"Band of Brothers Adventure" Day 3 -- NORMANDY, Part 6 (Brecourt Mannor, Sainte-Mère-Église ) ...

It was just a short jaunt over to the farm known as Brecourt Mannor, the place where the Germans had several big guns situated that overlooked the landing areas on the beaches.  This farm, the German guns and their destruction by Easy Company, 502 PIR, was highlighted in the HBO min--series, "Band of Brothers."  I have watched this series so many times I wore out the one that my old Sergeant-Major gave me and had to buy another set of discs.  As is shown in the pictures below, this area has pretty much been preserved as it might have been then.

                                            

The monument to the right was erected when the men from Easy Company came to visit this field again. The guide that the tour company (Beyond the Band of Brothers) hired (various subject matter experts for each of the stops on the tour) went into great detail explaining the placement areas for the guns, and how the men of Easy Company took them out.  There has been a lot written about this and it was subsequently used by Army as a model for small unit tactics.  Google this and there will be lots of articles, books, maps and videos of terrain walks for your review.

Following this stop, we headed out for Sainte-Mère-Église.  This was really a great place to see and take in the history of what happened to the Airborne troops that assaulted this area. There is an 82d Abn.museum in the city and there were really interesting exhibits, including a WACO glider which was manufactured in Troy, OH. Again, this is one of the things that would be worth your while to Google as there are tons of documents, pictures, maps, and stories surrounding this assault.  Below are some of the pictures I took highlighting just a few of the things to see here.

Men attending mass in this church.

The church today.

A stained glass window in the church.  Notice the 82d emblem in the upper left and the parachute at the very top. Enlarge this picture and see all the various airborne images the people put in it. I think I remember someone in the church telling me that the person in the middle of the window is supposed to be the patron saint of paratroopers.

This is a vigil stand.  You light one of the candles and say a prayer for someone or something.  I lit two of the candles -one for my dad, and one for my brother-in-law, Chuck (third row up from the bottom, far left).

My dad was artillery during the war, so I checked out this piece.  He was not in the 82d, but I remember him telling me he fired big howitzers, much bigger than this one.

This is the outside of the church at Sainte-Mère-Église.  You can see the outside of the window shown above.  The white item caught on the spire of the church is a representation of John Steele, a paratrooper whose chute caught up on it during the assault. Originally, this was on the other side of the church (historically correct), but tourists didn't see it there, so they moved it to this side. Google this too.  It's interesting.

Keith and I had a great lunch here, and the beer was really pretty good. So this was a pretty busy day and now it's off to Bastogne.

Click on this link for some more info on this site.  Follow-up link. 

 “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”  (George Orwell)

Hooah