D-Day heroes: Pope Leo’s father, and a fallen Franciscan chaplain who may become a saint
As now ageing veterans and many others gathered in Normandy today to repectfully mark the 81st anniversary of when Allied forces embarked on French beaches in the D-Day landings, few people would have been aware that one particular D-Day hero was the father of our new pontiff, and another hero may on the road to sainthood
Louis Marius Prevost, the father of Pope Leo XIV, joined the Navy in November 1943 when he was 23 years old. served on a D-Day landing ship during World War II and was a junior lieutenant in the United States Navy.
According to the US Department of Defense, as a junior lieutenant Prevost became the executive officer of a tank landing ship and “participated in the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, as part of Operation Overlord.” He was in charge of a landing craft that “the Allies used to land infantry soldiers and Marines onto beaches during the war.”
The Normandy coastline would soon run out of capacity for the amount of materials needed “to keep the Allied momentum going.” The U.S. Navy then sent Prevost and other landing ships to southern France on Aug. 15, 1944, to take part in Operation Dragoon, which “forced the Germans to defend a second front, diluting their effectiveness.”
“By the end of August,” the DOD said, “the Allies had captured the French ports of Marseille and Toulon, immediately using them to land supplies and equipment. In October 1944, more than a third of Allied cargo was shipped through those ports.”
Prevost was overseas on active duty for 15 months. He attained the rank of lieutenant junior grade prior to the war ending on May 8, 1945.
Also fighting on the Normandy beaches for his life and the free world on that fateful day was Capt. (and Friar) Ignatius Maternowski, 32 years old “tough as nails” paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne.
“He wasn’t afraid to correct troopers who took the Lord’s name in vain and was known to tell those speaking ill of the Church or confession to ‘put on some boxing gloves,’” it was said at the time.
As a chaplain, he didn’t have to parachute behind enemy lines that night, but “he was determined to be there for the sake of the souls in his unit.”
On D-Day, Father Maternowski celebrated Mass, gave his soldiers general absolution and boarded a C-47 Skytrain with the rest of the more than 13,000 paratroopers and glider infantry. He landed in Normandy near Picauville. Finding a glider that had crashed, he worked at helping the survivors, then realized there would be many, many more wounded in need of aid that day. With the help of a medic, he moved the wounded to a nearby cafe and grocery store in the town.
His makeshift aid station was soon overflowing with the dead and dying, so he decided the best hope for saving them was to reach out to the enemy. Unarmed already, he took off his helmet and walked down the battle-torn street “with only his chaplain’s insignia, a red cross armband and his faith to protect him.”
He reached the German position and asked their ranking medical officer to come to the American aid station and create a combined aid station in a house, where both sides could be treated. Instead of seeing enemies, he saw human beings in dire need of help. The officer came to see the aid station and then Maternowski escorted him back to his position. As he walked the dangerous street for the fourth time that day, a sniper shot him in the back and killed him. The Americans were unable to recover his body for several days, but at last laid him to rest at Utah Beach.
Believed to be the only U.S. military chaplain killed in the invasion on D-Day, he is now buried in the Mater Dolorosa Cemetery, South Hadley, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, USA. His name is commemorated on memorials in Holyoke, MA; Athol Springs, NY; Arlington National Cemetery, VA; London, England, and Normandy, France.
In collaboration with the World War II Chaplains Memorial Foundation, the Franciscan Friars Conventual of the Our Lady of the Angels Province have begun promoting Fr. Ignatius Maternowski’s cause for canonisation.
In 2021, Friar James McCurry, Minister Provincial for the Our Lady of the Angels Province, traveled to Normandy, France and the “La Petite Chapelle de Cauquigny,” where some of the fiercest fighting on D-Day took place – close to the nearby hamlet of Gueutteville, where Fr. Ignatius was slain. He concelebrated Mass on November 12 and blessed the new stained glass window in the chapel (La Petite Chapelle de Cauquigny) honoring +Fr. Ignatius Maternowski.
Father Ignatius died to protect, not only his wounded fellow soldiers, but to safeguard all the innocent non-combatants of the area from the German reprisals. He died in defense of those principles – a martyr of love,” said Fr McCurry in his Homily.
“Even now, in a secular and pluralistic age, this Catholic, Franciscan, Army captain – a simple boy from the small town of Holyoke, Massachusetts – embodies the very highest aspirations of any branch of the human family. His commitment to the dignity of the human person was absolute.”
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Pic: A Franciscan friar blesses war graves at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville Sur Mer in France