Images of the Week: D-Day in Color

by wwade, posted in Digitization, Photo of the Week, Photographs

This week I’m highlighting color photographs taken as the Western Allies prepared for the invasion of Normandy (D-Day). The overwhelming majority of D-Day related color still film found in the National Archives document the pre-assault phase and not of the invasion area. Black-and-White photographs and other D-Day related documents from the National Archives can be found in our Online Catalog and in the new online exhibit “1944 – D-Day and The Normandy Invasion”.

Local Identifier: 111-C-1169, “American troops load onto LSIs at a port in Britain where barrage balloons have been anchored for protection against strafing and low level bombings.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1197, “These American troops are marching through the streets of a British port town on their way to the docks where they will be loaded into landing craft for the big assault.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1209, “Jeeps being driven into the open doors of an LCT at a port in Britain in preparation for D-Day.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1214, “Men and equipment are massed together in landing craft in preparation for the big assault on the European continent.  England.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1218, “This is the last roll call for the men before they board landing craft for the big assault on the European continent.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1219, “View of an LCT with American troops and equipment loaded aboard awaiting the signal for the assault against the continent.”

Local Identifier: 111-C-1232, “American troops at a British port descend into barges which will take them to troop ships from which they will launch the attack against Hitler’s Fortress Europe.  Note Barrage balloons in the background.”

Local Identifier: 111-C-1237, “American troops at a British port descend into barges which will take them to troop ships from which they will launch the attack against Hitler’s Fortress Europe.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1247, “Trucks which will carry supplies to front line troops when the assault against Hitler’s Europe begins, are being loaded on an LST in a British port.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1248, “Medics and litter bearers going up the ramp of an LCT which will take them to France for the assault against Hitler’s Europe.”

 Local Identifier: 111-C-1258, “These American troops have loaded their equipment onto an LCT and are waiting the signal for the assault against the Continent.”

9 thoughts on “Images of the Week: D-Day in Color”

  1. The location of the pictures are basically weymouth and portland harbours in dorset, I have identified the following:

    111-C-1197 – The esplanade weymouth dorset
    111-SC-1218 – The esplanade weymouth dorset
    111-C-1232 – custom house quay weymouth dorset
    111-C-1169 – custom house quay weymouth dorset
    111-SC-1209 – 9 castletown road, portland dorset

    Not sure about the others, some other the buildings in the background have been demolished since, but you can go on google maps/ street view to see the locations today.

  4. Why didn’t they attack the beach fortresses from the air and shell it with battleships thereby obliterating everything first before making the beach landings?

    1. They did but the Atlantic Wall was constructed of such thick walls and hardened steel re-enforcing bars as to make it impervious to shelling. Besides that, the Nazis were stationed inland just out of reach of the battleships, or so they thought. One Captain of a battleship received recon that his shells were just falling short of a tank battalion of Panzers and so he simply flooded the compartments on the starboard side of the ship and this changed the trajectory of the shells enough that the tanks were now in range and wiped out.

    1. Hi! I just fixed them, so it should be safe to re-blog now. Thanks for letting us know that the photo links had broken. We recently migrated the blog and we’re still finding posts with issues. If you find others, please let us know. Thanks again!

      1. Will do. I had that happen to me when I first started and Pierre Lagasse went from post to post to find which photos needed replacing. Like I told you before – we have a great bunch over at Pacific Paratrooper!!!

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