Normandy D-Day Invasion–Airborne Operations and Utah Beach

Students at Ste. Mere Eglise in Normandy. Note the paratrooper dummy hanging by parachute from one of the church spires. The real 82nd Airborne Division soldier whose experience is commemorated by this was John Steele. Actor Red Buttons played John Steele in the film, The Longest Day, that was based on Cornelius Ryan's famous book of the same name. Ryan had conducted many oral history interviews with veterans of D-Day including those from the Allied forces as well as the Axis powers.

One of two stained glass windows at Ste. Mere Eglise church in Normandy showing icons from US paratroopers who dropped on D-Day in the Allied invasion of Europe.

This second stained glass window inside the church at Ste. Mere Eglise in Normandy is one of the few in the world depicting paratroopers falling to earth in commemoration of their part in the D-Day invasion on June 6th, 1944.

Students at the Airborne Museum in Ste. Mere Eglise in Normandy

Students and C-47 Aircraft inside the Airborne Museum in Normandy. The C-47 aircraft was one of the greatest transport airplanes of the war. It was used for everything from transporting paras who jumped from the plane, to towing gliders, evacuating wounded by air to hospitals in England and serving as personnel and military supply carriers. Note the white invasion stripes identifying Allied aircraft in the D-Day invasion.

This student is an MSU ROTC cadet studying nursing. She was particularly interested in the Flight Nurse Exhibit at the Airborne Museum that included authentic uniforms, medical equipment, and personal items donated by US flight nurses who flew with the wounded back to England from the Normandy battlefields!

Group Photo of Students at Carentan, Normandy, France

Group Photo of Students at Carentan memorial commemorating the 101st Airborne Division's liberation of the city a few days after D-Day in Normandy, France.

Group Photos of Students at Utah Beach KM 00 Marker on the "Route of Liberty" that traces the primary route of the Allied advance from the Normandy coast all the way to Bastogne, Belgium. There is a marker every kilometer along this route. On each is a torch modeled after that held by Lady Liberty in the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The total number of kilometers covered was 1147, the number of the marker near the Mardasson Memorial on the outskirts of Bastogne, Belgium. That is 711 miles!