New WWII Mission: Fix Church Windows

In the quiet medieval church, former U.S. fighter pilot Roy Blaha gestured upward at the clear plate windows that stood out starkly among the brilliant panes of stained glass.

Fifty-five years ago, Blaha’s 383rd fighter squadron had swooped over the town of Remy on a mission to strafe a German munitions train. The train exploded, shattering nearly all the town’s windows, including some in the 13th-century church. The blast killed many Germans and a local boy.

“The explosion damaged so much here,” said Blaha, 78, of Homestead, Fla.

In the tight years after that Aug. 2, 1944, mission, the people of Remy could afford no luxuries, least of all restoring the seven lost windows in the Church of St. Denis. Clear glass filled the empty spaces.

Now Blaha and some of his surviving squadron buddies have come back to Remy to carry out a new mission: replacing the windows again, this time with stained glass.

The former members of the squadron and volunteers raised $200,000 for the project.

The first window went up Saturday, and three former members of the squadron were there to see it.

“It’s not just for the people of Remy, it’s for all the people in France who resisted against the Nazis,” said former pilot Gordon McCoy, 78, of Linden, Calif.

But the people of Remy are closest to their hearts. The villagers’ brave tribute to a downed American pilot touched the squadron for decades and galvanized efforts to replace the windows.

The blast that shattered the stained glass also killed 22-year-old Lt. Houston Lee Braly Jr., ripping the wings off his P-51 Mustang.

Townspeople pulled Braly’s body from the downed plane and hid it in a farmhouse, infuriating the German military. Hundreds gathered to shower his body with flowers.

The pilot’s death crystallized anti-occupation sentiment and prompted many to devote themselves to resisting the Germans. To this day Braly is a hero in Remy.