Flying chaplain says French mass
U.S. captain preaches in French and English – church bells break 4-year silence
Normandy, France – (June 25)
The bells of a local church – silenced by the Germans for the same reason that Britain’s bells were muted – rang this morning for the first time in four years. And about half a hundred natives of this small village put in Sunday clothes to join 80 dusty khaki-clad G.I.s in services at the 400-year-old Norman church.
Capt. Donald M. Cleary, chaplain of the 9th Air Force fighter group here, aided by 1st Sgt. Kenneth Reilly of New York, celebrated mass and delivered two sermons, one in French – which Cleary speaks fluently – and the other in English.
Later in the day, Capt. Cleary, whose home is in Rochester, New York, celebrate another mass for 9th Air Force fighter-bomber pilots before they left to bomb Cherbourg, and a third for patients at a nearby hospital.
Capt. Cleary is the only chaplain with the 9th Air Force in France now and one of the chaplains in the U.S. air forces to wear a pilot’s wings, with the letter “S” in the middle. “S” stands for service pilot and means the chaplain is qualified to fly any aircraft in the air forces so long as it is not in combat.
Before the war, Capt. Cleary was chaplain at the Albany, New York, prison for four years and chaplain at Cornell University for seven years.
Capt. Cleary stated that the French people in this section suspected him at first when he scouted up and down the coastline in the course of his work. They thought he was going to “requisition” their cattle, but when he did not and they learned that he was a Catholic priest they became very friendly.
The French told Capt. Cleary that the Germans had used some churches to quarter troops, and at this village, citizens said that in the four years the Nazis occupied the country, they saw only one German soldier attend mass.