On the church’s steeple.

A uniformed mannequin hanging from a parachute and rigging on the steeple, in honor of Pvt John Steele (of F Company, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment), his fateful jump, and the liberation of the town. 

On the night before D-Day (June 6, 1944), American soldiers of the 82nd Airborne were parachuting into the area west of Sainte-Mère-Église in successive waves. The town had been the target of an aerial attack, during which a stray incendiary bomb had set fire to a house east of the town square. The church bell was rung to alert the town to the emergency, and townspeople turned out in large numbers to form a bucket brigade supervised by members of the German garrison. By 1:00 am, the town square was well-lit and filled with German soldiers and villagers when two planeloads of paratroopers from the 1st and 2nd battalions, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, were dropped in error directly over the village.

The paratroopers were easy targets, and Steele was one of the few not killed. He was wounded in the foot by a burst of flak. His parachute caught in one of the pinnacles of the church tower, leaving him hanging on the side of the church. Steele hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead before the Germans took him prisoner. He escaped four hours later from the Germans and rejoined his division when US troops of the 505th's 3rd Battalion attacked the village, capturing 30 Germans and killing another 11. He was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart for being wounded in combat.

Source of information: www.army.mil, en.wikipedia.org

Source of photos: Google Maps