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The Invasion of Normandy started as a landing operation on June 6, 1944 on the beaches of Normandy, France by Western Allied forces during World War II against German-occupied western Europe. The initial assault was marked as D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history. A staggering 156,000 British, American, and Canadian forces landed on the five beaches of the Normandy region. The Battle of Normandy lasted from June to mid-July 1944, resulting in the liberation from Nazi Germany.

Out of the open bow doors of a Landing Craft, American troops and jeeps go ashore on the beach of the Normandy coast of France, June 6, 1944.

A first wave beach battalion Ducks lays low under the fire of Nazi guns on the beach of southern France on D-Day, June 6, 1944 during World War II. One invader operates a walkie talkie radio directing other landing craft to the safest spots for unloading their parties of fighting men.

 

Men of the American assault troops of the 16th Infantry Regiment, injured while storming a coastal area code-named Omaha Beach during the Allied invasion of the Normandy, wait by the chalk cliffs at Collville-sur-Mer for evacuation to a field hospital for further treatment.

An American infantryman receives his rations of candy and cigarettes, somewhere in England on June 6, 1944, before embarking with other troops for the assault on the French coast, to open the long-awaited second front invasion.

Canadian invasion troops stand guard over the first German prisoners captured during the assault on France by Allied forces along a 100 mile front on the Normandy coast between LeHavre and Cherbourg. Wounded soldiers are being treated, in the background. At extreme bear are German coastal fortifications of masonry, silenced by the invaders.

All photos courtesy of Associated Press