French Navy lands at Omaha Beach during D-Day anniversary event

Two French Navy landing craft arrived at Omaha Beach on Tuesday 4 June, for a rehearsal ahead of the 6 June commemoration event remembering the 1944 D-Day landings.

D-Day, an invasion of Nazi-occupied France, was unprecedented in scale and audacity, using the largest-ever armada of ships, troops, planes and vehicles to punch a hole in Adolf Hitler’s defences in western Europe and change the course of the Second World War.

Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944.

Of those, 73,000 were from the United States and 83,000 from Britain and Canada.

Forces from several other countries were also involved, including French troops.

A total of 4,414 Allied troops were killed on D-Day itself while fighting around 50,000 German forces.