Band of Brothers

Back to the trip, I left you early Saturday morning with a long day ahead of me. I signed myself up for a trip to visit all of the Normandy sites that Easy Company of the 101st Airborne division were involved in. If you do not know what I am talking about, the film and book by Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers, highlights one company through WWII. I got to visit some pretty cool places, along with learning even more neat details and info than I did previously.

This is the church in St. Mere Eglise where a US paratrooper, John Steele landed on the spire and had to fake death to not be shot down. He later was captured by Germans, but later escaped and went on to fight with his regiment. Today, there is a monument on the church as you can see commemorated to him.










While not nearly as flashy, but much more important, I got to see where Major Winters and 12 other men destroyed a German battery of 105 mm howitzers. By destroying the German position, it helped the overall goal of bringing US forces onto the beach. To this day, the way that they went about destroying the battery, 13 US soldiers versus over 50 Germans is taught at West Point. It is now just an empty field, but the history is amazing and to be able to see where everything was certainly brings it to life.














If you look at the photo I am holding here, compare it to the monument behind me. Just another one of the little French villages that the Americans liberated along the way.













Finally, I also got a chance to see the town of Carentan which was where, without going into a lot of detail, a large battle took place over 2 days and the ultimate result of the Americans taking the city helped link up various forces spread across the beaches. The next few images were taken near Carentan.























Once this was all said and done, what was left to do. Just a nice little barbie at the hotel grilling up some sausages and an evening walking around town. We ran into a outdoor theater with a full orchestra performing on the night and it was certainly a relaxing way to end the day.