D-Day: Hidden Secrets of St. Marie du Mont | History Traveler Episode 188

[Music] for the past few days we have been running around and exploring the area of normandy france and uh man the the history of this place is is so rich and you know even though most people associate normandy and the history here with world war ii well life went on after the war but in a lot of ways this whole area still feels like 1944. so whenever you're walking these streets you can you can visualize uh you know some of the the engagements that took place like here in st marie dumont now in this area this is right in the heart of where the 101st airborne landed so today we're going to be doing some exploring around the town and seeing what it was like for the men who fought here on june 6 1944 [Music] well right now i am in the center of saint marie dumont and there's a famous picture that i was familiar with that was taken right here now on june 6 there was a u.s paratrooper who was positioned in the recesses behind this pump and they have a little information panel talking a little bit about it and it said that he uh engaged and killed 10 german soldiers from this very spot so like i said whenever you're here like you can actually like see and visualize things as they happened so yeah june 6th there would have been a lot of bullets flying right here in this very spot so this photograph is arguably one of the most famous photographs of easy company 506 parachute infantry regiment 101st airborne simply for the fact that it was used on the cover of the book band of brothers now we did in another video we talked a little bit about the fact that the gettysburg museum of history has the original negative to this photograph and this photograph was shot on june 7th when the fourth infantry division linked up with uh elements of the 506 namely easy company and what you see in this photograph is forrest guth francis mallett david morris daniel west floyd talbert campbell t smith and in the back row you see some of the fourth infantry division guys now one thing i want you to see in this photograph is there's no statue it's simply the base and if you look at the actual statue the way it is now and and what it is is a memorial to world war one soldiers and during world war ii the french people took away that statue because germans were going around to the various cities here or villages and taking these statues and melting them down and using them for the war effort so they took it down and saved that monument now forrest gu took a series of photographs he snuck a camera in he wasn't supposed to do that uh thank us thank god for us historians that he did do that because he documented very well some um really iconic shots of what easy company photographs or easy company soldiers look like on d-day now there was another photograph taken by forrest guth and i have a copy of that and that's taken from the back um and and it's the opposite view and you can see the church that is in there and um the church is right here and it is you can see see it there and again you can see there's no statue on top of that monument the gettysburg museum of history also has the original negative of this photograph as well we have about half of the forest guth negatives uh the the d-day experience dead man's corner here in normandy has the other half forest goose divided them and uh they're split between us we we both have prints of everything but half the negatives or normandy have to negatives are at the gettysburg museum of history so whenever the germans occupied this area they occupied a lot of the homes and businesses here in st marie dumont including this place right here well eric seems to know everybody around here and has some pretty good hookups he actually knows the gentleman who owns this home so he's going to let us go inside and take a look at how the germans left their mark in this particular building all right so we just walked into this home now during the occupation this would have served as like a german aid station and take a look at this they decided to include a little bit of artwork here on on the wall that still remains today that is really neat do you know what that says up there at the top a day of time day of time [Music] day of time okay day off day off oh day off time okay interesting okay all right and then here in this corner you can see some other remnants of some of this german artwork that was done in this place that is so fascinating all right so uh i was just invited to come to the the upstairs portion of this house and uh one of the things about normandy is that a lot of things were left behind well some of them ended up right here in this house uh and holy smokes there are some pretty amazing things here [Music] [Music] [Music] well here is the church right here in the middle of saint marie dumont and wow this place is something else uh well at least on the exterior haven't been inside yet uh but i'm sure it's nice on the inside as well this church was built before 1100. so this is a very very old structure and had seen a lot of history even before d-day and then on d-day uh well of course we've we've already mentioned some other videos like with holde and with breakworth that uh you know there were some batteries in this area well obviously with that church tower being so tall that was used as an observation post and was hit by by one of the guns from holy battery but there was also some fighting that took place inside the church so we're going to go inside now and yeah take a look and and see what they have in there all right uh just got here inside the church and wow you want to talk about something that is just old and impressive this place is something else now on d-day uh obviously as we've already mentioned there there were germans that were occupying this area there were germans in this church and as 101st airborne guys were landing all around well there was fighting that took place not only around here but actually inside the church and there are battle scars inside of this structure that bear witness to what happened here on june 6th so right here at the back of the church is the confessional booth and take a look at this right here on the door is some bullet damage from the exchange of gunfire looks like it might have been an automatic weapon of some kind that just kind of raked fire right across this corner man oh man now this is up more towards the front of the church and if you