Beginning in the late hours of D-Day -1, parachute elements of the 82nd and 101st American airborne divisions units engaged in a night jump behind Nazi lines to secure the Cotentin pennisula. One of the six participating regiments, the 507th PIR, was the subject of a Friday night segment on the History Channel.
Briefly told, scattered elements of the 507th landed several miles south of its intended drop zone near bridges in the vicinity of Carentin, coming down instead in marshland around the French village of Graines.
A riveting story of heroism and retribution.
They landed some twenty miles from their target and found themselves surrounded--or immersed--in deep marshes. Many died, and most of the survivors lost their heavy weapons to the dark waters and were short on food. But the paratroopers of the 507th PIR found allies in the townspeople of the nearby village of Graignes. Unfortunately, the French were not the only ones to note their arrival, and they were soon surrounded by Nazi troops.
D-DAY: THE SECRET MASSACRE reveals how under two hundred soldiers and the citizens of this small town banded together to face and entire SS Panzer regiment of some 2,000 troops, holding off the German force for nearly a week. In the end, outmanned and under-armed, the survivors fled, trusting that the Geneva Convention would protect the wounded, left behind with the medical officer in the local church. Instead, the SS extracted a brutal revenge on the remnants of the force that had withheld them so valiantly.
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After the clear channel flight, the skies had clouded over Normandy. Pilots carrying Hinchliff's unit, the 507th Regiment of the 82nd, had to take evasive action to avoid running into other planes, and the unit was dropped about 17 miles off its target.
Many paratroopers drowned when they tumbled into the flooded area, and the rest were widely scattered. About 170 men eventually straggled together near Graignes (pronounced GRAHN-yah). To hold a road that led to Omaha and Utah beaches, they had a few 81-millimeter mortars, five .30-caliber machine guns and their personal weapons.
On D-Day plus five, a Sunday,Hinchliff went to 10 a.m. mass at the local Catholic church. The familiar Latin liturgy was interrupted by a Frenchman who warned that Germans were coming.
They came in regimental strength, 2,000 to 3,000 men trying to break through at Graignes to reinforce the beaches.
"We butchered 'em, and they hit us again -- same thing," Hinchliff said. More than 1,200 Germans were killed that day.
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At great risk to themselves, the villagers at Graignes hid the paratroopers, fed them, and help find and retrieve their heavy weapons and ammunition. After digging in around the village, about 180 paratroopers repelled several regimental assaults on their position by panzer grenadiers trying to break through to Carentin and the assault beaches. After blowing a vital bridge, the small force was finally dislodged when the SS men brought up two 88mm guns and shattered the village church where the Americans had spotters. The survivors retreated from the village, scattered back into the marshes, and eventually took refuge in the barn of the Giroud sisters, who fed and cared for the twenty-some survivors until elements of the 101st Airborne broke through.
The wounded paratroopers left behind were not so fortunate.
The French villagers at Graignes risked their lives to help save the day. American paratroopers were not the only heroes on Contentin on D-Day.
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