The photograph was taken in spring 1944 in London, as Allied troops prepared for the impending invasion of Normandy. London was at that time a central gathering point for U.S. and British forces as well as war correspondents. Jack Lieb documented this preparatory phase with his private 16-mm Kodachrome camera before he himself landed at Utah Beach with a unit of the 82nd Airborne Division. The color footage from this London phase ranks among the rare color records of wartime daily life in the British capital immediately before D-Day.