1. June 6, 1944 Normandy, France 2. June 6, 1944 Normandy, France. 3. June 6, 1944 Normandy, France. 4. June 6, 1944 Normandy, France. 5. June 9, 1944 Normandy, France 6. LIFE. The War After D-Day: Deeper Into Hell 7. The Normandy invasion of June 6, 1944, was so vast in scope — and so punishingly effective in establishing an Allied beachhead on European soil — that people sometimes forget just how long the war lasted, and how brutal it remained, in both Europe and the Pacific after D-Day. The successes at Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword beaches remain, rightly, among the most celebrated military operations in history — but for more than a year following those landings, the fighting went on, and on, and on in some of the war’s most appalling battles and campaigns. Hundreds of thousands of Allied and Axis troops and untold thousands more civilian men, women and children died before Japan surrendered in September 1945, finally ending the war that for six years had reshaped the globe. This gallery features photographs — some of them iconic, many of them little-known — from Saipan, Bastogne, Iwo Jima, Berlin, Nagasaki: places where the war did not stop when Operation Overlord ended. 8. Rescue workers help pull victims from ruins of a building hit by a German V-1 "flying bomb" rocket, July 1944.(Mansell The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 9. A grizzled, battle-weary Marine peers over his shoulder during the final days of fighting on Saipan, July 1944.(W. Eugene Smith The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 10. American Marines in action during the fight for control of Saipan, summer 1944. (W. Eugene Smith The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 11. Photographer W. Eugene Smith's picture of a Marine drinking from his canteen during 1944's Battle of Saipan is as iconic a war picture as any ever made. (W. Eugene Smith Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images) 12. A crew maneuvers an enormous piece of artillery during the Battle of Saipan, 1944. In the waning days of the struggle for the island, thousands of Japanese civilians and troops committed suicide, rather than surrender to American troops. Many leapt to their death from the top of sheer cliffs that fall 200 feet to rocks and surf below. (Peter Stackpole Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images) 13. Long journey: U.S. soldiers drive the wounded from the front lines during the fight to take Saipan, Northern Marianas Islands, June 1944. In the first jeep, one soldier drives while a second holds up IV bags attached to two injured men strapped to the vehicle's hood. W. (Eugene SmithTime & Life Pictures/Getty Images) 14. While under fire, U.S. Marines advance on occupying Japanese forces in Tanapag, Saipan in June 1944. (Eugene SmithTime & Life Pictures/Getty Images) 15. Marines tend to wounded comrades during the battle to take Saipan from the Japanese, 1944. (W. Eugene Smith The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 16. Saipan, Marianas Islands July 1944. American GI watching starved, wounded man clean a small child after they emerged from caves to surrender to American troops after the defeat of the Japanese in the battle for control of Saipan. (W. Eugene Smith The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 17. Saipan, Marianas Islands July 1944. Hand of an American Marine lifting tiny infant's barely living body from hole where native islanders had been hiding to escape the battle between American and Japanese forces for control of Saipan. (W. Eugene Smith The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 18. In a photo that somehow comprises both tenderness and horror, an American Marine cradles a near-dead infant pulled from under a rock while troops cleared Japanese fighters and civilians from caves on Saipan in the summer of 1944. The child was the only person found alive among hundreds of corpses in one cave. (W. Eugene Smith Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images) 19. July – August 1944. In a photograph taken in a separate battle against Japanese troops in Guam, Smith captures the moment a wounded American Marine is loaded onto a 'alligator' tracked amphibious vehicle for evacuation. (Eugene SmithTime & Life Pictures/Getty Images) 20. A Marine, pictured in July 1944, looks at the bodies of Japanese soldiers killed during the battle for control of Saipan. Nearly 30,000 Japanese troops died. (Eugene SmithTime & Life Pictures/Getty Images) 21. St. Lo, France, summer 1944. (Joe Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 22. St. Lo, France, summer 1944. (Joe Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) 23. Ruins of a town in northwestern France, summer 1944. (Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

• published: 28 Oct 2014
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