Sherman in Sainte Mere Eglise
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
Sherman in Sainte Mere Eglise
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Mission Boston was a parachute combat assault at night by the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division on June 6, 1944, part of the American airborne landings in Normandy. Boston was a component of Operation Neptune, the assault portion of the Allied invasion of France, Operation Overlord. 6,420 paratroopers jumped from nearly 370 C-47 Skytrain troop carrier aircraft into an intended objective area of roughly 10 square miles (26 km2) located on either side of the Merderet River on the Cotentin Peninsula of France five hours ahead of the D-Day landings.
The drops were scattered by bad weather and German antiaircraft fire over an area 3 to 4 times as large as that planned. Two regiments of the division were given the mission of blocking approaches west of the Merderet River, but most of their troops missed their drop zones entirely. The 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment jumped accurately and captured its objective, the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, which proved essential to the success of the invasion.
A well-known incident involved paratrooper John Steele of the 505th PIR, whose parachute caught on the spire of the town church, and could only observe the fighting going on below. He hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead, before the Germans took him prisoner. Steele later escaped from the Germans and rejoined his division when US troops of the 3rd Battalion, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment attacked the village. There is a Parachute hanging from the church to commemorate this event.
Sainte-Mere-Eglise is said to be the first French town liberated by the allies.
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Uploaded
September 21st, 2014
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