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rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

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T R E 4 5 O N

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

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If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / D-Day: Remembering John Steele

D-Day: Remembering John Steele

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I don’t remember how I first stumbled across the D-Day story of American paratrooper John Steele, but it stuck with me because it’s a helluva tale. Here’s a brief account of Steele’s wartime escapades from WKMS, the Murray State NPR station:

In the early morning hours, [Steele] jumped with the 82nd Airborne Division into Normandy, France. His jump ended with an entangled parachute on the steeple of the church in Sainte-Mère-Église.

This left Steele hanging over the city for several hours before eventually being taken prisoner by the Germans. After his capture, escape, and the close of the war, John Steele returned to his hometown of Metropolis [IL].

He later moved with his wife to North Carolina. On the 20th anniversary of D-Day, he returned to France and found he was memorialized by the village with a mannequin on the church steeple and a depiction in a stained-glass window.

“He went back to Normandy and toured the beaches. They had a hotel and a bar named after him. They treated him like royalty basically. He signed autographs for several hours,” [Amanda Quint of the Metropolis Public Library] said.

I’ve read elsewhere that Steele played possum while dangling above the village since the occupying Germans had shot fellow paratroopers. Apparently the paratroopers weren’t supposed to land in the village, and a stray bomb had started a fire that woke the townspeople and occupiers. So the paratroopers were sitting ducks as they glided toward earth.

After dangling for what must have seemed an eternity, Steele was taken prisoner, but only briefly. He escaped in the chaos of the invasion and rejoined his unit. According to Steele’s Wikipedia page, Sainte-Mère-Église was the first town liberated by Americans on D-Day.

***

In the 1990s, a couple of friends and I were talking about their upcoming trip to France. One of the pair was a huge WW II history buff, and she shared their plans to visit Normandy beach towns. I asked if they had heard of John Steele, and they had not, so I told them what I’d read.

When they visited Sainte-Mère-Église, they saw a tavern named for the paratrooper, Auberge le John Steele, which is still in operation today. They bought the above-pictured plate and gave it to me as a souvenir.

This evening, maybe I’ll throw some grapes and cheese on that plate, root around in my liquor cabinet for some Calvados and raise a glass to the memory of John Steele. Long may it endure in Sainte-Mère-Église!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  2. 2.

    BC in Illinois

    My D-Day memory, from my mother’s handwritten notes of that day.

    Mom was a WAC, working in the Allied Headquarters in London, basically doing secretarial stuff.

    “Came D-Day, June 6, 1944. No office work was done that day so I visited an English lady I was friends with and she was very quiet because it was an important day and finally said she had lost both sons.”

    You can picture the day. Mom (22) and an older lady with two sons in the war. She thinks the lady is quiet because of the momentous events. It takes a while before the woman says that she has lost both of her sons in the invasion.

    We can picture it . . . but we really can’t.

    Then multiply that by thousands.

    D-Day, I always think of Mom. And that lady in London.

  3. 3.

    hueyplong

    At the risk of earning an award for pedantry and the enmity of all, I think Metropolis is in Illinois, on the other side of the river from Kentucky.

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    I’ve been to Ste-Mere-Église. There is now a very good Museum there focused on the paratroopers’ role in the D-Day invasion. What courage those men had.

    I am just gobsmacked at the GOP’s desire to elect someone who would turn our back on NATO and undo the whole basis of the freedom and prosperity of the post war west.

  5. 5.

    O. Felix Culpa

    I met a French woman from Normandy when I was hiking in Spain a few years ago. She was born after WWII, but expressed deep gratitude to America for D-Day. Apparently it is still a big deal there, and the locals continue to maintain and decorate the memorials. I was touched by how heartfelt her appreciation was.

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    Born in Metropolis, Illinois, on the Ohio River.  Not far from Paducah, KY.  Died aged 57 from throat cancer.  His wikipedia entry.

    Interesting story, and how sad about the floating duck paratroopers launched into the midst of German soldiers already out in the town square.

    It’s been sobering to read up on all the soldiers drowned and lost to torpedos, etc.  So many tanks and equipment lost in the waves, and the soldiers and sailors with them.

    Incredible to read of the courage and purpose shown by the WW2 generation.  Appalling to see so much backtracking and the appeal of fascism to many today (most of whom can’t really define the term).

    I hope that paying attention and reflecting on this 80th anniversary turns out to be an additional factor in Democrats winning across the board this November.

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Those old parachutes couldn’t really be steered.*  You could pull on two of the four sets of risers to slip a little forward, back, right, or left, but it didn’t do much.  You were at the mercy of gravity and prevailing winds once your ‘chute deployed.

