Pvt. John Steele's D-Day story

The tower of the church in the village of Sainte-Mère-Église stands today much as it has since Medieval times. (Don Dale photo)

If you've read the book or seen the movie "The Longest Day," you know the story behind what you see in the picture I took in Sainte-Mère-Église.

The church has stood in some form since the 1080s in a town that has seen its share of wars -- from the Hundred Years War (1337 to 1453) that pitted two royal houses against each other in their quest for the French throne to the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), primarily fought between French Catholics and Huguenot Protestants.

Allied and German forces also faced off in Sainte-Mère-Église on June 6, 1944 -- D-Day.

In the early hours of the invasion of Europe, just before 2 a.m., American paratroopers suffered heavy casualties as the Germans who were occupying the village began to realize what was happening. Burning buildings in Sainte-Mère-Église illuminated the sky, making easy targets of the invading paratroopers. Some landed directly on the fires. Many landed in trees or dangled from utility poles and were shot.

One man who made the jump over Sainte-Mère-Église featured prominently in author Cornelius Ryan's book "The Longest Day" and in the 1962 film that followed. U.S. Army Private John Steele's parachute snagged the tower of the town church. Wounded, Steele hung from the church for two hours, watching the fighting below and pretending to be dead -- until the Germans eventually took him prisoner. Though deafened by the church bells that had rung since the invasion began, Steele soon escaped and rejoined his division in time for an Allied attack on the village that captured 30 Germans and killed another 11.

When I was there for the 60th anniversary D-Day observance in 2004, the French had gone all out to welcome Americans back to Sainte-Mère-Église. In the intervening years, Ryan's book and the movie had made a folk hero out of John Steele. To memorialize Steele's story, the people who lived in the ancient French town had hung a parachute and an effigy from the church tower on which he was accidentally entangled.

Private Steele survived the war and continued to visit the town throughout his life. The townspeople made him an honorary citizen. A tavern named for Steele now stands near the town square . Steele died on May 16, 1969, in Fayetteville, N.C., just three weeks before the 25th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

But thanks to Ryan's book, the movie, and the people of Sainte-Mère-Église, his story lives on.