Sainte-Mère-Eglise

On the 6th of June 1944, the American people learned that the long-awaited landings on the French coast had begun. Just like the codenamed beaches, they also heard of a small village in Cotentin where the paras from the 82nd U.S. Airborne Division engaged in bitter combat, losing many of its men : Sainte-Mère-Église. The site's renown has continuously grown over the years, to offer the village pride of place among the leading memorial sites of the Battle of Normandy.

Illustrated with over 200 photographs and enhanced with many witness reports, this book offers you a delve into the very heart of the ordeal faced by the U.S. paras to liberate and keep control of Sainte-Mère-Église and the surrounding area. It is also a fascinating insight into the extraordinary story of the very creation of the American airborne army, and the adventures of the 82nd Airborne's troopers and gliders, from Sicily to central Germany, via Normandy and the Netherlands. The authors prolong their narration over the moving pages of the village's history immediately after the war. The presence - for three years - of two large temporary war cemeteries in the immediate vicinity of the village, and its inhabitants' heartfelt gratitude towards their liberators, have led to abiding links of friendship between locals and the men from the All Americans.