by Mark Zuehlke
Rifleman Jack Martin was preparing to pop out another mortar round, when this first SPG took a direct 88-millimetre hit that not only exploded the machine but triggered secondary explosions of the Priest’s entire ammunition and mine load. Martin buried his face in the ground just in time to miss being struck by a monstrous chunk of steel armour off the SPG that grazed the mortar as it whirled overhead to land about a hundred feet away. The force of the impact knocked the mortar over and left a knick in the tube that served as a lasting reminder to Martin of how close he had come to being “squashed like mashed potatoes.” Propping the mortar back up, Martin got it back into action firing at the German position while trying to ignore the carnage suddenly developing around him.10
In quick succession, the 88-millimetre gun fired three more shots and two more Priests died as the German gun crew systematically worked along the line from right to left. Although the German fire was deadly accurate and the crew able to reload with stunning speed, the driver of the fourth Priest was able to back it into a lane that hid the gun from view in the nick of time to avoid being hit by the last round.11 Six gunners aboard the other SPGs were killed and five others wounded out of total crew complements of twenty-one.12 This constituted almost half of 14th Field Regiment’s total June 6 casualties.13
‘B’ Company of the Chaudières, still reeling from the loss of almost an entire platoon in the landings, was also caught in a series of gargantuan explosions as the three Priests were engulfed in flames and all the ordnance aboard ignited. Lieutenant R. Lapierre and a dozen men died instantly. Several more were wounded. The company had been reduced by two calamities from about 120 men to barely 40.
While the remainder of 66th Battery regrouped back towards Bernières in a church courtyard, the Chaudières hastily rallied for an attack on the gun that had wreaked such havoc. Major Hugues Lapointe’s ‘A’ Company, supported by the Fort Garry’s ‘A’ Squadron and the Vickers heavy machine guns of a platoon of Cameron Highlanders laying down covering fire, attacked the gun by the cemetery—overrunning the position and taking three prisoners.14
THE INFANTRY AND TANKS then started up a long, straight country lane that led towards Bény-sur-Mer, but after an advance of only about a thousand yards, the leading Chaudière element walked into the crossfire of several well-concealed machine guns that had the road covered. On either side of the road stretched grain fields that offered little cover, so the only way to prevent a World War 1–style slaughter was for the battalion to go to ground. Its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Mathieu, sent scouting parties crawling into the fields to pinpoint the enemy positions hidden in the tall stands of wheat. Such work was dangerous and time-consuming, so a long delay was inevitable.15 Yet initial radio messages from the Chaudières to 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade failed to impart the seriousness of the situation.
Further confusing the communication string running from the front lines back to division headquarters aboard HMSHilary was the fact that 8 CIB’s headquarters had only recently landed and established an advance base south of the church in Bernières. Consequently, its staff was just beginning to develop a picture of the location of its battalions. Brigadier K.G. “Ken” Blackader was well out to the front with Lieutenant Colonel Jock Spragge of the Queen’s Own, trying to discover the cause of the delay on the Bény-sur-Mer road. But at 1054 hours, nobody at 8 CIB HQ was in contact with the brigadier when they reported to the division that the Chaudières were “making progress slowly.”16
Aboard Hilary, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division commander Major General Rod Keller had been forced a few minutes earlier to make a difficult decision based on only a scant understanding of events on Juno Beach. At 1050 hours, Keller had issued orders instructing his reserve brigade—the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade—to begin landing. As the morning had progressed, with a harder battle being fought to win the beachhead than expected, Keller became increasingly “jumpy and nervous.”17 The initial invasion plan had set out two alternatives for putting 9 CIB ashore, the preferred one being to distribute the brigade’s battalions between Nan White in front of Bernières and Nan Red at St. Aubin-sur-Mer. Such a landing would well position 9 CIB to leapfrog 8 CIB and make for Carpiquet airport by the shortest possible route. Alternatively, the landing could be made at Courseulles-sur-Mer, but this lengthened the distance the brigade must travel to reach the airport.
