From the beach to the countryside
In the early morning, the Canadian Army arrived at Juno Beach to a furious attack from the Germans. While the Allies’ air and sea bombardments were able to cover the advance of the landing ships, the enemy defences were strong. On the beach, the Canadians encountered unrelenting machine-gun fire from the Germans and contended with land mines that caused great destruction. Many ships were damaged during the landings, and the soldiers were forced to swim to shore with all of their equipment.
After capturing the coastline, the Canadians moved to Courseulles-sur-Mer, which overlooked the beach, and secured the town and surrounding villages. Despite the high casualties, the landing was a great success thanks to the sustained assaults and the soldiers’ resolve.
A timeline of the invasion
A soldier’s uniform
Discover: Hover over the arrows on the image below to see some of the items that Canadian soldiers carried during the Normandy landings.
Experiencing Combat
Think: Examine the following newsreel, images and quotes about the Normandy invasion. What does each say about the experiences of Canadians on D-Day?
“We had never felt so alone in our lives. There was mist and rain. Bernières-sur-Mer became visible. 1500 yards of beach stretched from the far left to the far right. Everything was dead quiet…There wasn’t much talk.”
— Charles Cromwell Martin, Company Sergeant-Major, The Queen’s Own Rifles
“You didn’t have time to think about anything, nothing. You just did your thing best you could.”
— John Hall, radio operator (Veterans Affairs Canada)
“We was in a plane flying over for D-Day… He told us we were going to do a drop in the middle of the enemy. It was a bit scary.”
—Norman Wright, paratrooper (Veterans Affairs Canada)
“As soon as the door dropped, we started running for the retaining wall. The Germans were firing by that time. I looked back and saw some of these guys lying on the beach, and others lying half in the water and the tide was taking them. […] ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ I said ‘They’re trying to kill us!’”
—Lloyd Turner, Sergeant for the Queen’s Own Rifles (The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive)
“Crawl and run and crawl and run. And one thing you couldn’t do was stop on Juno Beach. If your buddies got hurt during that and the yelling and crying, you couldn’t stop, you had to keep going. If you stopped, well you were a dead duck too. So you had to keep going. Which was a hard thing to do because the beach was something like ketchup on the beach was, when we made the beach. That’s how blood red the beach was.”
— Francis Godon, soldier for the Royal Winnipeg Rifles (Historica Canada).
“That’s the farthest point inland that anybody got that night, I think it was seven miles in.”
—Frederick Rogers, signalman (Veterans Affairs Canada)
“We had thirty truck loads of ammunition, we had thirty truck loads of jerry tins, gas, and we had thirty truck loads of combo packs and we kept moving up off where we go and then we’d stop and then we’d off load, get settled, emptied everything off off our trucks and then stack them up […] and then we’d go back down to the beach where they had the big depots and then load up and then take it up through supply the units as we go along […].”
—Everett Cromwell, member of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps (Historica Canada).
“I looked out the window, you could not see the end of the ambulances. Every bed was filled. Twelve hundred beds. Isn’t that something.”
—Georgina Seeley, nurse (Veterans Affairs Canada)
“You know, it’s a terrible thing to hold someone in your arms, you know, when he’s dying.”
— Harold Hague, member of the Royal Canadian Navy (Veterans Affairs Canada)
Snapshots of Service
Lloyd Turner
Leading troops to shore
Biography
Enlisting with the Queen’s Own Rifles, Lloyd Turner quickly rose through the ranks to become sergeant. At Juno Beach, he commanded part of the regiment’s troops and faced German machine-gun fire. His account of the Normandy landings is striking, as he describes in detail the conditions on the beach and the damage caused by enemy defenses. After fighting almost everywhere in Europe, he was wounded three times in all, and learned of the end of the war in a Belgian hospital. Until his death in 2002, Lloyd was married to his wife Rose Anne Pether and had two children.
Herman Stock
The Ultimate Sacrifice
Biography
Herman Stock was born in Sahanation, Ontario on Wahta Mohawk Territory in 1922. He enlisted in 1941 and was at Juno Beach with A Company of the Queen’s Own Rifles. Unfortunately, A Company endured heavy machine fire as they arrived on the beach. Within moments of arriving at the beach, Stock was killed. He is buried At Beny-Sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery.
Bertha Annie “Bertie” Hull
Caring for the wounded
Biography
Bertha Annie “Bertie” Hull was born in 1917 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and served as a nurse during WWII. She enlisted in Halifax and was sent to England to join a team of 50 nurses who were responsible for a 500-bed hospital. She was in England during the Blitz, as German bomber planes flew over the hospital where she was working. When D-Day came, Bertie and her team were ready. She later recounted that D-Day was a sad time because the injured soldiers and officers that were returning from France were men she knew and may have danced with. Bertie continued her career as a nurse after the war, working at Sechelt Hospital in British Columbia for 35 years.
