Cpl. Carlton Chapman is a machine-gunner in an M-4 tank with the 761st Tank Battalion doing battle near Nancy, France. November 5, 1944.

Source: National Archives

An 81 mm mortar crew fires at German positions in France.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-194734)

Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy, France, on 6 June 1944, was the Western Allies' greatest operation of World War II and the finest hour of Anglo-American cooperation. Only the United States and the British Empire could have successfully undertaken the largest and most dangerous amphibious assault in history. The . . .

Allied soldiers wade through the surf during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France. June 6, 1944

Source: National Archives (26-G-2343)

Dwain Luce was born April 25 1916, and grew up in Mobile. His father was in the lumber business. Luce graduated from high school in l934 and from Auburn in l938, with a reserve commission. After graduation he went to work at his family's cannery business in Mississippi. On December . . .

Mobile's Dwain Luce, left, with friends Hunter Marstan, Jack Manning and Stuart Waring. Luce, a glider pilot, would see action in Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Holland as part of Operation Market Garden.

Source: Dwain Luce

Mobile's Dwain Luce poses for a snapshot. Luce, a glider pilot, would see action in Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Holland as part of Operation Market Garden.

Source: Dwain Luce

Portrait of Lt. Emily Lewis in her nursing uniform. She served as a flight nurse and helped evacuate wounded after D-Day.

Source: Emily Lewis

Emily Lewis was born in Paducah, Kentucky on April 5th, 1920, and grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1924. She graduated from nursing school in 1941 and after Pearl Harbor, enlisted in the armed forces. She was called to duty in June of 1942, and was initially sent to . . .

Flight nurse Emily Lewis tends to a wounded flier. December, 1944.

Source: Emily Lewis

Lt. Emily Lewis and two colleagues prepare to travel by jeep in Normandy. 1944. She served as a flight nurse and helped evacuate wounded after D-Day.

Source: Emily Lewis

Ernest Taylor Pyle, best known as "Ernie," covered the Second World War for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain. Pyle was born to farmers in Dana, Indiana on August 3, 1900. He joined the US Navy in 1918 hoping to see action in World War One, but the . . .

Ernie Pyle at Anzio, Italy. March 18, 1944

Source: National Archives (111-SC-191703)

Ernie Pyle at his typewriter, Anzio, Italy, March 18, 1944.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-191705)

A favorite of the GIs, journalist Ernie Pyle offers a cigarette to an infantryman. He later would be killed by a sniper's bullet.

Source: National Archives (127-N-116840)

A C-47 transports wounded Americans across the English Channel.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-293239)

American infantrymen fight the Germans one hedgreow at a time, here with a rifle grenade. Normandy, France. 1944.

Source: National Archives (208-AA-20N-7)

Two American soldiers use an opening in the brush to fire at a Nazi position across a clearing. Normandy, France.

Source: National Archives (208-AA-20N-40)

Harry Schmid was born in 1921, a 5th generation Sacramentan. His father worked for the telephone company and moved the family to Stockton in the mid 1930s, but Schmid returned to Sacramento after high school, got a job as a bookkeeper at the telephone company and studied accounting at Sacramento . . .

Harry Schmid, ready for combat, in front of a cafe. March, 1945. Schmid, from Sacramento, became a glider pilotand was part of the landings in Normandy and Operation Market Garden. After landing his glider, he became an infrantryman.

Source: Harry Schmid