Very little news was coming out of 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade headquarters at Graye-sur-Mer to the right of Courseulles, although it seemed the brigade’s advance was progressing fairly well. Circumstances on the beach in the brigade’s sector, however, were less than ideal for putting 9 CIB ashore quickly and with minimal casualties. The Royal Canadian Engineers tasked with clearing the beach obstacles here had been hampered by the lateness of the assault, the rising tide, and bad luck. The poor luck occurred when two sections of the 18th Field Company, RCE managed to create a fifty-foot gap by dragging or dynamiting beach obstacles clear, only to have the opening immediately plugged when two damaged LCTs drifted into its midst and lodged there. As far as a route for getting off the beach went, only one exit had been completed and the engineers constructing another in the sector of Mike Green were having trouble cutting a usable track through the sand dunes and spanning the flooded section behind.18
In 8 CIB’s sector, Keller had at least two beach exits—one at St. Aubin and another at Bernières—with roads extending inland from both towns, providing good routes for breaking through to Carpiquet airport. Acting on the best information available, Keller ordered Brigadier D.G. “Ben” Cunningham to land his brigade at St. Aubin and Bernières. As Cunningham started acting on this order, however, the Royal Navy officer serving as 3 CID’s beach master declared Nan Red at St. Aubin too hot for the brigade to use because the German strongpoint there had yet to be silenced. Anxious to get the landing moving, Keller told Cunningham to put his entire brigade ashore at Bernières.19
No sooner had this order been issued than Canadian Press correspondent Ross Munro found the major general standing on the ship deck gazing towards the beach. Keller showed Munro the text of a message he had just wired to First Canadian Army commander Lieutenant General Harry Crerar that read: “Beach-head gained. Well on our way to our intermediate objectives.”
“It is hard fighting,” Keller told Munro, “but our troops are doing great. I’m committing the reserve brigade now and it is landing at Bernières where the best beach exits have been made.” Munro was elated by the news, for it seemed the invasion was going far better than anticipated.20
While Keller made his report to Crerar, Cunningham and Royal Navy Commodore G.N. Oliver decided to land one battalion of the “highland” brigade after the other. They would touch down in the order by which they were to advance inland: the North Nova Scotia Highlanders first, then the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, and finally the Highland Light Infantry of Canada. The tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers would also go ashore at Bernières to support the brigade’s advance. Unlike the first two brigades, which had gone ashore in LCAs, 9 CIB’s battalions were to land from more substantial Landing Craft Infantry, Large.
Lieutenant Peter Hinton, commanding LCI 262, received his orders to head for the beach with a contingent of about two hundred North Nova Scotia Highlanders at about 1130 hours—two hours behind schedule. As his vessel closed on the shore, Hinton thought the scene there “looked pretty chaotic. It was apparent that the planned clearance of beach obstacles had not been carried out.”21 A great number of listing, hung up, or sunken landing craft blocked most of the possible approaches to the beach. Hinton managed to narrowly steer between a row of steel tripods and almost got up on the sand. The ramps were then slung off the sides of the LCI and four of his sailors ran through the water, dragging the heavy lines for the infantry to use to steady their walk. Unloading the troops proved a slow process, for the men were hampered going down the ramps by the folding bicycles most of them carried.
As the last of the me
n departed, Hinton realized with some despair that he had forgotten to drop the stern anchor that would enable the LCI to winch itself off the sand. As the RCN lieutenant considered ways out of his beached predicament, the commander of LCI 276, Lieutenant Andy Webb, addressed him by loud-hailer. The diesel engine that powered the unloading ramps on Webb’s LCI had failed and he suggested coming alongside LCI 262 so the North Novas aboard could cross onto Hinton’s boat and disembark from its still lowered ramps. Hinton readily agreed, but the impact of Webb’s LCI banging against the side of the boat shoved it against several beach obstacles and exploded two mines. One blast ripped a hole in the engine room’s port side and the other blew out part of the tiller. Fortunately, the engineers were all on the other side of the engine room, where the ramps’ diesel engine was located, at the moment of the explosion, so there were no casualties. But the room quickly filled with water and had to be abandoned. LCI 262 was immobilized.
