On June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy in the coordinated invasion of occupied France known as D-Day.
Friday marks the 70th anniversary of the largest seaborne invasion in history â€" more than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft were sent to infiltrate the heavily German-fortified French coastline.
D-Day, or Operation Neptune, was the first move in Operation Overlord, the codename for the Battle of Normandy. Nine thousand Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but 100,000 went on to march against the Axis forces â€" in what would eventually lead to the successful Allied invasion of western Europe occupied by Nazi Germany.
Planning for the D-Day invasion began as early as December 1941, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed to the war plans division of the U.S. Army to design a plan for an Allied victory. In December 1943, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted on a May 1944 invasion at an inter-Allied conference in Tehran, Iran.
In January 1944, Eisenhower became the commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). Though May was the original target for the invasion, it was postponed due to difficulties with landing crafts; still, Eisenhower insisted on a unalterable June 5 date. Ultimately, weather issues pushed the date back a day to June 6. Eisenhower gave troops the order of that day as they prepared to invade the continent from the U.K.: "Full victory â€" Nothing else."
Seventy years later, the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, is expected to host thousands of visitors for a series of events on Friday, including a commemoration and parade.
A series of historical photos detailing the famous Normandy invasion, some of which include graphic depictions of war, are below.
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