The Heroes of Sainte-Mère-Église

Summary

The Germans arrived with a plan to occupy a quiet French village. The French Resistance and Allied forces had other plans.

Sturmbannführer Gunther Dettmer stands at the Franco-German border, poised with Hitler's war machine to unleash the western Blitzkrieg. Six hundred kilometers away, WWI veteran René Legrand tends to his fields in peaceful Sainte-Mère-Église, trying to forget his past as the French army's deadliest assassin. He's unaware that the skills he's buried will soon be needed again. For René's thirteen-year-old son Jean-Pierre, life revolves around school, farm work, and stealing glances at the captivating Angelique. As war engulfs their village, he must grow up quickly, joining his father and brother in a dangerous campaign to undermine their German occupiers and aid the approaching Allied invasion.

Meanwhile, the Jewish Shapiro family races against time, attempting to escape across the treacherous Pyrenees Mountains into Spain before the Nazis close in. And at Fort Benning, Georgia, Captain James Gavin launches America's first parachute platoon—never imagining that four years later, as General "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin, he'll lead his men into the largest invasion in history. These are the heroes of Sainte-Mère-Église, whose lives will converge in the shadow of D-Day.