6 June 1944

Today is the 67th anniversary of D-Day. As I was browsing web stories about the Allied landings at Normandy I came across a series of remarkable photos from LIFE that show people and places before and after the landings. They are in color, and for the most part bright and cheery, a notable contrast to the dark, grainy B&W pictures of grim subjects that we usually see.

They're well worth looking at. Check 'em out.

In one of life's interesting coincidences, the first picture in the series (below) is of a couple of combat engineers using a crate of ammunition as a makeshift table prior to the invasion. My father was a combat engineer who landed at Omaha Beach on 6 June 1944. (No, he's not in the picture. That would have been too much of a coincidence.)

American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion