Before and after D-Day: Color photos from England and France, 1944

By Ben Cosgrove, Life.com

Updated 1310 GMT (2110 HKT) June 5, 2013

A U.S. Army chaplain kneels next to a wounded soldier to administer the eucharist and last rites, France, 1944.
Photos: Before and after D-Day: Color photos from England and France, 1944
Before and after D-Day: In color – A U.S. Army chaplain kneels next to a wounded soldier to administer the eucharist and last rites, France, 1944.
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An American tank crew takes a breather on the way through the town of Avranches, Normandy, summer 1944.
Photos: Before and after D-Day: Color photos from England and France, 1944
Before and after D-Day: In color – An American tank crew takes a breather on the way through the town of Avranches, Normandy, summer 1944.
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"We thought it was going to be murder, but it wasn't. To show you how easy it was, I ate my bar of chocolate. In every other operational trip, I sweated so much the chocolate they gave us melted in my breast pocket." -- Frank Scherschel describing his experiences photographing the Normandy invasion from the air before he joined Allied troops heading inland. Above: GIs search ruined homes in western France after D-Day.
Photos: Before and after D-Day: Color photos from England and France, 1944
Before and after D-Day: In color – "We thought it was going to be murder, but it wasn't. To show you how easy it was, I ate my bar of chocolate. In every other operational trip, I sweated so much the chocolate they gave us melted in my breast pocket." -- Frank Scherschel describing his experiences photographing the Normandy invasion from the air before he joined Allied troops heading inland. Above: GIs search ruined homes in western France after D-Day.
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"All the civilized world loves France and Paris. Americans share this love with a special intimacy born in the kinship of our revolutions, our ideas and our alliances in two great wars." -- LIFE magazine on the relationship between the U.S. and its longtime European ally.
Photos: Before and after D-Day: Color photos from England and France, 1944
Before and after D-Day: In color – "All the civilized world loves France and Paris. Americans share this love with a special intimacy born in the kinship of our revolutions, our ideas and our alliances in two great wars." -- LIFE magazine on the relationship between the U.S. and its longtime European ally.
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A church service is conducted in dappled sunlight, France, 1944.
Photos: Before and after D-Day: Color photos from England and France, 1944
Before and after D-Day: In color – A church service is conducted in dappled sunlight, France, 1944.
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"Paris is like a magic sword in a fairy tale -- a shining power in those hands to which it rightly belongs, in other hands tinsel and lead. Whenever the City of Light changes hands, Western civilization shifts its political balance. So it has been for seven centuries; so it was in 1940; so it was last week." -- LIFE after the French capital was liberated in August 1944.
Photos: Before and after D-Day: Color photos from England and France, 1944
Before and after D-Day: In color – "Paris is like a magic sword in a fairy tale -- a shining power in those hands to which it rightly belongs, in other hands tinsel and lead. Whenever the City of Light changes hands, Western civilization shifts its political balance. So it has been for seven centuries; so it was in 1940; so it was last week." -- LIFE after the French capital was liberated in August 1944.
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It's no mystery why images of unremitting violence spring to mind when one hears the deceptively simple term "D-Day."
We've all seen -- in photos, movies, old news reels -- what happened on the beaches of Normandy (code named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword) as the Allies unleashed an historic assault against German defenses on June 6, 1944.
But in color photos taken before and after the invasion, LIFE magazine's Frank Scherschel captured countless other, lesser-known scenes from the run-up to the onslaught and the heady weeks after:
-- American troops training in small English towns.
-- The French countryside, implausibly lush after the spectral landscape of the beachheads.
-- The reception GIs enjoyed en route to the capital.
-- The jubilant liberation of Paris itself.
See the entire gallery and read the full story on Life.com.