Thursday will mark 80 years since the momentous Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy. There were several iconic photographs of the operation that led to Europe’s liberation from the Nazi regime — and the end of World War II.
But perhaps the best-known is “Into the Jaws of Deaths.” It was taken by U.S. Coast Guard Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert F. Sargent, who was traveling with the troops to document Operation Neptune — the naval component of Operation Overlord, the Allied coordinated military invasion later referred to as “D-Day” or “Normandy landings”.
Sargent was with the members of Company E, 16th Infantry Regiment, of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division on board the landing craft from the U.S. Coast Guard-crewed USS Samuel Chase. Not long after dawn, a few yards from the "Easy Red" sector of Omaha Beach, the bow ramp was lowered and soldiers began to disembark into the water.
Soldiers's courage amid frantic war
It was around 7:40 a.m, when Sargent took the famous shot. Most of the men had exited the landing craft and were wading ashore under German fire. From where he stood, Sargent had the same point of view as soldiers about to disembark, although he himself remained on the boat. The helmeted blurry silhouette in the foreground is Seaman 1st Class Patsy J. Papandrea, the bowman responsible for operating the bow ramp.
Sargent’s photograph, whose full title was “Taxis to Hell – and Back – Into the Jaws of Death,” was originally captioned: “American invaders spring from the ramp of a Coast Guard-manned landing barge to wade those last perilous yards to the beach of Normandy. Enemy fire will cut some of them down. Their ‘taxi’ will pull itself off the sands and dash back to a Coast Guard-manned transport for more passengers.”
Through his lens, Sargent managed to capture both the courage of the soldiers and the frenzy of this pivotal moment in the war.
Regarded as one of the greatest military achievements and the largest seaborne invasion in history, the Normandy landings were also one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Of the 156,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers who landed on the beaches, an estimated 4,400 were killed.