The largest amphibian landing in history began on 6 June 1944. At dawn, 4,300 ships and 2,600 landing crafts enabled the landing of 132,700 American, British, Canadian, and French troops as well as 20,000 vehicles on the Normandy beaches, nicknamed Juno, Gold, Sword, Utah, and Omaha. During the Battle of Normandy, thousands of soldiers were buried, sometimes in haste, right where they had died. It was in the 1950s that the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer was conceived, designed, and built so as to give them proper burial grounds in their honour.