(For Memorial Day 2012) Before and After D-Day: Rare Color Photos

LIFE ^ | Frank Scherschel

[DogByte6RER]

Before and After D-Day: Rare Color Photos

It’s no mystery why images of unremitting violence spring to mind when one hears the deceptively simple term, “D-Day.” We’ve all seen — in photos, movies, old news reels — what happened on the beaches of Normandy (codenamed Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword) as the Allies unleashed an historic assault against German defenses on June 6, 1944.

But in color photos taken before and after the invasion, LIFE’s Frank Scherschel captured countless other, lesser-known scenes from the run-up to the onslaught and the heady weeks after: American troops training in small English towns; the French countryside, implausibly lush after the spectral landscape of the beachheads; the reception GIs enjoyed en route to the capital; the jubilant liberation of Paris itself.

As presented here, in masterfully restored color, Scherschel’s pictures feel at-once profoundly familiar and somehow utterly, vividly new.

NOTE: Information on the specific locations or people who appear in these photographs is not always available; Scherschel and his colleagues simply did not have the means to provide that sort of data for every single one of the thousands of photographs they made. When the locale or person depicted in an image in this gallery is known, it is noted in the caption.

(DogByte6RER's Note: I am just posting several of the 27 photos from this photo essay on this FR thread. Please link over to the LIFE website provided to see the entire photo essay.)

[DogByte6RER]

American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion, May 1944

"I wish they'd get started over there. It will be the turning point of everything. Maybe it will mean our boy will come home again." — An Indiana farmer speaking to LIFE in 1944 about his 21-year-old son who was stationed in England before the invasion.

View of the ruins of the Palais de Justice in the town of St. Lo, France, summer 1944. The red metal frame in the foreground is what's left of an obliterated fire engine.

GIs search ruined homes in western France after D-Day.

An American Army chaplain kneels next to a wounded soldier in order to administer the Eucharist and Last Rites, France, 1944.

An abandoned German machine gun, France, June 1944.

From D-Day until Christmas 1944, German prisoners of war were shipped off to American detention facilities at a rate of 30,000 per month. Above: Captured German troops, June 1944.

[DogByte6RER]

Read more: http://life.time.com/history/before-and-after-d-day-in-color/#ixzz1w0OhWvr2

[Kaslin]

Bump

[God luvs America]

extroedinary...you think its from a movie if you didn’t know better...

[God luvs America]

extroedinary...you think its from a movie if you didn’t know better...

[FoxInSocks]

Thanks for posting!

[GnL]

I’m amazed at the quality of those photos. I wonder if there are more beyond what appears on the website.

[bubbacluck]

I’ve read there are color movies of D-day and the aftermath. They were so brutal Ike had them locked up. War is hell. Get in and get it done, then get out.

[ansel12]

Look at the objects in the top two photos, the 155 shells weigh roughly 93 pounds and there are a lot of them, those wooden boxes are very heavy.

I sometimes described the military as ‘moving stuff constantly’ and women don’t do that very well.

[Oatka]

None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for the Mulberry harbors which allowed the supplies and troops in to reinforce the beachheads.

Read FR post #22 at 05-25 D-Day question of the day

[doorgunner69]

Amazing difference in those German prisoners appearance and that of captured Japanese. Have read many times of the difference experienced in the fighting, one against otherwise normal men, or against fanatical animals.

[tomkat]

< saving >

thanks, DB !

[trisham]

Well done!

[crz]

Look at how young those Germans look. I had the honor to actually know several vets who fought over there and every one of them said they knew it was not going to be long for it to be over because they kept capturing Germans who were younger and younger...some as young as 14 years old. Yet, when they got into Germany the fighting around some towns got worse. Some of the German civilians were really nasty.