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June 06, 1944 – D-Day:Operation Overlord
On board their assault landing crafts, men of the Royal
Winnipeg Rifles heading towards their sector of Juno Beach,
June 6th, 1944
The D-Day Landing
The sun was just coming up over
the Normandy coast at about 5
a.m. on June 6, 1944 – D-Day.
•The Allied navies – Canadian, British, American – had brought a huge invasion
fleet from England to France in total darkness.
•“Operation Overlord” was the plan to take 5 key beaches in occupied France,
and then begin the land invasion of France, the final move to defeat Hitler.
•The Americans had Utah and Omaha
beaches in the west, then came the British at
Gold, then the Canadians at Juno
Beach and finally the British at Sword on the
east.
The Canadians At Juno Beach
As the troops waded ashore, there was little fire
at first--mainly because the German gun
positions did not aim out to sea but were set to
enfilade the coastline. As the Canadian soldiers
worked their way through the obstacles and
came into the enfilading killing zones, the first
wave took dreadful casualties. Company B of the
Royal Winnipeg Rifles was cut down to one
officer and 25 men as it moved to reach the
seawall. In the assault teams, the chance of
becoming a casualty in that first hour was almost
1 in 2. By mid-morning, hard fighting had brought
the town of Bernières into Canadian hands, and
later Saint-Aubin was occupied. By evening the
3rd Division had linked up with the British 50th
Division from Gold Beach to the west, but to the
east the Canadians were unable to make contact
with the British 3rd Division from Sword Beach-leaving a gap of 2 miles into which elements of
the German 21st Panzer Division
counterattacked. The Canadians suffered 1,200
casualties out of 21,400 troops who landed at
Juno that day--a casualty ratio of 1 out of 18.
The Canadians Liberate Holland
•With the success of the Allies at Normandy, the way was
paved for the invasion and liberation of the rest of Europe.
It would prove to be a long haul, but VE Day was
inevitable.
•The Canadians were key in the liberation of Holland.
They moved throughout Holland liberating sections at a
time.
•Some resistance was met but it was apparent that the
war’s end was in sight.
•Troops were able to move on quite fast, liberating the
remainder of the Dutch territory and occupying the plains
of northern Germany up. The might of the German Army
was by then broken, and as the Allies closed in on Berlin,
Hitler committed suicide.
"At 1900 hrs we heard over the BBC that the
German Army in ITALY had unconditionally
surrendered and later on that BERLIN had
fallen. The general feeling is that it can't last
much longer now…"
- Royal Winnipeg Rifles, War Diary, 1-7 May 1945
The War In Europe Is Over (VE DAY)
•As the Soviets had surrounded Berlin, ad
the rest of the Allies were sweeping
through Europe, Hitler commits suicide.
Germany surrenders a week later.
•The war in Europe was finally over. It
seemed unreal at the time. The firing
stopped and the Germans surrendered
unconditionally. Even though the
celebrations had started in Europe, the
war was still raging in the Pacific.
German soldiers being disarmed by troops of I Canadian
Corps at a small arms dump in the Netherlands, May
11th, 1945.
•Canada planned to send forces to the
Pacific, but Japan surrendered before the
Canadians got there.
The War Ends In The Pacific – Japan Surrenders (VJ DAY)
“The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.
That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of
civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender,
bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian
lives will be lost. I urge Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities immediately, and save
themselves from destruction.” –President Harry Truman
•The war in Europe had ended. The war in the Pacific was still
raging on.
•On August 6th, 1944, the United States drops the Atomic Bomb on
the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Truman drops a
second bomb on the city of Nagasaki.
Plane that dropped the
first bomb
Views from ground and air of the
initial explosions in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki
The War Ends In The Pacific – Japan Surrenders (VJ DAY)
What the bomb had produced was
concentrated chaos, from which no city
or nation could easily or rapidly
recover. No significant repair or
reconstruction was accomplished until
months later. On September 2, the
Japanese government, which had
seemed ready to fight to the death,
surrendered unconditionally. Winston
Churchill estimated that the lives of a
million Americans and two hundred and
fifty British soldiers and sailors had
been saved by this sudden shortening
of the war.
The war was finally over, however, a
new war was about to begin, a much
“colder war” was approaching.