The iconic World War II photograph of General Eisenhower talking with paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division on the eve of D-Day was a keepsake for Ike many years after the Normandy invasion.

“It’s a dramatic photograph and one that I’ve been told by Eisenhower family members he always kept on his desk,” said Tim Rives Deputy Director at Eisenhower Presidential Library Museum and Boyhood Home.

“So you can see how much it meant to him.”

The photo was snapped on the evening of June, 5 1944 just hours before the men loaded into cargo planes and jumped behind enemy lines in France.

Rives tells KSAL News that as Ike encouraged the troops that day, he also took a moment to talk about fly fishing with one of the soldiers in the picture, Wally Strobel.

Strobel, the tall gentleman with the number 23 around his neck, survived the war and later donated his uniform to the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene.

The invasion, code-named Operation Overlord turned the tide of the war in Europe and led to the defeat of Nazi Germany by May of 1945.

June 6, 2018 marks the 74th anniversary of the D-Day Invasion.