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Joe Steinbring

Sainte-Mère-Église

The curved glass C-47 pavilion, a U.S. star on its windows and red and white flowers in front.
The Airborne Museum’s C-47 pavilion. Planes like the one inside dropped paratroopers over Sainte-Mère-Église on D-Day.2006 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring
Static offline map showing Sainte-Mère-Église in France with a location pin.

I visited Sainte-Mère-Église in the summer of 2006, while I was studying abroad in Paris in college, on a trip to Normandy that also took me to Utah Beach at Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and the German war cemetery at La Cambe. American paratroopers landed in and around the town in the first hours of D-Day, June 6, 1944, and John Steele of the 82nd Airborne Division ended up hanging from the church tower when his parachute caught on it. A paratrooper figure still hangs there in his memory, a few steps from the Airborne Museum.

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  • The stone bell tower above a rain-wet square, a white parachute caught on a corner of its roof.

    The church tower, where a paratrooper figure hangs in memory of John Steele.

    2006 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring

  • Mannequins of American paratroopers in glass cases, the nearest a medic with red crosses.

    Paratrooper uniforms on display at the Airborne Museum.

    2006 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring

  • A C-47 transport plane above mannequin soldiers, motorcycles and a French flag.

    The museum’s C-47, painted with the black-and-white invasion stripes Allied aircraft wore on D-Day.

    2006 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring

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