It was the military operation that turned the tide of World War II.
Now, more than 70 years later, these coloured photographs uncovered in the National Archives of Canada show the daily struggles of the Invasion of Normandy.
Code-named Operation Overlord, the invasion was launched on 6 June, 1944 with the Normandy landings also known as D-Day.
These images show infantry soldiers readying themselves for the shores of Normandy, young men manning tanks and machine guns travelling through the countryside, as well as the devastation left behind after Allied forces bombed towns and villages to retake France from Nazi Germany.
The Day: Canadian infantry soldiers are seen disembarking several craft tank ships in a low tide on June 6, 1944, surrounded by armored tanks and beach obstacles, the men walk on a carpet of wooden slats on the sand
Battle poses: Soldiers man a gun as they pose for a war photographer near Juno Beach in 1944
Captured: Two Canadian soldiers hold up a Nazi flag which they captured in the galleries of the Aucrais Haut-Mesnil quarry.The Nazi pennant did not seem to have served much and was probably folded in the saddle bag lying at their feet
Destruction: The town of Saint-Lô saw destruction of up to 95 per cent when U.S. forces bombed it during Operation Overord
Daily fight: Three American soldiers are seen on their Half-track M3A1, left, and right, a Canadian crew of a Sherman tank resting before the battle south of Caen on July 28, 1944
Off to France: Jeeps embarked on a craft tank ship around D-Day, the operation that started the Invasion of Normandy
Allied fighters: Soldiers of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division ready themselves to travel to Normandy across the English Channel
Leaving England: Assault landing crafts are filled to the brim with troops, pictured in the beginning of June in 1944
Ready to fight: Rangers of the 2nd Battallion embarked for Normandy on June 1, 1944, and remained on board five English vessels for security purposes. Seen in this image are some soldiers carry Bangalore torpedoes
Time off: Private Larry Mason of Brooklyn, New York, Private 1st Class Norman Rausch of Cliona, Pennsylvania, and Sergeant Henry Krawczyk of Milwaukee, Wisconsin play darts while waiting to leave
Canadian soldiers are seen manning a Bofors Cannon, named as Sergeant Traplin, Bombardier Heldon and Sergeant Kennedy
Time to eat: U.S. troops receive donuts and coffee distributed by the Red Cross in a tent in Weymouth, Dorset, before embarking on ships set to cross the Channel before D-Day
What was to come: In the foreground two sailors of the US Navy have personalized their jacket as they sit onboard an amphibious assault craft carrying personnel and vehicles across the water
Exercise: This image shows soldiers of the 17th Cavalry Squadron (Mechanized) of the XX US Corps according to the registration of the Jeep, during an exercise somewhere in the UK before D-Day
After the battle: American soldiers, an officer at the head of a Lt (white vertical line on the helmet) cross a farmyard among civilians, including children in Normandy
Remains: Two French nuns, two women and three children look upon the church Saint Malo after the bombardments carried out by the American sappers
Managing weapons: Three Canadian soldiers are examining German guns captured in the galleries of the Aucrais á Haut-Mesnil quarry, left, and right, three others pose for the photographer with a mortar
Free France: A street in Cherbourg after liberation, sees the French flas above ‘La Maison du Prisonnier’, a Vichy organization on Rue du Chateau, going from Place De Gaulle to Place de la Fontaine
Ruins: A couple of civilians crosses what remains of the Rue Carnot towards the old Prefecture in the ruins of Saint-Lo
Crossing the Channel: This shot of the British LCA-1377 shows U.S. troops travelling with medical staff ahead of D-Day
This photo, taken in England at the beginning of June 1944, contains a host of interesting details. There are soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division US, armored troops and special brigades of genius as well as vehicles equipped with camouflage nets where jute canvas strips
Time to go: Embarkation on ships, beginning of June 1944, ahead of Operation Overlord, sending personnel to Omaha Beach
Heading out: These U.S. and Canadian forces are set for one of the embarkation ports for Omaha Beach; Weymouth, Portland, Poole, Plymouth, Falmouth, Helford River and Fowey
Bombed out: A long column of American vehicles arrives from the north, from the direction of the beaches of Omaha and Utah and rolls on the road of Carentan, Saint-Lo, Normandy
A road in Saint-Lo has been cleared and is used by columns of American vehicles skirting the city from the north to continue south.In the center is the lake formed by the overflow of the Dolle, whose bed is obstructed by the ruins of the houses
Two children, Max and Jean Robin aged 12 and eight, watching the passage of an American Jeep preceding a Citroen front-wheel drive on the Rue des Noyer from the ruins of Saint-Lo