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Airborne Museum/St Mere Eglise
Above: A recreation using display models of a scene just prior to D-Day when General Eisenhower visited members of the 82nd Airborne to wish them luck on their pending venture.
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Above: Replica of a Douglas Dakota, into which you've just walked, with paratroopers on board. The room is in darkness, with the droning sound of airplane engines, intersperesed with shell fire. I even think the display appeared to move as if in turbulence, could be my imagination, I don't know. Quite a shock to the system, which is probably what the curators of the museum wanted to create.
Above: A fascinating piece of information from Staff Sergeant Ginter, and alongside him still hanging there since the 5th June 1944, Private John Steele of the 82nd airborne. He along with his colleagues had inadvertently been dropped directly over the village. His parachute was caught in one of the pinnacles of the church tower, causing the suspension lines of his parachute to stretch to their full length, leaving him hanging on the side of the church. The wounded paratrooper, shot in the leg, hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead, before the Germans took him prisoner. He later escaped from the Germans and rejoined his division when US troops of the 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment attacked the village capturing thirty Germans and killing another eleven. He was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart for being wounded in combat. The villagers of Ste Mere Eglise have hung a replica there ever since.