    *The parachutes I used in the late ‘80s weren’t much different.  Also, you hit the ground pretty hard with those ‘chutes.  Much like jumping off the roof of a one story house.

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    @O. Felix Culpa:  Normandy goes on the 2-year bucket list.

    Visited the WW2 museum at Reims, France, a few years ago.  Eisenhower’s HQ, and where the Germans officially signed the first surrender papers on May 7.  They signed again on May 8 for the Soviets in Berlin.

    Eisenhower kept notes on casualties up on the wall.  They are still there.

    (Museum of the Surrender; I love that it’s on what’s now rue Franklin Roosevelt; blogpost with photo of the conference room.)

    Meaningful place to visit.  Plus, champagne capitol and a historic cathedral.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    @hueyplong: I generally ignore pedantry so as not to encourage pedants, but that’s an important detail, so I fixed it. Thanks!

  15. 15.

    Leto

    One of the jobs I wish I could have gotten, when I was retiring the first time, was for D-Day cemetery caretaker. It’s listed in USA Jobs, but a hard requirement (for good reason) is that you need to be able to speak French. Alas. that’s not me.

    At our last assignment, in the UK, we had a holocaust survivor come and speak to the base. I’ve known other survivors, and heard their stories, but it was still powerful. I wonder if having these modern fascist pricks listen to these people tell their stories, if it would do any good? I honestly don’t know. I just know you have to keep punching the fascists every chance you get.

  16. 16.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    BG James Gavin, commander of the 82nd Airborne at Market Garden, jumped with the troops and fractured two vertebrae.

    It didn’t help he landed on a parking lot.

    I’d had forgotten this until I recently watched on TCM “A Bridge Too Far” for the first time.

  20. 20.

    MazeDancer

    Flew my flag, outside, right side up. Cheered Mr. Biden’s speech. Applauded Zelensky hugging veterans.

    Toasted Macron tonight for going to every event and handing out medals. And ending his day at full attention on Utah beach listening to his national anthem beautifully sung by a military choir and an opera singer.

    Sounds like Betty has a good way to wrap up a very moving and stirring day.

  24. 24.

    montanareddog

    It appears that Sunak has shit the bed big time. If the reporting is correct, the Tories will have to get the spin doctors out in force.

    In his head-to-head debate with Keir Starmer earlier this week, Sunak told a gigantic whopper about how much more tax the median family would pay under a Labour government. He is getting so much pushback for that, that he left the D-Day memorial ceremony early today in order to fly back to London to do a TV interview to defend himself. The TV company are claiming they have receipts that the timing of the interview was not their choice, but the time slot offered by the Tory campaign office.

    He is going to get slaughtered for this.

  25. 25.

    TaMara

    My great uncle Erhardt died during the invasion, wounded on D-Day and died a few days later. I am sad we don’t know more about him, but as a familiar story, that generation doesn’t talk a lot about that time.

  26. 26.

    Scott

    The church has a permanent installation on its tower with a mannequin of Private Steele playing dead after his parachute got hung up on it.

     

  28. 28.

    bjacques

    @Suzanne: it’s the first time in a long time I’ve seen him relaxed and happy as any human being can be. I hope he will get to relax again very soon.

  30. 30.

    PaulB

    @montanareddog:  In his head-to-head debate with Keir Starmer earlier this week, Sunak told a gigantic whopper about how much more tax the median family would pay under a Labour government.

    For those interested in more info, this is a decent article about the controversy. The first paragraphs are below (links removed so that I don’t get put into limbo):

    The first televised debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer was dominated by the prime minister’s claim that every working family in the country would be paying £2,000 more in tax if Labour win the general election.

    It was a bold claim, which Sunak said was backed up by “official calculations” from the Treasury. Those calculations appeared in a document put out by the Conservatives which accused Labour of making billions of pounds worth of unfunded spending commitments.

    Since the debate on June 4, the £2,000 figure has been subjected to a great deal of scrutiny. And it quickly became clear that it was full of holes.

  34. 34.

    Jay

    The British Para’s who took part in the ceremonial parachute drop, were required to pass through a French Customs checkpoint and get their passports stamped, after the drop.

    Viva Le* Brexit.

    *is Brexit masculine, feminine, or just whiny assed titty baby fear of furriners? Asking for a friend.

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    @TaMara:  How sad.  And how true about that generation’s reticence in discussing their losses.

    It really seems like the Spanish Influenza of 1918 got memory-holed.  Too much loss on the heels of WWI.

