Zac Efron The picture that shows the colossal scale of the D-Day operation, 1944
The D-Day landing operation was the largest single-day amphibious invasion of all time, with 160,000 troops, 195,700 naval and merchant navy personnel and 5,000 ships being transplanted from the other side of the English Channel. Large concrete blocks, nicknamed Mulberry harbors, were sailed across the channel and used as portable docks. The landings took place along a 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast between Caen and Valognes, divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The fighting on D-Day was so fierce that even today as much as 4% of the sand on Normandy beaches is magnetic shrapnel that has been broken down over the decades into sand-sized chunks.
