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D-Day in Pictures: Part V

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D-Day in Pictures: Part I
D-Day in Pictures: Part II
D-Day in Pictures: Part III
D-Day in Pictures: Part IV

“After enduring all the ordeals and training in England, we felt like we were completely ready for anything, and we were very ready to fight the Germans, and we looked forward to the day that we could actually get into the real fight.”

–  Sgt Bob Slaughter, 116th Infantry Regiment, US 29th Division

On June 6, 1944, the Normandy landings began. “D-Day” marked the Allied invasion into German-controlled France. There are two parts to D-Day, the airborne assault and the amphibious landing. Around midnight, American, British, Canadian and Free French airborne troops parachuted into France to help secure the flanks and approaches for the beach landings. At 6:30am, Allied troops stormed the 50-mile stretch of coast which the Germans had heavily fortified. Over 150,000 Allied troops fought with the help of more than 5,000 ships and 11,000 aircraft support. D-Day became the largest amphibious landing in history. The cost of the invasion was high with around 9,000 Allied soldiers wounded or killed. As a military move, D-Day was successful, it allowed the Allies a foothold in France and to the eventual downfall of Nazi Germany.

A U.S. tank unit in England readies for D-Day in 1944. (Pictured L-R) Captain Leonard Brusky, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Sergeant Wilfred F. Thomas, Wisconsin; Sergeant Frank L. Niner, Louisville, Kentucky; Pfc Harry H. Smith, Louisville, Kentucky.

A U.S. tank unit in England readies for D-Day in 1944.
(Pictured L-R) Captain Leonard Brusky, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Sergeant Wilfred F. Thomas, Wisconsin; Sergeant Frank L. Niner, Louisville, Kentucky; Pfc Harry H. Smith, Louisville, Kentucky.

The Bazooka Boys, a squad of tank maintenance men, marches through a collection of General Sherman tanks on May 9, 1944, as the tank crewmen watch, while final invasion preparations are made for D-Day. The range was maintained by the British Royal Armored Corps. Lieutenant Harrie W. James, USNR, of New York, USA, briefs officers and men who participated in landing operations during the invasion of southern France on June 5, 1944, on the day before D-Day. Fully equipped, and each carrying large amounts of ammunition, American troops climb aboard a landing craft somewhere in England on June 6, 1944, for the cross-channel invasion of France. Other landing craft are seen in the background. The first wave beach battalion duck under the fire of Nazi guns on the beach of southern France on D-Day. One invader operates a walkie-talkie directing other landing craft to the safest spots for unloading. Under the cover of naval shell fire, American infantrymen wade ashore from their landing craft during the initial Normandy landing operations on June 6, 1944. U.S. infantrymen wade through the surf as they land at Normandy. An Allied ship loaded with supplies and reinforcements waits on the horizon. American shock troops huddle behind the protective front of a landing craft as it nears the beachhead on the Normandy coast of France, Omaha Beach, in front of Vierville-sur-Mer on June 6, 1944. Troops on Utah Beach in Normandy on June 9, 1944, take shelter behind a sea wall while awaiting orders to move inland during the invasion by Allied troops. Allied ships, boats and barrage balloons off Omaha Beach after the successful D-Day invasion at Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France on June 9, 1944. U.S. Army medical personnel administer a plasma transfusion to a wounded comrade, who survived when his landing craft went down off the coast of Normandy in the early days of the Allied landing operations. Soldiers keep warm atop a truck on board on June 12, 1944. An American paratrooper and a French woman enjoy a joke together in the shell-torn streets of Sainte Mere Eglise on June 20, 1944.

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