that the Normans had been won over by their German occupiers was contrary to what the Resistance and other sources had told them. In fact, considering the suffering of the French along the coast and in the main towns, the vast majority showed great understanding.
Although the leading infantry battalions pushed on inland, the advance was slowed by chaos on the beaches as the follow-up waves arrived. Tanks, self-propelled guns and Bren carriers became embroiled in traffic jams, to the intense frustration of beachmasters and the newly landed headquarter groups. Major General Keller was furious when he landed at Bernieres accompanied by newspaper correspondents and photographers recording his arrival. On board, he had made a show in their presence of radioing through an optimistic report on progress to Lieutenant General Harry Crerar, the commander of Canadian troops in the invasion. The situation on the beach looked rather less encouraging.
French-Canadians of the Regiment de la Chaudiere received a rapturous welcome from locals as soon as they spoke to them in French. Many rushed down to their cellar to fetch a keg of cider for the soldiers. But when the farming families began to pull the boots off dead Germans, the Canadians were clearly shocked. They had no idea that the Germans had commandeered all supplies of leather for the Wehrmacht until the French said to them, ‘But what do you expect? It’s war and we have no footwear.’
French civilians saw these ‘cousins’ from across the Atlantic as the next best thing to their own troops landing. They had no idea that one of the squadrons of Spitfires overhead covering the Canadians was piloted by Free French aviators. ‘Les Cigognes’ (‘the Storks’), as 329 Squadron called itself, had been told by their wing commander, Christian Martell, ‘I don’t want to see pilots watching the ground. Today you’ve got to scan the sky.’ But the heavens remained void of enemy fighters that day. The only danger was of collision with other aircraft.
The Chaudieres took over the lead in the advance on Beny-sur-Mer, which, despite its name, lay three miles inland. Although the road south was straight, it ran between wheatfields in which the Germans had sited machine guns. Outflanking them became an arduous business, with infantry crawling through the standing corn on what had turned into a sultry afternoon. After a battery of guns near Beny-sur-Mer had been knocked out by some very accurate gunfire from the destroyer HMCS
Delays on the beach, and surprisingly strong resistance from the underestimated 716th Infanterie-Division, meant that the advance battlegroup of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade had too little time to reach its main objective. Carpiquet airfield lay just south of the Caen–Bayeux road. The flat ground ahead sloped upwards and, through binoculars, its hangars were tantalizingly visible in the distance, but the supporting tanks were low on ammunition. Major General Keller was expecting a counter-attack by the 21st Panzer-Division and wanted his advance elements to be in defensive positions by nightfall.
One certainly cannot criticize the Canadians for the way they went about it. The battlegroup of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders rightly used all the vehicles available — light Stuart tanks, Shermans, M10 tank destroyers, trucks and Bren gun carriers — to speed the advance. If Keller had known of the panic and chaos on the airfield, he might have pushed them on. The Third Luftflotte in Paris reported, ‘At Carpiquet at 19.20 hours on 6 June, everybody lost their heads badly… the station commandant gave orders for evacuation.’ The Luftwaffe’s hurried attempts to destroy installations proved remarkably inept, as the 12th SS Panzer-Division
Over the next few weeks, the airfield and its surrounding area were to see some of the most bitter fighting of the whole battle for Normandy against the
10. Sword
The landings of the British 3rd Infantry Division at the eastern end on Sword beach, between Saint-Aubin- sur-Mer and the River Orne, had heavy guns in support. The battleships HMS
The landing craft were lowered into the heavy sea at 05.30 hours and, after circling, made their way inshore, vainly attempting to maintain formation. One company commander in the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment read extracts from Shakespeare’s
The DD tank crews of the 13th/18th Hussars and the Staffordshire Yeomanry felt a different form of nausea when they received the order ‘Floater, 5,000!’ The launch of the swimming tanks planned for 8,000 yards out had been reduced, but it was still a very long way to go in a sea with waves up to five feet high. Surprisingly, only six out of forty sank, two of them as a result of being rammed by landing craft out of control. At 06.50 hours, the self- propelled guns of the 3rd Infantry Division also opened fire from their landing craft at a range of 10,000 yards.
Just before landing, an officer with the 41st Royal Marine Commando observed those around him on the landing craft: ‘Some were scared shitless, others fiercely proud just to be a part of it. Anticipation with nervous excitement showed everywhere.’ The first wave of infantry, the 1st Battalion the South Lancashire Regiment and the 2nd East Yorkshires, arrived to find that the first DD tanks were already ashore and firing at strongpoints. The South Lancs immediately attacked the German position codenamed ‘Cod’ opposite the beach. Their commanding officer died ten feet from the top of the beach with the battalion medical officer wounded beside him. A Bren-gun platoon, landing in carriers, charged straight up the beach and the defenders surrendered. The 2nd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, which followed, was astonished to be welcomed by a man in a brass fireman’s helmet ‘like a Napoleonic dragoon’. This was the mayor of Colleville. He was accompanied by a young woman who wasted no time in starting to care for the wounded.
Other young Frenchwomen also showed extraordinary bravery, coming to the beaches to help. Purely by chance, a student nurse who had left her bathing dress in a beach hut the day before had arrived on a bicycle that morning to retrieve it. She ignored the wolf whistles of the amazed squaddies and set to work bandaging wounds. Her work lasted two days and during the course of it she met her future husband, a young English officer.
Flail tanks from the 22nd Dragoons and the Westminster Dragoons cleared paths through minefields, and exits from the beach were opened more quickly than on any other sector. The Royal Engineers also wasted no time. ‘Every now and then there’s a big flash and clouds of smoke and a noise as some part of the beach is cleared by sappers,’ a naval officer noted in his diary.
A young officer landing in the second wave noticed near the beachmaster’s post a fat German officer held prisoner with half a dozen of his men. They were crouching under the shelter of the sea wall as shells from their own artillery landed. The German officer suddenly protested to a sergeant with the beachmaster’s team that under the Geneva Convention they had the right to be taken to a place of safety. The sergeant threw a spade at him and yelled, ‘Well, dig yourself a fucking hole then!’
The 2nd East Yorkshires pushed inland, turning left towards the River Orne to attack strongpoint ‘Sole’ and then take on ‘Daimler’, which had four 155 mm guns. A captain charged the bunker firing his Sten gun and entered. Unfortunately his batman, ‘with misjudged enthusiasm’, chose that moment to drop a grenade down the ventilation shaft. It was his gallant captain who received most of the blast. He emerged shaken but fortunately unwounded. The seventy defenders surrendered quickly. When soldiers of the East Yorks discovered a stock of beer and wine, their company sergeant major, concerned that discipline might collapse, threatened them with the penalty for looting. But then ‘he relented a little’, considering how agreeable some of it would be.
Lord Lovat’s 1st Special Service Brigade also landed near Colleville. His commandos had thrown away their helmets at the last moment and wore their green berets instead, with their own regimental cap badges. Lovat had his personal piper, Bill Millin, from the Cameron Highlanders, with him. Millin was glad that Lovat led the way off the landing craft, since he was more than six feet tall and would show how deep the water was. The man just behind
