Uniformed American soldiers poured out of the bars and cafes around Six-Six Square, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
Phil Collins blared from the speakers. American flags fluttered from chimneys, windows, overhead power lines, even from the neck of a golden retriever jogging along with its owner.
Is this really France?
“This is the 53rd state,” said Philippe Nekrassoff, the local deputy mayor, as he walked through the square, which is dotted with Roman milestones and medieval churches, and where American paratroopers in maroon berets played soccer with a group of local teenagers. “Americans feel at home here.”
This is Sainte-Mère-Église, a small town in northwestern Normandy with only one main road. The town and its surroundings, which are home to 3,000 people, are surrounded by cattle and tall hedges.
Hundreds of American paratroopers landed in the vicinity in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. Four hours later—even before the world’s largest fleet arrived at the nearby Normandy beaches—one of the soldiers lowered the Nazi flag and raised an American flag over the town hall.
“This was the first town to be liberated on the Western Front,” read two marble plaques on the front of the building, one in French and one in English.
The story of that liberation is now woven into the town’s culture.
While most villages in Normandy hold annual D-Day commemorations, tiny Sainte-Mère-Église hosts six parades, 10 ceremonies, 11 concerts and a parachute jump by active-duty U.S. paratroopers.
Many street corners are lined with statues, plaques and historical plaques. Shop names include D-Day, Bistrot 44 and Hair'born Salon. A mannequin of U.S. paratrooper John Steele hangs from a church steeple in the 1962 film The Longest Day, his parachute flapping in the wind, just as he did on June 6, 1944.
At first glance, the town seems too American, too forthright for a country that thrives on self-criticism and keeping its head down.
But stay for a moment and you’ll discover the deep, heartfelt, and incredibly beautiful relationship this town has with America’s paratroopers.
“The hospitality here is something you don’t find anywhere else in the region,” said Jacques Villain, a photographer who has documented the village’s celebrations for 25 years and is the driving force behind the just-published bilingual book, “Eglise Saint-Méré: We Will Remember Them.”
He noted that the town's first D-Day commemorations were small and that the war was still raging in Europe. On the first anniversary of the D-Day landings, Maj. Gen. James Gavin, then commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, sent 30 soldiers from Germany to take part.
Just after midnight on June 6, 1944, waves of low-flying aircraft roared over St. Mel's Church and its surrounding area. Thousands of parachutes flew from the planes, flying in the sky like confetti.
Cliff Mohan, whom Ms. Fry called “our American,” was strapped to a parachute that floated down into a ditch she had dug in Georgette Fry's backyard as she huddled with her parents and neighbors.
“To me, he represented something extraordinary — liberation,” said Ms. Fleiss, now 96.
She recalled how a German soldier stationed at her home suddenly appeared, his rifle pointed at the trench. Ms. Fleiss's father jumped up and begged the German not to shoot. Miraculously, he agreed.
Soon after, the German soldier realized that the Americans had captured the town and surrendered to Mr. Mohan, who Ms. Fleiss described as remarkably calm and offering him gum, chocolate and cigarettes. He curled up on his parachute for a nap before heading out to fight at dawn.
“We kissed him goodbye passionately,” Ms. Fleiss said. “And a friendship was born.”
As the first place to be liberated, St. Mel's Church soon became the site of the first burial of fallen American soldiers – 13,800 of them were buried in three fields around the village. The graves were dug by locals.
“It was just a small village of 1,300 people,” said Marc Lefèvre, who served as mayor for 30 years until he left in 2014. “They saw the toll, and all those trucks full of coffins. It had a huge impact.”
One of the graves is that of Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt II, who died of a heart attack five weeks after landing on Utah Beach. He was the eldest son of former US President Theodore Roosevelt.
A Life magazine photographer captured the mayor's wife, Simone Reno, laying flowers at the mayor's grave.
The response from America's grieving mothers was immediate. Hundreds wrote to Ms. Reno, begging her to visit their sons' graves and send back photos. She agreed.
Henri-Jean Renaud, 89, recently flipped through a carefully curated album of handwritten letters he wrote to his mother 80 years ago.
Later, some women came to visit the graves themselves. They had dinner with the Reynolds and sometimes stayed at their home. “I'm still in touch with a family that had children my age,” Mr. Reynolds said.
He said he still visits a soldier's grave “from time to time to say hello.”
Years later, American veterans began to travel to St. Mel's Church for the annual D-Day commemorations.
The town had only one hotel, which was later renamed after Mr. Steele. So Ms. Reynolds, who died in 1988, formed the Friends of the American Veterans Association, and many locals joined to entertain visitors in their homes.
Volunteers spent the afternoon driving around, trying to help veterans find the exact spot in a field, swamp or bush where they first landed.
“For most of them, that's where they experienced their first loss, their first time feeling strong emotion, their first time seeing a friend killed, their first time seeing a friend injured,” Raynor said. “Those things are imprinted on you for your whole life. So they're always trying to find that beginning.”
In 1984, Ms. Fleiss was teaching Greek and Latin at a high school in Alençon, about 140 miles from Sainte-Mère-Église. On June 6 of that year, she was watching television when she saw on the screen an American soldier returning to Sainte-Mère-Église. He was stocky and wore a baseball cap instead of a helmet. But his demeanor was just as laid-back. She jumped in her car and rushed back to her childhood town.
“That was my American friend,” she said. “We hugged each other tightly.”
Now, 80 years later, few of the veterans remain. Their successors now fill the town square, where Mr. Steele and his fellow World War II jumpers are remembered as veritable deities.
They were joined by thousands of re-enactment enthusiasts, tourists and French citizens who came to pay their respects.
“It’s overwhelming,” said Jonathan Smith, 43, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division for 18 and a half years and was here as a retirement present. “I couldn’t walk 10 steps this morning without kids stopping me and asking for pictures and handshakes.”
The local tourism board expects one million people to come to the town during the 10-day commemoration celebrations this year.
They include descendants of Americans who commanded the Normandy landings, from General Roosevelt Jr. to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied commander-in-chief.
“I felt like I needed to be here and be a part of this,” said Chloe Gavin, General Gavin’s daughter, who also returned frequently before his death.
On a recent evening, local families welcomed more than 200 American soldiers into their homes for dinner.
On the wall across from City Hall hangs an American flag hoisted by soldiers in 1944, three generations of the Offray family sat in the garden with three American paratroopers from Puerto Rico. Family matriarch Andrea Offray told them about her memories of the Normandy landings.
She was nine months pregnant and living outside the city on a horse farm that had been requisitioned by a German battalion. She said that just days before the Allied landings, the soldiers set out for Cherbourg, France, because they were sure the Allies would attack there.
“We are so lucky,” said Ms. Ofray, a 97-year-old great-grandmother of 13. “Otherwise, it would have been a bloodbath.”
Three American paratroopers landed in her garden.
An American military hospital was soon built next door. Her farm became a clinic and temporary shelter for civilians fleeing the fighting as the Germans tried to retake Saint-Mer-Eglise. They fed 120 people in a month. She gave birth to her son, Michel-Yves, on a camp bed because her bed was given to the wounded.
Michel-Yves will soon be 80 years old.
Ms. Auvray described the sight of missile explosions nearby and her fear that the Germans would retake the town, but she was also thankful that they did not.
“We’ve been through so much together,” she said of the American soldiers and French residents. “That’s why our relationship is so precious.”
