Today marks 81 years since the the D-Day landings began on the Normandy beaches of France during World War Two. June 6, 1944, was an important turning point during World War Two and is one of the biggest seaborne invasions in history.

Today marks eighty one years since the largest naval invasion in history, also known as D-Day, when over 150,000 allied troops landed on the Normandy beaches. However, the entire invasion nearly had to be called off due to bad weather.

Members of an American landing unit help their exhausted comrades ashore during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. The men reached the zone code-named Utah Beach, near Sainte Mere Eglise, on a life raft after their landing craft was hit and sunk by German coastal defenses.

The documents were released ahead of the 81st anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944

Veterans gathered Friday in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler's regime.