|
French mayor invites german paratroops to join jump at Normandy
INVITING 40 German paratroops to land on Utah Beach was perhaps not the best way of celebrating the 61st anniversary yesterday of the Allied invasion of the Normandy beaches. For one thing, it was a historical travesty. It was the US 82nd Airborne Division that dropped from the skies on to the town of Sainte Mere Eglise in the early hours of June 6, 1944, paving the way for the greatest seaborne assault in history. Marc Lefevre, the town's mayor who invited the cream of the Wehrmacht to his weekend party, may have been feeling a pang of guilt at his fellow-countrymen voting a resounding "non" to further integration of a European community that has for six decades dissuaded the French and Germans from knocking lumps out of each other. "I knew it would make me unpopular," M Lefevre admitted yesterday. "We needed to turn the page, and welcome the Germans without bitterness." But, in a repetition of the events of 1944, the Allies won the day. At the last minute, after strong objections from US veterans in town for the commemoration, the German invasion was cancelled. The organisers hastily muttered an excuse about the weather being too bad. US forces on the ground were more forthright. Barry Wells, 78, a veteran from Des Moines, Iowa, said: "There was no way we were going to allow German paratroops to hijack our time of remembrance. "Our boys had a hell of an unpleasant time around here but came out victorious. Allowing the Germans to jump over Sainte Mere Eglise would be like allowing the Luftwaffe to fly a plane over London to commemorate the Battle of Britain. Some of the guys had a word with the French, and thankfully the jump was cancelled." John Wayne would not have liked it either. He starred in the 1962 film The Longest Day in scenes that centred on the 82nd's parachute drop on the town. In one memorable, and more or less historically accurate scene, Private John Steele of the 82nd has his parachute caught on the church steeple, and he dangles there as fierce fighting continues beneath him. Private Steele is now commemorated by a mannequin permanently suspended from the church. Utah was one of the Normandy beaches designated for the huge amphibious landing that turned the tide of the Second World War. A number of bold preliminary strikes in the early hours before dawn as a massive invasion flotilla approached the French coast included the US parachute drop and the British capture of Pegasus Bridge, a vital transport link across a canal near the city of Caen. Although fighting was fierce, the Americans fared better at Utah than they did at their other designated landing ground of Omaha Beach, where casualties on both sides were much higher. By the end of the first day US forces had landed 23,000 men and 1,700 vehicles on Utah. M Lefevre remained deflated at the cancellation of his Euro-friendly stunt. "We are all devoted to world peace now," he said. The German military maintained a diplomatic silence. "It's best that we just go back to Germany," a spokesman for the parachute unit said, using words that the residents of Sainte Mere Eglise would dearly like to have heard in 1944. Posted by: too true 2005-06-07 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=121031 |