70 years ago

PowerPoint Show by Andrew

On June 6th, it will be the 70th anniversary of the successful 1944 Allied invasion of France.

Several operations were combined to carry out the largest amphibious invasion in history - over 160,000 troops landed on June 6th, assisted by over 5,000 ships, aerial bombardment, gliders and paratroopers.

Thousands of soldiers lost their lives on those beaches that day - many thousands more would follow as the invasion succeeded and troops began to push German forces eastward, eventually leading to the Allied victory in 1945.

U.S. Soldiers march through a southern English coastal town, en route to board landing ships for the invasion of France, June 1944.

Jeeps are being loaded onto landing craft - in background, larger trucks and ducks are being loaded, June 1944.

British landing craft, preparing to sail the English Channel and invade Nazi-occupied France. These landing craft landed U.S. troops on Omaha Beach.

US troops in a boat crossing the English Channel.

General Eisenhower gives the order of the Day. "Full victory - nothing else" to paratroopers in England on June 6, 1944, just before they board their airplanes.

U.S. paratroopers in a C-47 aircraft

U.S. paratroopers preparing to jump.

American dead next to a crashed glider.

A-20 bombers make a bombing run on Pointe Du Hoc coastal battery.

U.S. soldiers approach Omaha Beach, their weapons wrapped in plastic to keep them dry.

U.S. soldiers in a landing craft approach Omaha Beach.

U.S. troops disembark from a landing vehicle on Utah Beach on the coast of Normandy, France in June of 1944.

US troops and jeeps go ashore at Omaha Beach.

Canadian troops approach Juno Beach.

An 88mm shell explodes on Utah Beach. In the foreground, American soldiers protect themselves from enemy fire.

One of the wounded on Omaha Beach.

U.S. soldiers rescue shipwreck survivors on Utah Beach.

Allied soldiers, vehicles and equipment swarm onto the French shore during the Normandy landings.

American soldiers and supplies moving inland.

Photo taken on D+2, after relief forces reached the Rangers at Point du Hoc.

Two U.S. soldiers escort a group of ten German prisoners on Omaha Beach.

An American soldier lies on the beach of Normandy.

American soldiers on Omaha Beach recover the dead after the D-Day invasion.

American dead lie in a French field.

A tribute to a US soldier who lost his life.

The corpse of a German soldier, in front of a bunker overlooking the coast.

A US soldier views the body of a dead German in Cherbourg, France.

Allied tanks on the move near Barenton, France.

American soldiers next to a body of a German soldier.

A US captain talks with members of the French Resistance.

In a farm courtyard, U.S. soldiers discuss an attack plan.

U.S. soldiers move inland from the beaches of France.

American soldiers crawl toward shelter on a street in Saint-Lo, France.

View of the station and destroyed town of Saint-Lo.

An American officer and a French Resistance fighter are seen engaged in a street battle with Germans.

The liberation of Saint-Lo, Summer 1944.

Bodies of U.S. soldiers are attended to in the French countryside.

French townspeople lay flowers on the body of an American soldier.

German war prisoners burying the American dead.

Peter Smoothy, 86, who was a leading writer in the Royal Navy on D-Day visits the grave of a fallen comrade on June 6, 2010 in Bayeux, France. Across Normandy several hundred of the surviving veterans of the Normandy campaign are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings which eventually led to the Allied liberation of France in 1944.

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