In front of the Chateau next to the town hall.  Marker One of a series of D-day information panels with pictures and text in French and English describing the events in the vicinity during the invasion.  

At midnight on June 5, 1044, General Maxwell Taylor, head of the 101st Division's "Screaming Eagles" paratroopers, found himself alone in a pasture near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.  "If I give an order, only the cows will hear it", he said to himself bitterly. But a few minutes later, he came across oneof his soldiers.  Both men were so relieved that they embraced like brothers; then they tried to find out exactly where they were.

Getting their bearing was the first concern of the Allied parachutists that landed that dark night around Saine-Marie-du-Mont.  Dispersed in unknown territory, lacking heavy arms, and without their accustomed commanders, these lone soldiers still had courage enough to attack the enemy wherever they encountered him.

Many of the "Screaming Eagles" landed in the gardens and courtyards of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.  Awakened by the surprise parachute assault, German soldiers attempted to reach Maillardiere, the headquarters of the German Kommandantur.  Fighting broke out sporadically through the night in the town square and streets.  There was no organized battle; the Germans merely tride to reassemble their forces, exchanging gunfire with the Americans as they attempted to regroup.  It was a deadly game in which every man was both hunter and hunted.

Well before dawn, the hedges along the road from the town to the shore were filled with Allied paratroopers ready to attack any German reinforcements that might arrive.

The Normandy Invasion could now begin at the other side of the town.  The shoreline which the citizens of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont had known as La Madeleine would in a few minutes become the history-making Utah Beach.