Normandy Invasion

At 0630, on the morning of June 6, Americans landed on two of five Normandy beaches earmarked for the invasion: Utah and Omaha. Thanks to National Archives and official military records, we can view pictures of that memorable day.

• An aerial view of Utah Beach on D-Day morning.



• USS Bayfield (APA-33) was the U.S. flagship for the Utah Beach landings.



• During the early phase of the landings, German shells were fired at an LST making its way to Utah Beach.



• Barrage balloons, attached to landing crafts and ships making their way to Utah Beach, were intended to protect men and vessels from low-flying German war planes.



• Troops about to go ashore were still smiling.  Many would never smile again.



• With its .50 caliber machine gun pointed skyward, for anti-aircraft defense, an Army weapons carrier makes its way to Utah Beach.



• Sunken ships at Utah Beach formed a kind of breakwater.



• Having made it safely to a seawall, soldiers await orders to move inland.



• American soldiers under artillery fire, including African-Americans, do their jobs on Utah Beach.



• VII Corps' D-Day operations at the Utah Beachhead.



• German prisoners of war, captured on June 6th, were temporarily kept in a Utah Beach barbed-wire enclosure.



• Utah Beach headquarters, during the landing build-up, was not a safe place that day.

Omaha Beach, the other American D-Day landing point, had its own series of problems.