Americans On D-Day

Follow American fighting men as they prepare for and launch the great Normandy Invasion of June 6, 1944.


In the spring of 1944, an American army platoon drills in preparation for the Normandy D-Day, watched by locals in a thatch-roofed English village. (National Archives)
A dartboard hung on a camouflaged army truck helps ease the tension and boredom of waiting for D-Day for (from left) Private Larry Mason of Brooklyn, New York, Private 1st Class Norman Rausch of Cliona, Pennsylvania, and Sergeant Henry Krawczyk of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (National Archives)
A US Navy beachmaster (right, with “B” armband) and his 7th Navy Beach Battalion team practice for their D-Day duties—directing traffic from offshore onto the beach and inland. These men—shown with signal flags, blinker lights, and radio, the tools they used to communicate with ships, landing craft, and onshore command posts—served on the western side of the Omaha landing beach. (National Archives)

Sailors prep gate-bowed Higgins boats (LCVPs, or Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel), at a British port prior to the invasion force’s departure. (National Archives)
A halftrack, prepped to plow through surf and sand at the landing beach, backs onto a Higgins boat. (National Archives)
Apprehensive GIs load into a British landing craft for the invasion. (National Archives)

GIs of the 1st Infantry Division wait aboard a transport ship for the signal to go. They will end up making a hotly contested landing on Omaha Beach. (National Archives)
Naval escort ships of the invasion convoy chug toward the French coast on D-Day, June 6, 1944, with barrage balloons tethered to hover overhead, making it harder for enemy planes to swoop in for an attack. (National Archives)
Amid the luxurious appointments of a navy ship bound for the Normandy coast, GIs dine on rations. 26-G-2403 (National Archives)

Looking piratical with their Jolly Roger helmet insignia, US coastguardsmen aboard a cutter head for France. Their D-Day mission will be to rescue wounded and drowning men from the waters near the Normandy shore during the amphibious landings. (National Archives)
Their faces darkened with camouflage paint, paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division board a C-47 for the flight to their drop point over Normandy before dawn on D-Day. (National Archives)
The 14-inch guns of the battleship USS Nevada (BB-36) let loose on German gun emplacements guarding the Normandy shore early on D-Day. (National Archives)

Aboard an LCI (Landing Craft, Infantry) approaching the Normandy shore, coastguardsmen open fire on German positions ashore before landing their cargo of troops. (National Archives)
In this view from the bow of a landing craft early on D-Day, coast guard Higgins boats motor in as close as they can to one of the American landing beaches. Troops can be seen wading ashore from their landing craft under billowing fog and gun smoke. (National Archives)		  

A pair of LCIs (Landing Craft, Infantry) offload assault troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day. (National Archives)
An American Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber soars over a D-Day landing beach during the amphibious landings. (Courtesy of Robert Gabrick)		  

Tired and wet after hitting the beach, a GI takes a short rest at the foot of a cliff, safe from the fire of the German defenders. (National Archives)
Not every D-Day story was one of triumph. These men died in the water, their bodies washing ashore thanks to their inflated life belts. The belts were lethal for some GIs who stepped off landing craft into deep water. Once inflated, the belts could flip heavy-laden, top-heavy soldiers upside down and drown them. (National Archives)		  

GIs drag an exhausted comrade ashore. The man being helped and one of his buddies are wearing inflated life belts. (Courtesy of Robert Gabrick)
Working frantically, GIs perform artificial respiration on a buddy who began to drown when his landing craft was sunk offshore by German artillery. (National Archives)		  

The bodies of dead GIs wait in the background as a graves registration man marks body bags with information from the dog tags of the killed. (National Archives)
A waterproofed US weapon carrier slices through the surf with its crew on D-Day. (Courtesy of Robert Gabrick)		  

Loaded with equipment, US infantrymen pass the bow of an amphibious DUKW (pronounced “duck”) and press inland on D-Day. (National Archives)
Americans landed on Omaha and Utah beaches. The men who hit Omaha got the worst of it. Here is the view of an invasion beach from a German 77mm gun inside a gun emplacement—after its capture by Americans. (National Archives)		  

Land mines, machine-gun fire, and artillery shells made the beaches—especially Omaha Beach—deadly for the American attackers. Here, a shell or mine explodes during the invasion. (Courtesy of Robert Gabrick)
On D-Day, US Rangers scaled this rock monstrosity—Pointe du Hoc, between Omaha and Utah beaches—to knock out German guns that were shelling landing forces on Omaha. (National Archives)
Captured German troops keep their hands up as GIs escort them to a holding area on the beachhead. (National Archives)

A US clerk records information on a young Mongolian soldier—one of many found among the German troops captured on D-Day. Perhaps it was dislike of the Russians that led Mongolians to enlist on the side of the USSR’s foe. (National Archives)
GIs—one merely hinted at by his protruding boots—sleep in a foxhole on the beachhead. (Courtesy of Robert Gabrick)
With a DUKW in the background, a member of the US Navy’s 2nd Beach Battalion tinkers with a captured German Goliath tracked mine, or “beetle,” on Utah Beach, a day or two after the amphibious assault. The Goliath was a radio-controlled mini-tank that let the user remain under cover while sending explosives into enemy lines and detonating them. (National Archives)

Navy beach battalion men dodge bullets as a German fighter plane strafes the beachhead in the days after the Allied landing. (National Archives)
Within days, supplies, more troops, tanks, and weapons were pouring into the busy beachheads on Normandy’s shores. Here, vehicles stream ashore from landing ships under the protection of barrage balloons. (National Archives)