It was one of the largest amphibious landings in history. On 6 June 1944 a huge Allied military machine embarked on the invasion of German-occupied France. Thousands of New Zealand sailors and airmen were on active duty that day.
'It was awesome, and there were the hundreds and hundreds of landing craft, loaded up with men heading towards the beaches, all in nice neat lines and order.
New Zealand seamen celebrate victory in London in 1945. They are some of the 4700 New Zealanders who were attached to the Royal Navy on D-Day. Many of them were on board the ships that carried the invasion force to Normandy and supported it with naval gunfire.
In the weeks before D-Day, the Royal Air Force prepared occupied territory in Europe for the invasion of ground forces and attacked strategic targets such as railway lines, troop trains and other transport.
The Allied landings on Normandy beaches began early in the morning of 6 June 1944. The operation had been postponed due to bad weather, so, by the time they sailed, the men had already been crammed into their landing craft for a day and a night.
Dewi Browne was born in Wanganui in 1920 and went to sea on merchant ships in 1937. In 1944 he joined a small hospital ship, the Lady Connaught, which was sent to support the Allied landings at Normandy.
A number of New Zealand merchant seamen served off the D-Day beaches on hospital ships and other support vessels. This image, taken off Omaha Beach, shows a landing craft alongside the British hospital ship Llandovery Castle, on which New Zealander Cliff Turner served as a baker.
The landings on 6 June 1944 were just the first part in a sustained campaign to break the war in Europe. For months after D-Day, planes flew over European cities, and the Allied troops pushed further inland.
Maurice Mayston was a fighter pilot with 485 NZ Spitfire Squadron. On D-Day his squadron shot down the first German bomber over the Normandy battlefield, and quickly followed it with a second.
Royal Air Force bomber pilot, John Morris describes Lucienne Vouzelaud, one of the French Resistance workers who helped him to safety after his plane was shot down in France.
Royal Air Force ground crew clean a Lancaster bomber between sorties. Many of the thousands of New Zealanders serving in Bomber Command flew these planes.
