“Escape, Exile, and Annihilation,” details how, between 12 and 16 June 1944, about 110 paratroopers, with the vital help of villagers, escaped Graignes and returned to combat in Normandy. Captain Brummitt and Lt. Francis Naughton led the main group to safety. The Rigault family saved the lives of twenty-one paratroopers, hiding them for three days in the family barn. The Rigault daughters, Odette and Marthe, were especially prominent in the rescue mission. The Germans punished the villagers by forcing them to abandon their village in the summer of 1944. The chapter speaks of the perilous journey that the villagers endured. Finally, the chapter explores the fate of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division in the summer of 1944. Allied forces destroyed the division, leaving only a handful of the German soldiers alive.

“Graignes in Historical Memory,” explains why little was known about the meaning of Graignes for more than four decades. The villagers and the paratroopers pursued their own lives. Both groups were curious about the fate of the other, but contact between the veterans and the villagers was largely non-existent. Memorials were dedicated in Graignes. After the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, however, the ordinary people who did extraordinary things began to reach out to one another. Veterans of Graignes, Colonel Frank Naughton and Lt. Colonel Earcle Reed, who had been career military officers, lobbied the Department of the Army to honor the civilians who had aided the paratroopers in 1944. In June 1986, in a grand ceremony, the Secretary of the Army awarded Distinguished Civilian Service Medals to eleven residents of Graignes. Since then, there have been numerous reunions between the villagers and their descendants and the paratroopers and their descendants.