  36. 36.

    wjca

    The guys who fought WW II are justly called The Greatest Generation.  The people who elected Trump should be called The Least Generation.

  37. 37.

    jlowe

    The importance of D-Day is that it was the start of the long-awaited Allied campaign to retake France. We should not let our reverence for The Day overshadow thoughts about the rest of the campaign.  Casualties on D-Day were terrible – over the next 60 days they would get worse. Allied commanders wondered if they would ever break out of the Normandy bridgehead. Even in 1944 with all of the disasters being visited upon Nazi Germany, Allied political leaders worried about the abilities of their nations to bear the burden and finish the war.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jlowe: The battle star on the European Theater Medal is for Normandy not for D-Day.  The assault forces, sea- or airborne got an arrowhead device on the medal as well.

    Six Armies in Normandy by John Keegan is a pretty good read about the full campaign.

  41. 41.

    H.E.Wolf

    My uncle by marriage was a private in the 10th Mountain Division during WWII. He and his cohort swooped in on their skis and liberated a French village.

    Decades later, the village invited the surviving members of the group to a fête in their honor, and my uncle was one of the attendees.

    As a Jew who fled his German homeland after Hitler took power, my uncle must have gotten great satisfaction from helping to defeat the Nazis.

    I knew none of this when my uncle was alive. All I knew was that he was a big, tall man who was very skilled, and very much at home, on skis….​​

  42. 42.

    H.E.Wolf

    @TaMara: ​My great uncle Erhardt died during the invasion, wounded on D-Day and died a few days later.

     May he rest in peace. Like so many, he gave the last full measure of devotion.

  43. 43.

    eversor

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    There’s still a vast difference between line jumping and freefall.

    As people liked my Blue Eyed Samurai recomend for getting off the main media into good media for WW2 watch Rogue Heros.  Which sort of chronicles how the SAS, father of all modern special operations, was more a collection of criminals and mad men from a different era.  It has a few brutal moments about line jumping.

  44. 44.

    Lapassionara

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I also recommend reading Ernie Pyle’s columns from Normandy. I don’t recall the name of the collection, but I think they are in the public domain. I read them as a young person, and they were very poignant.

  45. 45.

    Vecki

    I grew up with soooo many stories of WW2, ensconced in a big Italian American family with many veteran uncles.  Even a story of how one of my uncles liberated his hometown and thus another uncle who had stayed in the old country!
    But… since last year my favorite story has been inadvertently visiting Cannes on their liberation day in August.  There was a parade, several very old veterans in their uniforms, parading down the avenue with ww2 cosplayers and all the politicians.  I think what struck me the most was the gratefulness and the hope in the American experiment I saw that day.

  46. 46.

    kalakal

    @Elizabelle: The most heartbreaking memorial of WW1 I’ve ever seen is the Menin Gate at Ypres. It’s a gigantic archway and the walls are hollow. On the walls are 55,000 names, the names of Allied troops who fought at Paschendaele and the other 2 battles of Ypres and whose bodies were never found. The bit that stuns you is they ran out of space so at Tyne Cot a few miles away, as well as the endless white “crosses row on row” there are 35,000 more names of those who literally vanished in the slaughter.

    At the Menin Gate every night at 8pm local volunteers play The Last Post and lay a wreath, they’ve been doing it since 1927. I still cry when I think of it

  47. 47.

    gene108

    @jlowe:

    Even in 1944 with all of the disasters being visited upon Nazi Germany, Allied political leaders worried about the abilities of their nations to bear the burden and finish the war.

    Eisenhower did a remarkable job balancing the political considerations of multiple governments and the egos of his generals to keep the Allied command in France from fracturing.

  48. 48.

    Auntie Anne

    Normandy is very moving.  You stand at Pointe du Hoc or any of the beaches and are just gobsmacked by what those young men achieved.  And the people of Normandy are still so thankful for the Allies.  I second the recommendations for St-Mere-Englise’s museum and the church installation.

  50. 50.

    Martin

    @TaMara: My grandmother’s cousin might have treated him. Was a medic and D-Day was his first exposure to combat. He made it home, but never recovered from that.

    All of my relatives returned in some form or another – he was the only one at D-Day, but have a great uncle who was in the Battle of the Bulge (lost a leg), my grandfather was in the Pacific (debilitating PTSD) along with 2 other brothers (both were fine), my grandmother was a nurse serving on hospital ships in the Atlantic (shattered her leg evacuating troops).

  51. 51.

