The flag draped coffin of Major Thomas Howie, St Lo.

This is the caption to this photo that I will use in my forthcoming book:

No single fatality in Normandy became better known to ordinary Americans than Thomas Howie, although owing to censorship regulations he was known to many only as ‘The Major of St-Lô’. Killed while commanding his battalion on 17 July, Howie’s body was carried into the ruined city of St-Lô the following evening and placed on a pile of rubble outside Sainte-Croix church, covered in an American flag, surrounded with flowers and with the banner of the 29th Infantry Division flying beside him. This was done on the orders of the 29th Division’s commander, who wanted to symbolise the sacrifice of his soldiers, some 2000 of whom died between D-Day and 18 July, when St-Lô was captured. Journalists immediately took up the story, newspapers published this and similar photographs of the flag-draped corpse, and The New York Times ran an editorial paying tribute to the anonymous Major. In late July Howie’s name was released, and on 18 September LIFE magazine carried a photograph of the body lying in St-Lô