--- title: Before and After D-Day: Color Photos From England and France, 1944 description: LIFE.com presents masterfully restored color photos from England and France in 1944 that feel at-once familiar and utterly new. canonical: https://time.com/3457047/before-and-after-d-day-color-photos-from-england-and-france/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-06T16:30:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:51:54.492Z og:title: Before and After D-Day: Color Photos From England and France, 1944 og:description: LIFE.com presents masterfully restored color photos from England and France in 1944 that feel at-once familiar and utterly new. og:url: https://time.com/3457047/before-and-after-d-day-color-photos-from-england-and-france/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a86212a69ded91d/6986a6a7e8524b0f5a6050b1/d-day-color-02.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 1216160.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Before and After D-Day: Color Photos From England and France, 1944 twitter:description: LIFE.com presents masterfully restored color photos from England and France in 1944 that feel at-once familiar and utterly new. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a86212a69ded91d/6986a6a7e8524b0f5a6050b1/d-day-color-02.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Before and After D-Day: Color Photos From England and France (6 Nov 2014) by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Nov 6, 2014 4:30 PM UTC  American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion, May 1944. American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion, May 1944.Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Nov 6, 2014 4:30 PM UTC 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, and usually in grim black-and-white — what happened on the beaches of Normandy (codenamed Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword) as the Allies unleashed their [historic assault](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy%5Flandings) 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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation%5Fof%5FParis) itself. As presented here, in masterfully restored color, Scherschel’s pictures — most of which were never published in LIFE — feel at-once profoundly familiar and somehow utterly, vividly new. [**\[See all of LIFE’s galleries\]**](http://time.com/photography/life/) \[Buy the LIFE book, [_D-Day: Remembering the Battle that Won the War — 70 Years Later_](http://www.amazon.com/LIFE-D-Day-Remembering-Battle-Years/dp/1618931024/)\] **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 these photographs 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. _Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter_ [_@lizabethronk_](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk)_._  American troops in England before D-Day, May 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion, May 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Troops and civilians pass the time on Henley Bridge, Henley-on-Thames, in the spring of 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  An American corporal stacks cans of gasoline in preparation for the upcoming invasion of France, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, May 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  A small town in England in the spring of 1944, shortly before D-Day. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  An American Army chaplain kneels next to a wounded soldier in order to administer the Eucharist and Last Rites, France, 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  An abandoned German machine gun, France, June 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Magazines scattered among the rubble of the heavily bombed town of Saint-L™, Normandy, France, summer 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  An American tank crew takes a breather on the way through the town of Avranches, Normandy, summer 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  "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. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  View of the ruins of the Palais de Justice in the town of St. Lo, France, summer 1944\. The red metal frame in the foreground is what's left of an obliterated fire engine. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  "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 on the relationship between the U.S. and its longtime European ally Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Along the coast of France, June 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  From D-Day until Christmas 1944, German prisoners of war were shipped off to American detention facilities at a rate of 30,000 per month. Above: Captured German troops, June 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Maintenance work on an American P-47 Thunderbolt in a makeshift airfield in the French countryside, summer 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  A French couple shares cognac with an American tank crew, northern France, summer 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  A P-38 fighter plane sits in the background as the pilot arrives in a captured German vehicle, France, 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Church services in dappled sunlight, France, 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  American Army trucks (note cyclist hitching a ride) parade down the Champs-ElysŽes the day after the liberation of Paris by French and Allied troops, August 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Frenchmen transport painted British and American flags for use in a parade, summer 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Tanks under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris during liberation celebrations, August 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  "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. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Free French General and military governor of the French capital Pierre Koenig, left, pictured during ceremonies held the day after the liberation of Paris, August 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Celebrations in Paris after the liberation of the city, August 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  American troops stand beside a World War 1 monument bedecked with French flags after the town (exact location unknown) was liberated from German occupying forces, summer 1944. 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