With the North Novas unloaded, Webb called over to Hinton to cast off the lines they had used to lash the two vessels together, so he could head back out to sea. “No bloody way,” Hinton shouted back. “You’re going to tow me off here first.”
Webb reluctantly agreed. Lines were hooked from the bow of LCI 276 to the stern of LCI 262 and “after much grinding and crunching he managed to get us off the beach. We assessed that the bulkheads forward of the engine room and between it and the tiller flats would hold.” With most of the crew serving in a damage control party to work the LCIs portable pumps as well as a couple more borrowed from LCI 276, Hinton ordered his craft out to sea and started limping slowly towards Portsmouth.22
Hinton’s LCI was not alone in being damaged during the landing. Indeed, the RCN and Royal Navy vessels involved in landing troops on Juno Beach suffered the heaviest losses incurred in the British-Canadian sector of the invasion. In an after-action report, Force J Commander Oliver determined that ninety landing craft of various types were either sunk, badly damaged, damaged, or disabled on June 6. The LCAs were hit hardest, with thirty-six lost or damaged (25 per cent of the total complement).23 But Oliver’s statistics were conservatively drawn. Although he reports just seven LCIs either badly damaged, damaged, or disabled, 262nd Flotilla alone had eleven of twelve craft holed by mines—five seriously enough that emergency repairs had to be conducted before they could depart the beach.*
Of the eleven LCIs in RCN 260th LCI Flotilla, three were so badly holed by mines that they took twenty-two hours to limp back across the Channel, with LCI 298 towing LCI 249. Near the end of the voyage, the tow was taken over by a fortuitously passing tug that sped the badly listing craft into Portsmouth “in a sinking condition.”24
Oliver also reports no LCAs lost. However, LCA 1021 from Prince Henry’s 528th Flotilla was holed by a mine departing the beach and sank. The five LCAs of 529th Flotilla from Prince David involved in landing troops in the first assault wave were all lost. Mines holed LCA 1059 and 1150 on the port side, LCA 1137 was holed aft by an
* One would be floated off later that evening, but the others would require two more days to be rendered seaworthy.
explosion and suffered starboard bow damage in a collision with an obstacle, and LCA 1138 had its bottom completely ripped out by a mine. Royal Canadian Naval Reserve Lieutenant J. Beveridge aboard LCA 1138 suffered multiple shrapnel and blast injuries that included a fractured right leg and slight head injuries.
Only LCA 1151 was able to disembark its load of troops and pull off the beach successfully. But it was then caught in the midst of a maze of beach obstacles draped in mines, with insufficient engine power to escape to sea in the face of the rising tide and pounding surf. The coxswain of this craft ended up locked in a hazardous dance that lasted for about ninety minutes as he added or cut power while working the rudder frantically to keep from being tossed on the mines. At 0950 hours, Lieutenant D. Graham, an RCN reserve officer, decided to risk the return trip, but when forced to swerve out of the way of an LCT bearing down on LCA 1151, the smaller craft struck an obstacle that ripped its hull open, sending 1151 to the bottom. Despite the loss of all five LCAs, Beveridge was the flotilla’s only casualty.25
WHILE THE NAVY finished landing 9 CIB on Nan White at Bernières, 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s advance inland continued to bog down in the face of opposition from well-concealed machine guns—leaving the newly arrived battalions packed on the beach. Crowding men and equipment ever more closely together was the fact that the tide was still rising, pushing towards its highest point. Streaming off several LCIs at 1140 hours with bicycles shouldered, the Highland Light Infantry discovered a beach shrunk to “about 25 yards… in front of the promenade which was heavily wired so that there were only the exits put up by the beach group.” The beach, reported the HLI war diarist, was “jammed [with] troops with bicycles, vehicles and tanks all trying to move towards the exits. Movement was frequently brought to a standstill when a vehicle up ahead became stuck. It was an awful shambles and not at all like the organized rehearsals we had had. More than one uttered a fervent prayer of thanksgiving that our air umbrella was so strong. One gun ranged on the beach would have done untold damage but the 9th CIB landed without a shot fired on them. Against this welling mass of movement the Beach Group was trying to set up and function in all its branches [including setting up first aid and casualty clearing stations], but the opposition was too great. They had to be content to ‘nest’ casualties until we had passed on.”26
Bicycles still shouldered, the HLI finally managed to enter Bernières, where they found many side streets blocked with rubble from damaged or destroyed houses. Near the church, “we could go no farther as the roads were blocked by the transport of the assaulting battalions… Everyone piled up behind, choking the roads, while the [enemy] positions up forward were cleared.” The battalion’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel F.M. Griffiths, finally abandoned pushing against the unyielding log-jam and ordered the HLI to gather in the grounds of an estate behind the church. “Here,” the HLI war diarist wrote, “we had a chance to drink a can of self-heating soup or cocoa and eat some bully beef and hard tack. Here the sun broke through and the day became quite hot and sultry.”27
Griffiths’s decision to temporarily abandon the advance until the traffic congestion eased coincided with Keller’s arrival on the beach with his divisional tactical headquarters section. Several key members of his staff, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade commander Brigadier Bob Wyman, and a number of news correspondents, including Ross Munro, accompanied him. While photographers captured images of the tall general looking very much the tough and determined commander in beret and battle dress, Keller glared about at the apparent chaos on the beach.
