Below are quotes excerpted from a letter Allied soldier around the event of D-DAY.
"We lived in tents with 5 men to a tent. For training we made obstacles just off the beach out of cement, ditches, iron, etc., to stop tanks. I was over the mine and booby trap squad on our boat crew and we practiced picking up mines and booby traps and also laying them. We used giant firecrackers instead of TNT and dynamite for practice and I'm glad we did because I would have blown myself up a few times had we not."
http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=dday_0043p1
"We lived in tents with 5 men to a tent. For training we made obstacles just off the beach out of cement, ditches, iron, etc., to stop tanks. I was over the mine and booby trap squad on our boat crew and we practiced picking up mines and booby traps and also laying them. We used giant firecrackers instead of TNT and dynamite for practice and I'm glad we did because I would have blown myself up a few times had we not."
http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=dday_0043p1