Rembering the Army Chaplains who served during the June 6, 1944 Normandy D-Day invasion
While thousands of troops faced stiff Nazi resistance, priests were with them to offer spiritual care and moral support. Published in Aleteia by John Burger: 
June 6th marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the largest seaborne invasion in history, the Normandy Landing. Among the more than 351,000 men of the US, British, and Canadian militaries who would invade, chaplains sailed and parachuted in, providing spiritual care and moral support.
There was Conventual Franciscan Friar Ignatius Maternowski, for example, a 32-year-old native of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Ordained just six years earlier, he was a member of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division.
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As thousands of troops were ferried across the English Channel, paratroopers were flown in behind enemy lines. On the night of June 5, Fr. Maternowski offered Mass for his fellow soldiers and granted a general absolution. Before dawn on June 6, 1944, the 82nd Airborne parachuted behind German lines near the hamlet of Guetteville. Their aim was to secure bridges to help the Allied invasion advance deeper into enemy territory. But the paratroopers were scattered in the drop zone and came under fire.
Fr. Maternowski, carrying his Mass kit, landed safely.
An American glider had crashed nearby, and there were many casualties, so he began ministering to the wounded. Seeking a suitable location where they could be brought for treatment, he actually approached a German chaplain and proposed that they collaborate in getting medical care for wounded on both sides. The Franciscan bravely walked between enemy lines to approach the chief Nazi medic, with his helmet removed and displaying his chaplain’s insignia and a Red Cross armband.
Returning to the side of the invading forces, Fr. Maternowski was shot in the back by an enemy sniper and died.
He is buried in the Mater Dolorosa Cemetery in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The Franciscan Friars Conventual of the Our Lady of the Angels Province have begun promoting Fr. Maternowski’s cause for canonization.
A military family: Another chaplain to give his life in Normandy was Father Philip B. Edelen. He was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on June 29, 1913, but while he was still young, his family moved to North Carolina. Living in Raleigh, they were members of Sacred Heart Cathedral Parish, and Philip and his four brothers served as altar boys.
After graduating from Cathedral Latin High School, Philip entered Mount St. Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and was ordained a priest in 1940. After serving in a couple of parishes in North Carolina, Fr. Edelen joined the Army as a chaplain. His brothers all joined the military as well.
Fr. Edelen attended U.S. Army Chaplain School at Harvard and was assigned as chaplain to the 2nd Infantry Division, 9th Infantry Regiment at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin.
In October 1943, his division moved to Northern Ireland, where they trained for six months. The division transferred to England in April 1944. As an officer, Fr. Edelen seemed to know that something big was coming. In his last letter to his Bishop back in Raleigh, he wrote, “Say a little prayer for all of us, ’cause I don’t think it will be long now.”
The 2nd Infantry Division came ashore at Omaha Beach near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer on the second day of the invasion, June 7. They took part in an operation to cut off a road near the town of Trévières. The regiment established a command post in a farmhouse previously occupied by Germans, and in the evening on June 9, there was an artillery attack on the area. Captain Edelen suffered a horrible leg injury and a cerebral hemorrhage. He died hours later, at around 3 a.m. on June 10.
He is buried in the cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy.
At a funeral held in the Raleigh Cathedral, a eulogist said that Fr. Edelen “did not hesitate to take up his cross – his heavily laden army pack – and find Christ on the bloody beaches of Normandy. … Fr. Edelen lived dangerously and died painfully so that we in America might live tranquilly and die peacefully.”
Saving Private … Niland? Father Francis L. Sampson was not killed at Normandy, but he died to his fears so that he could serve those who put their lives on the line.
Born in Cherokee, Iowa, he graduated from Notre Dame in 1937, and was ordained a priest in 1941. After serving as a parish priest in Iowa, he volunteered for chaplain service in the Army.
He later admitted that he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into.
“Frankly, I did not know when I signed up for the airborne that chaplains would be expected to jump from an airplane in flight,” he said. “Had I known this beforehand, I am positive that I should have turned a deaf ear to the plea for airborne chaplains."
As a member of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, he parachuted into Normandy on June 6, and made his way to a French farmhouse where injured soldiers were being treated. Fr. Sampson chose to stay with them, even though the area was about to be overrun by German troops. He was captured and taken to an area to be executed.
He later confessed that he was so scared that he prayed Grace Before Meals instead of an Act of Contrition.
But a Catholic German non-commissioned officer intervened, and the priest, considered harmless, was allowed to stay at the first aid station.
Another member of Fr. Sampson’s division, Fritz Niland, ended up miles from the target because his plane had been hit by enemy fire, and the men were forced to jump early. But he made his way to where his unit took part in the successful battle for the town of Carentan.
Unfortunately, he learned that his brother, another paratrooper, had been killed. Fr. Sampson offered to help him find his brother’s grave. During the search, the two discovered that another member of the Niland family had also been killed. The chaplain was instrumental in getting the Army to relieve Niland, believed to be his family’s only surviving son.
The encounter between Niland and Fr. Sampson was the inspiration for the 1998 Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan.
Sampson continued in the Airborne after Normandy, jumping again behind enemy lines in Holland. Captured again, this time he was sent to a prison camp in Germany, spending six days in an overcrowded boxcar on the way. In prison, he insisted that he be housed with the enlisted men, not officers.
After the war, he briefly returned to civilian life, but couldn’t stay away from the Army. He reenlisted in 1946, and served a few years later in the Korean War. In 1967, he was appointed Chief of Chaplains for the US Army, with the rank of major general. He served as president of the USO from 1971-1974.
As a nod to his namesake, St. Francis, he had these words inscribed on his tombstone: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”
Burying the dead: In addition to these priests, there was Father Joseph Lacy, who was considered too old and overweight to be able to keep up with the men of the 5th Ranger Battalion. But he proved himself when their landing craft was hit by a shell as they approached Omaha Beach. Fr. Lacy pulled dead and wounded men out of the water and gave Last Rites or comforted them. He assisted some of the wounded to a position that was protected from the relentless German gunfire as his unit assaulted the German line of defense.
Sadly, there were more than 10,000 Allied casualties on the first day of the invasion, including 4,414 dead. The first military cemetery would be dedicated June 10, on Omaha Beach. And a chaplain from Boston, Fr. John McGovern, would celebrate a Mass on the beach for that dedication. The altar was set up on the hood of a jeep parked in the sand. Numerous crosses nearby held the “dog tags” of the men who had fallen.
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