    Prometheus Shrugged

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: This is not exactly the same thing as the D-Day remembrances but….your post did trigger me to try to dig out one of my all-time favorites here, “The War Chronicles of Hillary Clinton” from 2008.   I’d be curious to know if that poster (with a nym of tbone) still posts here or elsewhere under a different nym (such as the current TBone!).

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    @kalakal:   Thank you.  Goes on the list too

    All of those lives lost in The Great War, and then there was another one generation later.

  55. 55.

    gene108

    If anyone is interested there’s a YouTube channel that gives excellent coverage of the entirety of WW2, it’s called World War Two.

    They do a week to week summary of major events along with other side topics like war crimes. They started this on September 2018, I think. Went week by week on what happened. They are covering 1945 this year. I am not sure what they’ll do after August 15. I think they have other projects in the works.

    Also, they did a 24 hour D-Day special covering the first 24 hours of the operation, gti the paratroopers landing onwards.

    https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=world+war+two+week+by+week

    Prior to the WW2 series they did a series on WW1, called The Great War.

    https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=world+war+two+week+by+week

  57. 57.

    persistentillusion

    @Leto: ​
     
    Leto: I grew up in Omaha, daughter of a WWII vet (his experience was remarkably similar to Yossarian’s in Catch -22, but in his case the Sheik had also attended his school ((UofC)) and taught that Iowa farm boy to play golf).

    My elementary school mates mostly had at least one parent with a tattoo. Many Polish survivors settled in Omaha.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My uncle Walt was on Utah Beach, D-Day+3. I only know that because the old man had a snapshot of him there. TBH, that’s all I know. None of them ever talked about “their” war.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    Via Reddit

    Southern Baptists are poised to ban churches with women pastors. Some are urging them to reconsider

  65. 65.

    Ohio Mom

    @OzarkHillbilly: Nobody I knew growing up — my dad, uncles, friends’ dads — talked about the war either. Looking back, some of them surely had PTSD. We just thought they were weird and mean.

    The people I grew up around who had survived the concentration camps were even more reticent.

  66. 66.

    zhena gogolia

    I see we’re dumping on Biden in the Ukraine thread again, which is why I don’t go there.

    Everyone will be so happy with Trump’s foreign policy! Looking forward to the praise that will be heaped upon him.

  67. 67.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: In more than one episode. The Indian National Congress supported the war effort in the hopes of winning Dominion status for India. Instead they got the Rowlatt Acts (draconian laws that let the government arrest anyone without due process, no freedom of assembly etc) and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre as soon as the war was over

    So after the 1920s the goal was complete freedom.

  69. 69.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    For some reason I have been watching a lot of WW2 veteran interviews lately. Something to do with finally late in my life trying to understand and appreciate what war looks like from the individual soldier’s viewpoint, as opposed to just looking at maps with lines and arrows drawn on them.

    And that has included watching D-Day footage when I can find it.

    The courage and the horror of what they went through is beyond imagining.

    Also along those lines, I recently read a book by a Marine involved with the capture of Peleliu and Okinawa in the South Pacific. Talk about the fog of war, to the day he wrote it, he literally had no idea where on those islands much of that action took place.

  71. 71.

    schrodingers_cat

    More election news. 22 ministers in Modi’s cabinet lost their elections. BJP lost in Ayodhya and in the constituencies within a 100 mile radius. BJP lost the constituency which had Modi’s birthplace.

    A number of inspiring  people have also been elected.

  74. 74.

    mrmoshpotato

    @gene108:

    If anyone is interested there’s a YouTube channel that gives excellent coverage of the entirety of WW2, it’s called World War Two. 

    Yes!  An excellent YouTube channel!

  78. 78.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Its like Stalingrad. The bubble of invincibility is broken but there is still ways to go. The alliance partners are asking for stuff that is counter to BJP agenda like caste census, speakership etc. The floor test is the next thing to watch.

    ETA: BJP lost most of the seats where Modi made those Muslim bashing speeches.

  79. 79.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @zhena gogolia: Those threads have attracted a certain cast of characters.   I appreciate Another Scott and Carlo Graziani’s (sp?) willingness to push back in those threads.  I just don’t bother anymore.

  82. 82.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Caste census, is just what it says, census with caste included so policymakers have an idea how to allocate resources. The last caste census was done in the British era 1930s.

    One of the regional parties wants its own member to become the speaker of the Lower House (Loksabha) in return for supporting the BJP. The Speaker decides what can be debated, which bills can be brought to the floor etc.

    ETA: The census that occurs every decade has been postponed due to COVID.

  84. 84.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Interesting. I did not know that there wasn’t information on caste demo.

