City In Normandy 4 Letters

City In Normandy 4 Letters – Henry-Jean Renaud holds a photo of himself after his release, outside the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mère-Église in Normandy, France, on Tuesday. Lucie Mach / for NBC News

Simone Renaud began writing letters to American women after Life magazine ran a photo of her laying flowers on the grave of Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the first-born son of the first president who died just weeks after leading the first US troops to Utah Beach in June. 6, 1944.

City In Normandy 4 Letters

“The letters are from the families of the lost boys. “Renaud said,” my mother wrote back. He went to the grave, took a picture, put some flower petals.”

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A model showing the D-Day landings in the mayor’s office of Colleville-sur-Mer in Normandy. Lucie Mach / for NBC News

The letters asked his mother, the wife of the mayor of the first city to be freed from the invasion of the sea in history, to find and take care of the graves of the men who died in the struggle power to liberate Europe. Simone Renaud responded to the Americans who sacrificed for her and her family to be free from Nazi occupation.

Renaud, who was 10 years old when the attack happened, said: “My parents, especially my mother, valued Americans very much.

The remains of more than 9,380 American soldiers lie in the nearby Normandy American Cemetery – many of them died during D-Day or in the subsequent operations.

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Renaud, 85, showed NBC News a handwritten list of names, lines and numbers — a list of the graves of fallen workers his mother found and cared for. He still has a binder full of letters and photos.

“My mother sent and received thousands of letters – I only kept a few,” Renaud said from his beautiful home in the town of Sainte-Mère-Église.

Early on D-Day, crews from the US 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne Divisions landed at Sainte-Mère-Église in Normandy. The battle for the city and its inhabitants was described in the book and movie “The Longest Day.”

Photo in bio shows Henry-Jean Renaud’s mother, Simone Renaud, placing flowers at the grave of Theodore Roosevelt Jr.Lucie Mach/for NBC News

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Just two days before D-Day, Renaud’s house was shaking as his wife and sister prepared a dinner for US Air Force officers. It is a tradition at Sainte-Mère-Église to welcome American workers to these events.

Army Reserve Sgt. Blake Covey, 27, of the 416th Civil Affairs Battalion, is one of many servicemen in Normandy for the memorial. The visit has been “breathtaking,” said the Orange County, California native.

“The hospitality of this city and its neighbors is humbling,” Covey said as he stood near the capital. The connection between some of the Norman villages liberated by the Allies and the U.S. was not taught much when he was in school in the U.S., he said.

“They treat us as if we participated in this day – it makes me feel inadequate,” Covey said of the community.

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A fake parachute hangs from the bell tower in memory of John Steele at the church in Sainte-Mère-Église. Lucie Mach / for NBC News

Today, a sailor hangs from the church tower in Sainte-Mère-Église – a tribute to Pvt. John Steele of the 82nd 505th Regiment, who was shot in his descent and dangled for several hours from the church tower, playing dead, on June 6, 1944.

Renaud remembers that morning, when waves of C-47 planes flew overhead. His father woke him up when a house behind the church caught fire. The large park was full of villagers trying to put out the fire.

“It was a real mess,” Renaud said. “It was the first time I saw a man die.”

Normandy Visitors Center, Colleville Sur Mer

Standing at the city’s Airborne Museum, he pointed to where he saw dead paratroopers hanging from trees.

“To me, it’s not a museum — it’s a memorial. Every time I come here, I remember these guys,” he said. “Some people say, ‘Oh, you remember.’ I said, ‘No, I never forgot.'”

“We couldn’t stay in our own room,” said Auvray, 93, explaining that his family was forced to share their home with German soldiers during the invasion. He remembers the dangers inside. A hat box brings food from the countryside to Paris.

“We always ask ourselves – what will happen to us?” said Auvray, who was pregnant at the time. “If the Americans had not come, what would have happened to us?”

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And like many others in the countryside, the Auvray family hosts an annual dinner for American workers.

This year, his daughter is serving a regional specialty, turkey in a sauce of cream and mushrooms – escalope à la Normande.

UPDATE (June 5, 2019, 4:14 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article did not recognize the military branch of Sgt. Blake Covey officiating. He serves in the Army Reserve, not the Air Force. Colette Marin-Catherine, a 93-year-old French Resistance volunteer whose brother was killed in a Nazi death camp, talks about her life in the field questioned.jpg

The 100-meter cliff at Pointe du Hoc, which the Allied forces advanced despite the terrible weather and heavy German fire.

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It was a perfect spring morning on the Normandy coast. The sun was shining, the sky was almost cloudy, and the family was painting a scene on the beach. Dogs and children splash on the sand as the waves gently come in, and a family jumps on top of an abandoned German bunker.

The situation changed immediately with one word from our director, Christophe Gosselin: “Imagine you are on a beach that is being fought. Young men fought and died where I stood.”

We are standing on Utah Beach, one of the five landing sites for the Allied invasion on D-Day – June 6, 1944 – where approximately 20,000 Allied troops stormed ashore 78 years before that day. Instead of the beautiful beach I saw, I tried to visualize the blood-stained sand, which became the killing ground of about 300 Allied soldiers who had to fight ashore against the sea, the storm and the fire environment of the enemy.

The 100-meter cliff at Pointe du Hoc, which the Allied forces advanced despite the terrible weather and heavy German fire. PHOTO BY JOHN POPE

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Early that morning, we went to Omaha Beach, where the Rangers were to scale the 100-foot cliff at Pointe du Hoc to fire. About 2,400 Americans were killed. We went into a bucket, where the German forces on D-Day saw a group of Allied ships and Higgins’ overcrowded submarine coming ashore. When we looked up, we saw guests wearing sneakers.

The contrast between then and now, sadness and happiness, is now present in Normandy. Anyone who goes there, especially on the commemoration of the attack, cannot help but be faced with conflicting emotions: joy and gratitude about the attack , which marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi occupation; and the mixture of fear and sadness persisted in the great loss of life – at least 10,000 Allied soldiers in each of the five sites, and up to 9,000 Germans.

Seventy-eight years later, the joy continues all over Normandy in a celebration of Mardi Gras and the Fourth of July for our group, organized by the National WWII Museum.

Tanks and Jeeps are common, as are World War II fighter jets. Men in uniform are everywhere, and more than a few women are dressed like Rosie the Riveter, a World War II worker, in a blue shirt and polka-dot bandannas. While having lunch in a restaurant in Arromanches-les-Bains with Richard Waguespack, my roommate for the trip, we heard the bagpipers playing a game that included “When the Saints Come.”

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But the heartbreak is always there, and the statements written on the memorials and on the headstones that stand in rows in rows in cemeteries throughout the region.

At the American Cemetery and Memorial, where 9,387 soldiers are buried, small groups wander slowly from grave to grave, reciting key words, including one marking the final resting place of Brig. . Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. On D-Day, the son and name of the 26th president was not surprised by the fact that the rushing water had washed away his car about 2,000 yards east of the place it should come down. .

“We will start the war from here!” declared Roosevelt, who remained on the beach to greet, guide and reassure the soldiers when the artillery fire came all around them. For Roosevelt’s courage and quick thinking, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He died of a heart attack a month later.

When my group was at the cemetery, there was no sound, no courage. A president we met – Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – said loudly.

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That’s fitting, said Jean-Pierre Josy, the Belgian man I was sitting in the cemetery with. As he went over the points, he said, “You don’t need any words when you come here.”

For me, that’s already the case