Tuesday    We started today with a stop at the Graignes' bakery—croissants! Today's plan is to drive a few miles to the village of St. Clair where the 803^rd first saw action. From there we continued south to the Couvains area where Task Force C formed up for the final assault on St. Lo, a major crossroads town. Dad's tank destroyer company and the 115^th Infantry Regiment (29^th Infantry Division) and supporting tank and engineer elements made up the task force. We followed the same road, Rue de Isigny, into St. Lo where we located the intersection where his TD was hit by an 88 round and knocked out.

Photo Dad carried in his wallet all those years!

We then visited the Memorial of La Madeleine, a small museum honoring the 29^th and 35^th Divisions who fought for the liberation of St. Lo. The museum has actually closed for the season but a very nice French gentleman, Jean Mignon, opened for us to visit. Jean was a 14 year old boy in June of 1944 and remembers vividly St. Lo being bombed and the hardships of living in a war torn country and the liberation of the city. He actually thanked us for America and Dad's contribution in liberating his city. It was very touching. AND there it was, the same photo blown up to a large size. We had a copy of the Silver Star certificate and our photos from the Archives. He asked if he might have a copy of the certificate to display, which of course we left with him.

Chapelle de la Madeleine, St. Lo

Jean Mignon and Charlie and I with TD photo 

The Chapelle de la Madeleine was originally part of an old leper-house dating from the 14^th century and is beautifully restored.

After leaving St. Lo, we headed west to two locations which we had GPS coordinates, one a church near and Hill 131 where Dad's unit saw action while supporting the 82^nd Airborne Division and the 8^th Infantry Division in the vicinity of  Mobecq.    The reports stated that Co. B shot the steeple off a church to eliminate a German artillery observer. We found that beautiful stone church, obviously still an active Parish, with a well tended cemetery and a repaired steeple.

The church we found mentioned in the S-3 Reports
and were able to translate military coordinates to GPS

Leaving there we drove to the end of the road on the Cotenten Peninsular---and found beautiful Atlantic views from the highest cliffs in Continental Europe, green pastures, stone fences, hedge rows and many cows and a few sheep.

Lighthouse on end of Peninsular

Beautiful Farmland