When hundreds of paratroopers dropped into Normandy on D-Day, one of them landed in the most horrifying spot possible. 32-year-old John Steele ended up dangling from a church roof in the middle of a firefight. But he turned it into an impressive advantage.
Just after midnight on June 6, 1944, Private John Steele of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment jumped into Normandy as part of the Allied invasion. Due to strong winds, his pilot missed the landing zone and drifted over the small French town of Sainte-Mère-Église instead. Several paratroopers were killed even before they hit the ground.
German troops ruthlessly fired at descending paratroopers while buildings burned nearby. The town was undergoing the largest amphibious invasion in history, called Operation Overlord, and was in complete chaos. In trying to avoid a burning building, Steele crashed into the 120-foot spire of the town’s church.
John Steele acted dead for two hours while hanging over the church
John Steele’s parachute got stuck and left him suspended above the square with no way to escape without drawing attention from the Germans. Wounded in the foot by shrapnel, he realized struggling would expose him. So he came up with a brilliant plan: Act dead.
Dangling motionless from the church steeple, Steele pretended to be dead for nearly two hours while the battle raged below. And his plan worked, for the most part. German soldiers kept firing at other paratroopers landing nearby, but never realized one of them was hanging silently right over their heads.
But after tackling other American soldiers, a few German soldiers decided to get Steele’s body down to search. At this point, his truth was exposed.
Steele was taken prisoner, but only for four hours
As two Germans pulled him down, they found out that John Steele was very much alive and moving, and captured him. But he did not spend much time as their prisoner. He escaped by sneaking through a window just four hours later, and rejoined his division as 505th’s 3rd Battalion secured the town. It became one of the first French towns liberated on D-Day.
John Steele continued to serve until the end of the war, earning the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After returning home, he lived quietly until his death due to throat cancer on May 16, 1969, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. But in Sainte-Mère-Église, his legacy never faded. He was regarded as an honorary citizen of the town, and a mannequin still hangs from the church steeple today as a tribute to him.
