Ste Mère Eglise is located near the RN13, 10 kilometers west of UTAH BEACH.

Night of June 6th 1944

Just before 2200 hours, on June 5th, twenty C-47 of the 9th Troop Carrier Command Pathfinders Group took off from the base of North-Witham, near Grantham, england. Each carried a group of elite paratroopers, all volunteers. Their direction : Ste Mère Eglise and Ste Marie du Mont. The crew and their men were therefore the first to know the exact place of the Normandy landings.
Lieutenant colonel Joel CROUCH piloted the lead plane. The C-47 followed rigourously the aforseen itinerary, without any radio communication. The squadron crossed the english channel, flying as low as was possible, changing course without knowledge. Just after midnight, the C-47's crossed the french coast near Carteret.

The mission of this entirely new unit called "Pathfinders" was essential. They had to lay in prechosen places luminous pannels in the shape of a T to be visible from the air but not from the ground; These pannels were to be afixed with smoke generators to indicate the wind direction, and also radio-electric markers that would guide the planes towards them.

At precisely 0015 hour in the morning of June 6th, the red signal luminated the fuselage of the lead C-47. Captain Frank LILLYMAN, of the 101st Airborne Division, knew he would jump in a few seconds.

He stood up, with his parachute "static-line snap fastener" linked to the anchor-line cable across the top of the cabin. With little time left he briefly looked at the group of twenty paratroopers ready to exit. The redlight turned to green, and at the command of "GO!" LILLYMAN leaped into the darkness of the night. At this moment captain LILLYMAN would be the first man to be dropped over Normandy.

Thirty minutes after landing, captain Frank LILLYMAN heard the noise of the engines of the C-47's which were arriving from the west: These aircraft were of the US Army Air Corp's IX Troop Carrier Command, transporting the paratroopers of the 101st and 82nd Airborne. Flying in a formation of 200 meters wide and 450 kilometers long !

A sight that captain LILLYMAN had no time to enjoy. While assembling the men of his group, Lieutenant colonel Patrick CASSIDY, battalion commander of the 1st battalion 501st Parachute Infrantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, asked LILLYMAN to set a roadblock up, a little farther north, near Foucarville.