Notre-Dame de Sainte-Mère-Église

Sainte-Mère-Église, FR

The parish church of Notre-Dame became one of the most iconic sites of D-Day when American paratroopers of the **82nd Airborne Division** dropped directly onto the town square during the early hours of June 6, 1944. Private John Steele of the **505th Parachute Infantry Regiment** became trapped on the steeple when his parachute caught on the spire; he hung there for over two hours feigning death while German soldiers occupied the square below. A mannequin with a deployed parachute has been mounted permanently on the steeple since 1954 to commemorate the event. The church's stained-glass windows, added in 1969, depict the Virgin Mary surrounded by paratroopers — a unique memorial woven into a living place of worship.