200 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne jumped from the sky on Carentan, in the English Channel, this Sunday, June 2. An impressive spectacle to pay tribute to the soldiers of this division on this 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Everything has changed since 1944. The weapons, the devices… The 101st Airborne is now a helicopter unit. But it is still an avant-garde troupe. She promises to bring down thunder and the show is there: “It’s extraordinary, impressive! We didn’t come for nothing”, a gentleman told us while looking at the sky. Another, amazed, blurted out: “It’s crazy to see their equipment and especially to see how they handle their helicopters. It’s a very nice army, I think.”
The 101st Airborne specializes in vertically enveloping enemies. The young soldiers are very proud to display their strength in this swamp where their elders distinguished themselves: “It’s important for them to remember that their roots come from here, on this battlefield of the Second World War. It’s also important to show what they are capable of today,” explains General Sylvia Brett, Commander of the 101st Airborne.
This Division experienced its baptism of fire on June 6, 1944, in the marshes of lower Cotentin. It was there, from June 8 to 13, that it achieved its first historic feat by capturing Carentan. This part of the town was the essential nerve point for connecting the beachheads of the American landings at Omaha and Utah Beach.
The road to Saint-Côme is teeming and everyone is surprised to be there in such large numbers. What the crowd mainly came to see was the flight of the legendary C-47. Around ten of this historic troop transport plane from the Second World War took off from Duxford airfield in England to drop 200 paratroopers above Carentan. In period clothing, they are left to the winds and hazards, as in 1944: “Paratroopers have that extra something”a tourist tells us with his binoculars in hand.
The C-47s of the 101st Airborne in the skies of Carentan.
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© France Télévisions
200 parachutists in the sky of Carentan.
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© France Télévisions
A little further away, this elderly couple would not have missed the event for anything in the world. They are there every year: “It’s nice, they’re courageous all the same. It’s good. Given our age, we may not see them again. So to attend this for the 80th is important”, a lady tells us.
THE “para american” is a mythical figure here. This release is a kind of high mass, a leap into history so as not to forget.
