In the dark hours before the D-Day invasion of France in 1944, U.S. paratroopers of the 101st Airborne division floated silently from the sky and landed around the tiny Normandy town of Sainte-Mère-Église.
They drifted into the narrow streets, surrounding fields and the open square, where one soldier — later immortalized by Hollywood as well as the townspeople — was snagged on the roof of the church. That dramatic first act in the liberation of Europe remains a vivid memory for locals, visitors and veterans who return to the Normandy beaches each year.
This week’s 70th anniversary of the landings is being marked by more than the usual number of commemorative events — including re-enactments, encampments and parachute drops. One of the sites sure to be crowded is Sainte-Mère-Église’s Musée à Ciel Ouvert (the Open Sky Museum), a tribute to the 101st fighters crammed with photos, maps, uniforms, equipment and memorabilia, much of which has been donated by soldiers who were there.
Perhaps the most poignant display is the sculpture near the museum’s entrance: a pair of hands, entwined in chains, bursting from a France-shaped base, stretching to catch a descending parachute emblazoned with an American flag. Below the hands is the memorial’s title: “The Day They Came.”
My uncle, 1st Lt. James V. Cauley, was one of those who came.
A year ago this week, my son and I traced the path of Cauley and his 101st Airborne compatriots in the 3rd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment. We snaked through the French countryside, trying to imagine the verdant landscape wrought with intense enemy fire and assaults.
Like the paratroopers of 70 years ago, our journey began in England. A few years ago, during a visit to the Imperial War Museum in London, we saw film of a practice parachute jump in the English countryside. As we watched grainy footage of Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower reviewing the troops, a piece of family war lore suddenly jumped out. There was my uncle, shaking hands with Churchill.
I never knew my uncle, who died on July 4, 1961. A bit of archival research revealed that Churchill, accompanied by Eisenhower and the 101st’s Gen. Maxwell Taylor, shook Cauley’s hand after a troop review in Berkshire, west of London. That information piqued our interest in the young man from the Pennsylvania coal region that we saw in the frame with Allied leaders.
Cauley offered clues in a few surviving letters. He had signed up for the newly-formed parachute regiment for the extra $50 a month “jump pay.” The decision took him to Columbus, where the paratroopers trained: “We were hooked on to the ‘Orange Blossom Special’ [train] of the Southern Lines and were in Raleigh by nine o’clock. We arrived at Atlanta about one o’clock Tuesday afternoon. Atlanta is a beautiful town; the streets have many nice trees growing along the walks, and houses are very nice. That train delivered us to Columbus, from whence we took a truck in to the camp.”
That camp, Fort Benning, housed “well over 100,000 soldiers who practice from jumping towers in 115-degree heat,” Cauley wrote.
Another letter from late 1943 has an unspecified location, but Cauley dropped several hints to his whereabouts: “I cannot tell you much of course as regards our missions nor our work as I am honor bound to keep my letters censored. But I have visited old Glasgow, Edinburgh and several other cities in Scotland and have been in Wales several times. And dear old London — you can just picture me strolling down Piccadilly Circus on a Sunday afternoon or possibly taking a brisk walk through St. James Park or Hyde Park — well, don’t picture it for I rarely get off.”
It was easy to deduce his location after reading a March 1944 front-page story in the Stars and Stripes newspaper that pictured Churchill and Eisenhower inspecting the paratroopers. Archival footage from that day places my uncle in the thick of the show. Knowing where he had trained, my son and I were eager to see the Normandy villages where his division fought — information easily found online.
Our journey started where most of the unit landed, close to Sainte-Mère-Église’s town square. There, visitors will find a vivid reminder of that night in the form of a dummy paratrooper dangling from the roof. John Steele, a paratrooper from Metropolis, Ill., was snagged there while Germans opened fire on his descending comrades. (In the movie “The Longest Day,” Steele’s ordeal was re-created by actor Red Buttons.) The church’s windows, rebuilt after the war, incorporate paratroopers into the stained glass designs.
The town’s museum is a treasure trove, housing a range of attractions, from an original paratrooper transport plane to a 1994 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Living section marking D-Day’s 50th anniversary (donated by a Fayetteville veteran).
Last year, a crowd of Dutch re-enactors set up camp behind the museum to showcase the 80 pounds of supplies the paratroopers brought with them, including metal forks, shaving cream, hand grenades and French phrase books.
In the cafes, the sounds of the Andrews Sisters and Benny Goodman provided an American soundtrack. French nationals who spoke only a few words of English sported uniforms of the 101st “Screaming Eagles,” making “victory” signs to other re-enactors who rode around the square in troop trucks, Jeeps, motorcycle sidecars and tanks.
From Sainte-Mère-Église, we traveled southeast to the area where Cauley’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Robert Cole, led his men in a daring bayonet charge. A house not far from the battle site, where German forces had dug in to defend a crossroads, is now a museum, replete with 70-year-old bullet holes, memorabilia and a display retelling Cole’s charge.
Injured in the attack, Cauley was awarded the Purple Heart; his company was given a presidential citation for valor. Cole earned a Medal of Honor but never lived to receive it; he was killed a few months later in the Netherlands.
The rest of our trip took us through Normandy’s villages, each with its own war story. We watched a parachute jump over Utah Beach and American re-enactors corralling actors dressed up as the enemy. We gasped for breath making the climb up the Omaha beachfront, the thought of soldiers doing that under fire not far from our minds.
A journey that began with a photo became a journey into history.
Not long after D-Day, Cauley wrote home: “It will not be too long now until democracy raises its noble head again to triumph over evil.” We felt the power of those sentiments everywhere we went in Normandy.
As part of the anniversary commemorations this week, a monument to Cole and his men was unveiled near the village they helped liberate. It is a new reminder of the valor and courage shown on and after the day they came.
About the Author
