A mine exploded and ripped a gaping hole in the forward compartments, and then German batteries pummeled the LCI. The bow soon touched bottom, and as the ship ground to a halt, so did its luck. No clear channel existed where the commanding officer's charts indicated there would be, so he ordered the landing craft straight through the obstacles that had been covered by the incoming tide.

The LCI(L)- 85 was one of four Coast Guard LCI's that were destroyed on D-Day. The '85' sank shortly after this photograph was taken. The Coast Guard LCI(L)- 85, battered by enemy fire after approaching Omaha Beach, prepares to evacuate the troops she was transporting to an awaiting transport. Her crew winced as they heard repeated thuds against the vessel's hull made by the wooden stakes covering the beach like a crazy, tilted, man-made forest. The Coast Guard-manned landing craft LCI(L)- 85 approached the beach at 12 knots. troops on the morning of 6 June 1944 at Omaha Beach. A Coast Guard-manned LCVP from the U.S.S. Coast Guard photograph by CPHOM Robert F. In the beginning of August, the Soviets began a major offensive around the Kursk salient, and within a few weeks the Germans were in retreat all along the eastern front.Click here to download a PDF version of this article. After six days of warfare concentrated near Prokhorovka, south of Kursk, the German Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge called off the offensive, and by July 23 the Soviets had forced the Germans back to their original positions. However, the Soviets had better tanks and air support than in previous battles, and in bitter fighting Soviet antitank artillery destroyed as much as 40 percent of the German armor, which included their new Mark VI Tiger tanks. The German attack began on July 5, and 38 divisions, nearly half of which were armored, began moving from the south and the north.

In early July, Germany and the USSR concentrated their forces near the city of Kursk in western Russia, site of a 150-mile-wide Soviet pocket that jutted 100 miles into the German lines. The Battle of Kursk, involving some 6,000 tanks, two million men, and 5,000 aircraft, ends with the German offensive repulsed by the Soviets at heavy cost.

Largest tank battle in ww2 d-day