It’s no mystery why images of unremitting violence spring to mind when one hears the deceptively simple term, “D-Day.” We’ve all seen — in photos, movies, old news reels — what happened on the beaches of Normandy as the Allies unleashed an historic assault against German defenses on June 6, 1944.

But in rare, color photos taken before and after the invasion, LIFE photographer Frank Scherschel captured countless other, lesser-known scenes from the run-up to the onslaught and the heady weeks after: American troops training in small English towns; the French countryside, implausibly lush after the spectral landscape of the beachheads; the reception GIs enjoyed en route to the capital; the liberation of Paris.

As presented here, in masterfully restored color, Scherschel’s pictures feel at-once profoundly familiar and somehow utterly, vividly new.