    Speakership seems like a stretch. Can’t imagine the largest party would give that up.

  85. 85.

    Phein64

    @Omnes Omnibus: We jumped with T-10s, mostly, in Alaska in the mid-70’s.  We started to get -1s, but not that many, by 1979.  I was still just a skinny kid, so that even jumping with the M-60 machine gun — I was in a weapons squad –, I could still be the first out the door and the last on the ground.  I may be wrong, but I think the standard rate of descent was 22 ft/sec. You could pull the risers on a T-10 to spill some air and turn in the direction of the riser you were pulling.   The -1s had little toggles you could pull on.  I remember using them mostly to steer into the wind and slow the rate of descent.  We only had one serious injury in three years, and that was a guy who landed on rocks at Husky DZ north of Ft. Rich.

  86. 86.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Baud: had a guy on my bargaining team in Cincinnati, a twenty something production manager in a plant, who’s Baptist, though apparently not southern Baptist, in case there is a meaningful distinction.  He allows his wife to get her hair cut every six months—at Great Clips.

    My wife would set me on fire in my sleep, with my daughters gleefully pouring additional gasoline on me. Perhaps aided and abetted by jimmy and Sofia, who cut and color their hair.

    I hate religious fundamentalists of any stripe.

  88. 88.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud:It looks like farce to get out of their prepoll committments, BJP is not going to agree to these demands. Behind the facade of Hindutva is an extremely casteist Brahminical and Brahmin dominated organization of the RSS, no way are they going to agree to the caste census.

    They are afraid that is going to show that the upper castes who make up a small sliver of the population hog most of the resources.

    So then they can ally with the INDIA alliance that is closer to them ideologically than the BJP. ( I am speculating here, of course. They may fall in line)

  90. 90.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: They know. How few there are, hence the Hindutva facade. They don’t want other castes to know how dominant they are for being such a demographically small group.

    In some southern states Brahmins who made up 3 % of the population made up over 90% of the government bureaucrats. This has been changed by an agressive quota system that is representational.

  92. 92.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Baud: “Some are urging them to reconsider ”

    White male religious Christian assholes reconsidering only males in charge?

    Oh Hell no.

  93. 93.

    Martin

    @Peke Daddy: With a cane, no less, due to injuries in WWI – as part of the first wave, along with his son. Goddamn miracle he survived given that snipers whole fucking job is to kill officers and he was very obviously one.

  94. 94.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Steve in the ATL: “He allows his wife…”

    Wow, those words in that order are horrible to read. Those are not words that describe love, that describes a control freak.

    I bet he gets dinner on time too.

  95. 95.

    Martin

    @Baud: Pretty old news now. They kicked Saddleback Church out of the convention for having a woman pastor, despite Rick Warrens personal pleading to reconsider.

    Evangelicals are going to go to the end here on every issue – divorce, contraception, segregation, etc. They’ve lost the majority, they’re going full fascism.

  96. 96.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Omnes Omnibus: the ground of the Western Front is so chemically contaminated in some areas that they estimate it will take a thousand years to recover

  97. 97.

    Steeplejack

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: xx

    [. . .] trying to understand and appreciate what war looks like from the individual soldier’s viewpoint [. . .].

    I was going to suggest this to a commenter higher up in the thread, but I highly recommend John Keegan’s The Face of Battle (1976). A groundbreaking work on this exact topic. It focuses on Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme, three battles that occurred in the same geographical area and all involving British troops. Highly recommended.

  99. 99.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​
     

    I’ve made these suggestions elswhere:

    https://www.amazon.com/Old-Soldiers-Never-Library-Wales/dp/1910901199
    https://www.amazon.com/Guadalcanal-Diary-Modern-Library-War/dp/0679640231
    https://www.amazon.com/DAY-Through-German-Eyes-Hidden/dp/1539586391
    https://www.amazon.com/Okinawa-Last-Battle-World-War/dp/0140173897

    Keegan’s early work is seminal, particularly as he had people rethink how hoplite formations worked. He turned into a RWNJ over the years.

  103. 103.

    Frank McCormick

    I have to remark on an additional layer to the story of John Steele: he shares his hometown with Superman!

    Scrolling down through the Wikipedia page for Metropolis, Illinois, I see that the town only received official designation as “Superman’s Hometown” in 1972 by the State of Illinois, but I suspect the locals had played up the name much earlier. I’m sure they didn’t wait for the State to give its blessing before erecting the statue of Superman or staging their annual celebrations.

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis%2C_Illinois?wprov=sfla1

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