THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406050071
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONY GERMANOTTA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: ST. LO, NORMANDY
Old women rushed forward to mutter ``merci.'' Little children who knew no other English offered flowers and said, ``Thank you.''
And the endless applause itself somehow seemed reverent rather than festive.
Even the church bells pealed when the American soldiers returned to St. Lo five decades after destroying it.
The survivors of Omaha Beach and the bloody battle for Normandy are often haunted by the horrors they witnessed.
Saturday's memories, though, may also last a lifetime.
``All those people cheering, clapping and saying `merci' was the highlight of my life,'' said Charles P. Manning, a D-Day vet from Boston. He spoke with the radiance of one who had just had an almost religious experience.
``I had feelings in my mind and body I never had before in my whole life,'' he said.
Manning's epiphany came as he paraded once again down the town's main street, holding hands with two local children. For block after block there were people offering thanks and affection.
The residents of St. Lo turned out in force Saturday to show the members of America's 29th Division that it's not just veterans who remember World War II.
It was especially poignant here, where GIs more accurately obliterated than liberated St. Lo.
When the French town of 12,000 was captured from the Germans after seven weeks of bombing, shelling and fighting, it was little more than rubble. Hundreds of St. Lo residents died when caught in the surprise carpet bombing of the town on D-Day night. Others were forced to flee into the countryside for safety.
Suzanne Blaise was just 4 then but remembers the fight for St. Lo vividly.
There were nine children in her family,
the youngest just 5 months old. They lived in a cellar for the 44 days it took before the town fell. She gestured to show an American how the ground shook when the bombs fell.
But she shouted, ``Bravo, bravo'' to the soldiers and wept as they passed in their commemorative march through the center of town. One of her sisters slipped out to get a piece of chewing gum from the veterans, just like she had when she was a child so many years ago.
``They were our saviors,'' Blaise said.
The people of St. Lo hold no grudges against the GIs. They know that thousands of 29th Division men perished to capture the city. There's a monument in the town square to Maj. Thomas Howie, an instructor from Virginia's Staunton Military Academy, who died in the fighting just outside the town. His body arrived with the conquering troops, draped in an American flag, and lay in state among the remains of the city's cathedral.
And residents realize now how important St. Lo was to an Allied victory. It is a hub for several highways and had to be captured if Americans were to break free of Normandy.
The town has another monument that helps explain its willingness to sacrifice history for freedom. The monument contains the names of 155 citizens executed by the Germans during the occupation and lists the hundreds of others who were deported to work camps.
At the center, behind glass, is an urn containing the ashes of St. Lo residents who died in German concentration camps.
John MiGnon, the vice mayor, was a teenager in 1944 and fled the city after the first few nights of American bombing. He has studied the history of the 29th Division, known as the Blue and Gray because it was a blend of Maryland and Virginia National Guard units. He knows of their sacrifices - and their generosity. ``In 1944, I had one brother who was born three weeks before the bombing,'' MiGnon recalled. ``He was ill and it was possible that he would die. It was American soldiers who were specialists with children from the United States who saved my brother.
``That explains my gratitude to the Americans.''
Everywhere the GIs went Saturday, they encountered that gratitude.
A little girl told a veteran in French that she loved him.
A giggling young boy sought shelter from the rain under the coat of a returning GI.
At one point Saturday, their tour buses weaved through the tight, sunken roads that ring the town. It was here, in the bitter hedgerow fighting, that many D-Day survivors died.
The terrain is daunting. Tall weed-covered banks separate small fields. There are only a few narrow openings in the hedgerows, and the Germans had them targeted. A number of 29th Division units were surrounded for days in these hedgerows.
Rocco L. Russo, of Virginia Beach, remembered digging a foxhole on each side of a hedgerow and then jumping from one to the other, depending on which group of Germans was firing at him.
As the rain pelted down on the returnees Saturday, Russo recalled how he had spotted a column of German tanks heading his way while he was surrounded.
The sky had been leaden then, too, he said, and the company's bazooka team was down to only three shells to use against the tanks. Russo prayed for help.
Just then, the clouds parted and two P-47 bombers came through and attacked the German tanks. Three were destroyed and the others retreated to St. Lo.
Since then, Russo said, he has not complained about the weather.
When the buses stopped so tour guides could explain what had happened in the fighting in an area known as Martinville, a stream of French people came out of a farmhouse. One banged on a bus door, and when it opened, he poured a shot of Calvados, the strong local apple brandy, from a flask and offered it to a GI inside.
The man, Bernard Durosier, was 9 when the Americans fought and died along this road, he said. He had waited here Saturday, hoping for a chance to show his gratitude.
Other residents joined him.
George Legardiner, a 70-year-old wearing a French fisherman's hat, tried to strike up a conversation with Hubert ``Slugger'' Williamson of Norfolk.
Williamson had been an artillery forward observer here when this road was the front lines of the battle for St. Lo. ``It was terrible, horrible,'' Williamson recalled. ``You could hardly walk down this road without them picking you off.''
The Germans kept counterattacking, Williamson said. Legardiner nodded. He had been in the resistance then, living a few miles from this spot. Seven times, he said, the Americans were pushed back before finally capturing this ridge.
He, too, had come to thank the GIs. Three of his brothers had been taken prisoner to Germany, he said.
He was honored, he said, by the Americans' return.
{KEYWORDS} WORLD WAR II NORMANDY D-DAY
by CNB