First to land were Red Cross Camp Service field directors and assistant field directors assigned to individual units of the armed forces. Their duties were to maintain lines of communication with families at home and to provide counsel and support to the fighting men. Most went ashore after the initial invasion but one field director actually accompanied his division ashore on D-Day. He was Floyd Gates, assigned to an infantry regiment of the U.S. Army Fourth Division. His account of the invasion is stirring:

On the night of June 5th we sat up late watching the Airborne go over. Much would depend on this unit. We could see their ghostlike shadows flit by and hear the roar of their motors. At four we were told to stand by for landing. The Channel looked like a bath tub filled with toy boats. The craft were everywhere, large ones, small ones,--the greatest Armada in history. . . .

My first impression of the beach was that there were very few people there. Then, on landing, I could see hundreds of soldiers scattered out and lying flat. Every now and then a few would get up, run forward and fall flat again. My first shell came whistling in and I hit the sand too. . . .

I headed for the beach aid station to help with the wounded. A few were waiting but soon they began to roll in. I helped give first aid and blood plasma as best I could . . . . It was noon before I could get away from the rather heavily shelled beach to catch up with the Regiment.

By the end of the first month after D Day, more than 50 more Camp Service field directors had followed Gates to northern France, most arriving with rear echelons of the divisions to which they were attached.

Also soon to arrive were American Red Cross members of the Hospital Service who provided the same social services to injured troops as the Camp Service field directors did for the able-bodied. Many were assigned in teams of three to the so-called "evacuation hospitals" located behind the battle lines and which were constantly moving as the invasion advanced. During the first six weeks of the invasion, nearly 50 hospital units and about 175 Red Cross hospital workers moved from England to France.

Eleven days after the invasion, four field directors created a rudimentary Red Cross club for the troops in a former schoolhouse in Carentan, France, just south of Utah Beach. The first full scale Red Cross club run by American Red Cross Club Service workers-called the Club Victoire-opened on July 20, 1944, in Cherbourg, France, on the Normandy coast. Other clubs quickly followed as the invasion forces moved further inland. The highly popular Rainbow Corner Club (named after its famous counterpart in London, England) opened in Paris shortly after the Allied forces liberated that city on August 25, 1944.

The first "clubmobile" (a truck equipped to prepare and serve doughnuts and coffee to the troops), called the "Daniel Boone," arrived in France just a few days after the invasion began, at a time when troops and military equipment were also still coming ashore. Many more clubmobiles arrived during the month of July, to the great satisfaction of the GIs. As one observer reported, the young Red Cross women "are in for a warm reception and plenty of customers. I just can't think of anything more in demand right now than clubmobiles and enough comfort articles." At the same time, Red Cross Club Service workers assigned to "aeroclubs" at airfields in Great Britain began arriving as the Army Air Corps transferred their bases to France.

American Red Cross continental headquarters opened in Cherbourg in July, then moved to Paris once the capital city had been liberated. By August 1944, well over 500 Red Cross staff members had already arrived in France. More than half were camp and hospital workers. Most of the remainder were members of the Club Service who operated about 25 Red Cross clubs, canteens, and "donut dugouts" (small clubs), plus 80 clubmobiles and 12 "cinemobiles" (equipped to show movies to the troops).