After the liberation: UNPUBLISHED color photos of American troops posing happily with liberated Europeans after Allied Forces defeated the Nazis in World War II A series of never-before-published color images of jubilant locals in liberated Normandy after the D-Day landings has been released by LIFE.com The devastation wreaked on the beaches of Normandy in northwest France as the Allies unleashed their history-changing assault against the Germans in June 1994 has been well-documented. But in color photos taken by LIFE.com's Frank Scherschel, but not published at the time, countless other scenes 'of the beginning of the end of the war' were captured. From the reception troops enjoyed on their way to Paris to the jubilant liberation of the capital from Nazi control, these recently-released photos bring into the focus the spirit of the historic invasion on the 69th anniversary of the landings. American Army trucks parade down the Champs-Elysées the day after the liberation of Paris by French and Allied troops, August 1944 Life after the French capital was liberated in August 1944 Troops and civilians pass the time on Henley Bridge, Henley-on-Thames, in 1944 Photographer Scherschel (1907-1981) was an award-winning staff shooter for LIFE well into the 1950s. On June 6, 1944, about 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces, led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region. Captured German troops: From D-Day until Christmas 1944, German prisoners of war were shipped off to American detention facilities at a rate of 30,000 per month Allied troops uniting with locals in liberated French towns after D-Day An American tank crew takes a breather on the way through the town of Avranches, Normandy, in the summer of 1944 Operation Overlord Normandy: Four Allied soldiers are looking at a map with two French police officers in the center of a town in Normandy, June 1944 In England, American soldiers, having loaded their equipment and supplies onto a landing craft tank, await the signal to begin the D-Day invasion, June 1944 Two American members of the Women's Army Corps are looking at a map presented by a uniformed Frenchman in July 1944, after Cherbourg, France, was liberated by the U.S. Army In the wake of World War II's D-Day invasion, French townspeople wave at arriving Allied forces, Normandy, France, 1944 Three girls are playing in the sand next to a war-damaged vehicle in Cherbourg, July 1944 French couple sharing cognac with American tank crew after Allied forces liberated the area