DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

The Invasion of Normandy: The Wounded

Man Smoking
Mitchell Jamieson #220 (reverse side)
Pencil, circa 1944
88-193-HUb

In 1944, cigarette smoking was considered to have a calming effect and cigarettes were available throughout the military supply system.

LST Discharging British Wounded
Mitchell Jamieson #220a
Watercolor, circa 1944
88-193-HV

In the first days following the D-Day landing, LSTs brought back continuous streams of wounded and German prisoners of war. This scene is on the "hards" (concrete ramps simulating a beach in a deep-water harbor) where LSTs unloaded at a southern English port. These were British Royal Marines, who hit the British beaches before any other assault troops. Ambulances were waiting further back to take them to hospitals. To onlookers who were not with the invasion fleet who witnessed this return, there was the terrible fascination of seeing men, coming back broken and ravaged from the mouth of some monstrous but invisible machine.

LST Discharging British Wounded
Mitchell Jamieson #220
Charcoal & wash, circa 1944
88-193-HU

Study for LST discharging British Wounded

Capture German Gun Casement on Omaha Beach
Alexander P. Russo #36
Ink wash, June 1944
88-198-AJ

This was the scene on Omaha Beach on D+2 (June 8, 1944). Elements of the American army occupied a bombproof German gun casement and put it to good use as an emergency dressing station and operating room.

Wounded Taken Aboard LST on D+2
Alexander P. Russo #75
Ink wash, June 1944
88-198-BW

Again, loading the wounded on a beached LST for transport to medical facilities in England. The wounded arrived from fighting inland on jeeps.

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