Sainte-Mère-Église Church Editorial Photo

Sainte-Mère-Église is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in northwestern France. The town`s main claim to fame is that it played a significant part in the World War II Normandy landings because this village stood right in the middle of route N13, which the Germans would have most likely used on any significant counterattack on the troops landing on Utah and Omaha Beaches. In the early morning of 6 June 1944 mixed units of the U.S. 82nd Airborne and U.S. 101st Airborne Divisions occupied the town in Mission Boston, giving it the claim to be one of the first towns liberated in the invasion. German soldiers used the belfry of the church as an observation post during the occuption.