BLOOD AND TOIL

A precious fluid on the beaches of D-Day

Synopsis

In June 1944, the Allied Forces landed on the coast of Normandy. The holds and refrigerators of their vessels contained tens of thousands of litres of a precious fluid that was emblematic of the war effort: human blood.

This incredible armada was also the greatest operation of blood transfusion in history. For the first time, an extraordinary logistics chain allowed hundreds of thousands of blood donations carried out in New York and London to be transfused one week later to American or British soldiers on Normandy beaches.