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1 of 25American troops in England before D-Day, May 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
2 of 25American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion, May 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
3 of 25Troops and civilians pass the time on Henley Bridge, Henley-on-Thames, in the spring of 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
4 of 25An American corporal stacks cans of gasoline in preparation for the upcoming invasion of France, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, May 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
5 of 25A small town in England in the spring of 1944, shortly before D-Day.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
6 of 25An American Army chaplain kneels next to a wounded soldier in order to administer the Eucharist and Last Rites, France, 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
7 of 25An abandoned German machine gun, France, June 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
8 of 25Magazines scattered among the rubble of the heavily bombed town of Saint-Lô, Normandy, France, summer 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
9 of 25An American tank crew takes a breather on the way through the town of Avranches, Normandy, summer 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
10 of 25"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—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
11 of 25View 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—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
12 of 25"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—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
13 of 25Along the coast of France, June 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
14 of 25From 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—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
15 of 25Maintenance work on an American P-47 Thunderbolt in a makeshift airfield in the French countryside, summer 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
16 of 25A French couple shares cognac with an American tank crew, northern France, summer 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
17 of 25A P-38 fighter plane sits in the background as the pilot arrives in a captured German vehicle, France, 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
18 of 25Church services in dappled sunlight, France, 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
19 of 25American Army trucks (note cyclist hitching a ride) parade down the Champs-Elysées the day after the liberation of Paris by French and Allied troops, August 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
20 of 25Frenchmen transport painted British and American flags for use in a parade, summer 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
21 of 25Tanks under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris during liberation celebrations, August 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
22 of 25"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—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
23 of 25Free 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—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
24 of 25Celebrations in Paris after the liberation of the city, August 1944.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
25 of 25American 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.Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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 and old news reels, most of them routinely presented in suitably 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 against German defenses on June 6, 1944. The fury of the monumental attack was matched only by the ferocity of the sustained, withering counterstrike.
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.
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.
Finally: Information on specific locations or people in these photographs is not always available; Scherschel and his colleagues did not always provide that data for every one of the many thousands of pictures they made throughout the war. When a locale or person depicted is known, that is noted in the caption.
[WATCH: ‘Behind the Picture: Robert Capa’s D-Day’]
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