Brigadier Cunningham was frantically trying to sort out the situation, but the fact that 8 CIB’s advance had stalled left him with few viable forming-up positions that were clear of the beach. Keller furiously demanded that immediate action be taken to get the battalions heading towards their objectives. He then stomped off to where his general staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel Don Mingay, had established a temporary divisional headquarters in an orchard next to the Bernières church. Mingay reported receiving a message at 1215 hours from 8 CIB’s HQ that the Chaudières were making slow progress up the road and were now under fire not only from MGs but also a battery of between four and six artillery pieces.28 The German guns were firing from a position to the right of Bény-sur-Mer near the hamlet of Moulineaux, but the 14th Field Regiment Forward Observation Officer with the Chaudières was unable to fix its location for accurate counter-battery fire.
He was also unable to direct the regiment’s guns against the machine guns holding up the Chaudières, despite knowing fairly accurately where they were located. The FOO’s problem was that, although the 14th Field now had eighteen guns scattered in a series of small fields about two hundred yards out from the beach, this position was behind a low hillcrest that hampered their ability to fire on targets at such close range.29 He kept radioing map references fo
r targets that were about 1,000 yards from the gun positions, but, because of the high trees topping the crest, the gun crews were unable to attain a firing angle against targets at ranges of less than 2,800 yards. After several fruitless attempts to respond to the FOO’s fire requests, ‘C’ Troop’s Lieutenant Peter Cox ordered the crews of his three surviving 66th Battery SPGs to cease firing. As the men started brewing up some tea, Cox reflected that the gunners would just have “to wait for the infantry to move up a little way from us or for someone to find a target further away.”30
With the artillery unable to help, the Chaudières started crawling forward under covering fire from the Vickers of the Cameron Highlanders to take out the enemy machine-gun positions the hard way. Progress was slow, but shortly after 1300 hours enemy resistance was reported cleared and the French-Canadian battalion renewed its advance towards Bény-sur-Mer.31
No sooner had the Chaudières got back on the move, however, than another nearby 88-millimetre gun betrayed its position by firing on the beach exit. Without waiting for orders, Lieutenant Walter Moisan immediately led his No. 8 Platoon of ‘A’ Company in an attack on the gun. The platoon’s leading section, under Corporal Bruno Vennes, was within two hundred yards of the German position when it was pinned down by heavy fire from infantry manning a trench in front of the 88-millimetre. Seeing the section’s predicament, Moisan crawled forward and helped lead the men in a low crawl to a thicket of brush that provided some cover only thirty yards from the gun. Just as the section was preparing to wipe out the gun crew with rifle fire, a bullet or piece of shrapnel struck and detonated a phosphorous grenade attached to Moisan’s web belt. The phosphorous set the lieu-tenant’s clothing aflame and burned deeply into his flesh but, despite the agony of his injuries, the officer ordered Vennes to take out the gun before giving him any first aid.