D-Day Anniversary

Correction: France-D-Day Anniversary Story


COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France June 7, 2013 (AP)


In a story June 6 about the 69th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a U.S. cemetery in Normandy holds the graves of more than 9,000 Americans who died during the storming of the beaches. Those victims died during the D-Day landings as well as other operations, according to the American Battle Monuments Commission.

A corrected version of the story is below:

D-Day anniversary commemorations begin in France

Commemorations marking 69th anniversary of Allied invasion of France begin with flag-raising

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — Veterans of the 1944 Normandy landings gathered Thursday at the site of history's largest amphibious invasion for a day of ceremonies marking D-Day's 69th anniversary.

Around two dozen U.S. vets, some in their old uniforms pinned with medals, stood and saluted during a wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial overlooking Omaha Beach, where a U.S. cemetery holds the remains of over 9,000 Americans, including many who died during the vicious battle to storm the French shore under withering Nazi fire.

Commemorations of the June, 6, 1944, battle began in respectful silence early Thursday morning, with the stars-and-stripes raised in a quiet ceremony at the cemetery.

Tourists, many from the U.S. and Britain, gathered under a brilliant spring sky to witness the flag-raising amid the neat rows of thousands of white marble crosses and stars of David marking the graves of U.S. servicemen and women fallen in the Allied battle for Normandy.

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, on "D-Day," beginning the liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II.

A full day of ceremonies — including fireworks, concerts and marches — was taking place across Normandy in honor of the more than 150,000 troops, mainly U.S., British and Canadian, who risked or gave their lives in the invasion.

"The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory!" Eisenhower said in an historic address after the invasion was launched.

The Ruins of Normandy: Unpublished Color Photos From France, 1944

The ruins left behind after warfare speak a language of their own. And, even more strikingly, no matter where the conflict has taken place — whether it’s in northern Europe or the South Pacific, the Middle East or Central Africa — the vernacular of destruction is very often the same. Buildings reduced to rubble and dust. A scarred, tortured landscape seemingly devoid of any life at all, aside from small human forms trying to piece it back together. Twisted, rusting, abandoned vehicles. And always, above it all, the silent, indifferent sky.

Here, on the anniversary of D-Day, LIFE.com presents a series of previously unpublished color photographs made in northwest France by LIFE photographer Frank Scherschel. The impulse behind posting the gallery, meanwhile, is really no more complicated than this: to commemorate those Allied troops who fought and died; to honor those who fought and lived; and to mark the occasion by also remembering what happened to countless towns — and townspeople — in northwest France and around the globe when the Second World War unleashed hell in the very midst of their lives.

A note on the photographer: Frank Scherschel (1907-1981) was an award-winning staff photographer for LIFE well into the 1950s. His younger brother Joe was a LIFE photographer, as well.

In addition to the Normandy invasion, Frank Scherschel photographed the war in the Pacific, the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth, the 1956 Democratic National Convention, collective farming in Czechoslovakia, Sir Winston Churchill (many times), art collector Peggy Guggenheim, road racing at Le Mans, baseball, football, boxing, a beard-growing contest in Michigan and countless other people and events, both epic and forgotten.

Finally: Information on the specific locations or people who appear in the photographs in this gallery 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 countless photographs they made throughout the war. When the locale or person depicted in an image in this gallery is known, it is noted in the caption.

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Ruins, northwestern France, summer 1944, after D-Day.



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American troops clear wreckage in Saint-Lô, Normandy, 1944.



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Saint-Lô, Normandy, summer 1944.



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Destroyed town in northwest France, summer 1944.



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Armored vehicles on the move past civic buildings in Avranches, summer 1944.



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American troops in courtyard of ruined building, northwestern France, summer 1944.



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Post-D-Day destruction, northern France, 1944.



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Jeeps (including a press vehicle) in the town square, Marigny (Manche), Normandy, 1944



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Ruined tank near St. Gilles (or perhaps Hambye), France, 1944.



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American troops, northwestern France, summer 1944.



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Ruins of a town in northwestern France, summer 1944.



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Ruined tank near St. Gilles (or perhaps Hambye), France, 1944.



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Unloading vehicles and supplies from an LST (landing ship, tank) at Normandy beachhead, summer 1944.



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An amphibious "duck" comes ashore from its landing craft, Normandy, summer 1944.



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Beached shipping, Allied beachhead, Normandy, summer 1944.



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Ruined building and sign in French and German, northwestern France, summer 1944.

Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images