It depicts soldiers of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division disembarking from an LCVP (landing craft, vehicle, personnel) from the U.S. Coast Guard-crewed USS Samuel Chase at Omaha Beach during the Normandy landings in World War II.
It depicts the soldiers departing the Higgins boat and wading through waist-deep water towards the "Easy Red" sector of Omaha Beach.
[4] The Higgins boat depicted in the photograph had departed from the attack transport USS Samuel Chase about 10 miles (8.7 nmi; 16 km) from the coast of Normandy at around 5:30 am.
Waves continuously broke over the boat's square bow, and the soldiers inside were drenched in cold ocean water.
[5] The image was evoked in the 1998 Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan,[6][7] and appears on the cover of Stanley Lombardo's 1997 English translation of the Iliad as a symbol of the universality of war.