look closely here they've put a piece of plastic on the back side to block it off but here's another bullet hole in the glass here wow [Music] here is the altar at the front of the church and something that they have up here that i thought was interesting was the statue now i have to be honest i don't know if this was here in 1944 or if it was added later but either way the symbolism is quite poignant you have this soldier somebody who is a a man of war and yet he comes into this church and he takes off his helmet and his gloves and he is taking a moment to uh to pray but on june 6th this place that had been a house of prayer uh became a a place of violence but it wouldn't stay that way [Music] so what what is this this the people is dead during the world war two to the village of saint mary demo different people and here you are my two uncles do you know how they died yes is uh is dead in 1940 with a german arrive in france jean is dead near valencians of the north of the france and noel is dead near amir wow [Music] dang charles just went into the darkness there all right well as i have said before it pays to know people and it pays to know people who know people and uh eric happens to know the mayor of saint marie de mont who has access to the church tower so this is typically closed off but he has uh been generous enough to let us come up this this tiny little space here all right we just got here uh well not to the top interesting [Music] this room uh filled with dirt up here charles what are we what is this i don't know the english name so oh there is a vote inside the church the other part of oh sorry oh you're fine he is a he's a golden one oh okay oh okay yeah i follow what you're saying wow that is interesting but this isn't the top well you have some difficulty with the time you have the part if uh is destroyed yes yeah i see interesting okay making our way up another round of these tiny steps ah this place is cool as heck all right moving on up this medieval staircase and oh wow this is really something and i do not want to be in here at the top or bottom of the hour whenever these things go off okay we're going to go on up oh dude check that out that is seriously cool dated 1679. interesting all right i'm going to continue on up oh gosh dang it just bump my head okay i think we've made our way to the top oh my gosh oh my gosh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] all right i guess we're going to uh step out here and oh my gosh oh dude we are way the heck up here uh i'm going to put a lot of faith in this old architecture uh so yeah right out there in the distance on the horizon well there is utah beach i haven't pointed it out in this video but right there is the castle of st marie dumont which was partially destroyed in the french revolution and oh my goodness [Music] all right now whenever you're up here uh you can definitely understand why the germans wanted to use this as an artillery observation post and uh why the americans might have targeted it on d-day now if if you look back here in the distance uh back here is where holy battery would have been and on d-day after uh the assault on holy battery there was one of the guns one of the german guns that didn't get destroyed the americans turned it because they thought there were germans up here and fired on the church now it's a little bit hazy as to whether the germans were up here or whether there were americans up here at the time one of the shots missed the church tower here and the other one hit right here [Music] all right uh it turns out that i was wrong we weren't on the top level we are ascending to the top level now on these itty-bitty steps yeah i can appreciate the architecture and the beauty of it but on a practical level like why why was this necessary why does anybody need to to be this high all right so this is uh looking back just to give you an idea of what we just came up pretty uh pretty amazing very tight quarters though oh dear lord what have i done what have i done uh this is uh just a little bit horrifying the view is nice but oh my god all right uh so charles just brought us into the dome of the church tower and i don't think many people get up here but there are some pretty interesting and fascinating marks that the german spotters who occupied this dome left look at this this is a little bit of artwork that was left behind by the germans here in st marie dumont and also we know the name of at least one person who was here that looks to be something allen not sure what that first one is i'll have to revisit that but you can see that this is left in maybe september of 1941. that is pretty darn cool [Music] i mentioned up in the church tower the the damage that was sustained by a shell that was fired from holy battery well here is holy battery and up here now if you look right there and that hole well that's the hole that was left by the shell and here's what is really fascinating is that this picture this is a copy of a picture and it's addressed to the mayor of saint marie de mont from maxwell taylor with regrets for the war damage to his church that is fascinating we're getting ready to leave the church but before we go i really wanted to show this picture that they have near the back of the church uh this is showing the first mass that was celebrated the first sunday after the allied landings on june 6 here at st marie dumont huh [Music] all right well that i have to say was something else to be able to kind of walk these grounds where the men of the 101st airborne fought during world war ii uh is just indescribable and saint marie de monte especially this church a lot of symbolism here where this went from being a place of peace to a place of occupation and oppression and then men came here and fought and died so that it could be made a place of freedom again but anyway if you ever come to normandy definitely come to st marie dumont [Music] [Applause] we also have a uh a plague of flies up here in the church dome i don't know what's going on with that but man there's a bunch of them [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 218,297

Keywords: history, travel, history traveler, history underground, wwii, ww2, wwii documentary, d-day, d-day documentary, normandy, 101st airborne, easy company, st. marie du mont, france, normandie, normandy invasion, normandy france, normandy d day

Id: An7Z9BN605A

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 16 2022