St. Lo (Before and After).

I recently came across an old newsletter from the 537th AAA (AW) Battalion, dated November 1994. Included was a poem written by a Ralph Lehman regarding St. Lo, a city familiar to most foot soldiers who fought across Northern Europe in World War II. Enjoy.

In the heart of Normandy there once lay a peaceful rural town named St. Lo.

On its streets young children would come to play; and around nearby farms, hedgerows would grow.

There, birds would sing and the roosters would crow, and at its church people would meet and pray.

St. Lo, the crux of fierce battle of war, is not the village it was once before.

I flew o’er St. Lo during forty-four, and where that quiet village used to be stood a gutted cathedral, nothing more

Than sheer devastation could I there see

Around the ruins of that pathetic scar,

And I ponder at the glories of war.

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