Mention D-Day and thoughts of the June 6, 1944, invasion of the Normandy region of France likely come to mind.
But that was just the start of months of U.S. and Allied forces pushing back and eventually defeating the German Nazis. Few, if any, would know that battle included the small inland village of Sainteny.
French author Jean-Paul Pitou spent 20 years researching and producing a 606-page book on the invasion, occupation, and liberation of the area that came out in 2017. Called “Sainteny: 1938-1963, From Shadow to Light,” the book has now been translated into English by longtime Double Oak resident Larry Scheerer.
“This isn’t the story of a few guys in combat. This is a story of the whole village of approximately 800 people for whom an estimated 5,000 people died in the effort to liberate it,” Scheerer said. “It was about what happened to the residents of Sainteny and their liberators in that 25-year period.”
With Pitou’s assistance, Scheerer, 78, took more than five years to complete the tedious effort of creating the book’s 507-page English version. It will be available Nov. 11 at bookshop.org/shop/ingramspark.
Scheerer’s father, 1st Lt. Richard Scheerer, was a platoon leader with the U.S. Army 83rd Infantry Division that played a major role in liberating the village. Of the 37 men in his unit, 11 were killed and 8 wounded – including Lt. Scheerer – battling the entrenched Germans in flooded marsh and hedgerow terrain. So severe were his wounds caused by mortar shrapnel that he wasn’t expected to live. Fortunately for him and his family, he ended up surviving until two months short of his 101st birthday in 2016.
As was the case with many involved in war, Lt. Scheerer talked very little about that time with his family. He did share some details in 1996, but it wasn’t until 2011 that Larry learned where in Normandy he had been. The next year, Larry and wife Rosaline made their first trip there and met Pitou through the 83rd Infantry Division Association’s historian. They shared what they learned with Larry’s father.
“He would not go with us but was happy we were interested,” Larry said. “We were fortunate he lived as long as he did because when we made that first trip, I was concerned he might pass away before we got back.
“The welcome we had in Normandy was astounding and I wish every American could experience that. There was an incredible amount of healing that occurred because of the extreme gratitude expressed by the people of Normandy who weren’t able to thank their liberators back then.”
Larry and Rosaline returned to the area to commemorate the 70th anniversary in 2014, 75th in 2019 and 80th this past June when Larry spoke at the dedication of a new memorial at his father’s battlefield.
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