said of the American soldiers and French residents. \u201cThat\u2019s why we have such a precious relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/07\/world\/europe\/france-normandy-d-day-history.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American soldiers in uniforms spill out from the bars and cafes all around June 6 Square, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Phil Collins blares from loudspeakers. American flags flutter from chimneys and windows, on overhead lines and even from around the neck of a golden retriever trotting by with her owner. Is this really France? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/07\/multimedia\/07DDay-Town-dispatch-01-fkvt-promo\/07DDay-Town-dispatch-01-fkvt-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51376,8456,3913,63575,2635,18149],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67616"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67618,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67616\/revisions\/67618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}