I guess people don't know some US Banks and corporations invested money to nazi Germany. (Bush Familly).................

D-Day

Stormy weather on June 5 forced a postponement of the invasion with many units already embarked and at sea. Conditions did not promise to improve substantially, but Allied meteorologists predicted a small window of opportunity on the June 6. Aware that the moon and the tides would not be favourable again for some time,General Eisenhower gave the go ahead. There could be no turning back.

Canadian airmen and sailors were among the first into action. The Royal Canadian Air Force had already been involved for several months in bombing key enemy targets in the invasion area: roads, bridges, railways, airfields, and command and communications centres. Now they flew as part of the 171 Allied squadrons that attacked on D-Day. As H-Hour approached, RCAF Lancasters of No. 6 Bomber Group dropped thousands of tons of explosives on German coastal defences. Canadian fighter pilots fought the Luftwaffe in overcast skies, contributing in large measure to the achievement of Allied air supremacy. As well, they protected the soldiers on the beach, and attacked German formations on the ground. The first Allied planes to operate from French soil since 1940, RCAF squadrons No. 441, 442, and 443 continued to ravage enemy columns and support offensives throughout the campaign, helping to tilt the tactical balance in the Allies' favour.

The Royal Canadian Navy provided 109 vessels, and 10,000 sailors as its contribution to the massive armada of 7,000 Allied vessels which went to sea on D-Day. Battling choppy waters and rain, they kept the German fleet bottled up in its ports. Canadian minesweepers assisted in the tricky but crucial job of clearing a safe path across the English Channel for the invasion fleet. The guns of Canadian destroyers like HMCS Algonquin and HMCS Sioux silenced enemy shore batteries and continued to fire in support of ground attacks in the days to come. The armed merchant cruisers HMCS Prince Henry and Prince David carried Canadian troops and the landing craft in which they made their run to the beaches; they later returned to England with Canadian wounded. RCN flotillas of landing craft transported infantry and tanks to shore and provided additional fire support for them.

While it was still dark in the early hours of June 6, Allied paratroopers, including 450 Canadians, jumped from aircraft or landed in gliders behind the German coastal defences. Separated by gusty winds, outnumbered, and only lightly armed, they nevertheless captured a German headquarters, destroyed a key bridge, and seized an important crossroads, all the while sowing confusion and disorder within enemy ranks.

Meanwhile, the Canadian soldiers scheduled to land at Juno Beach warily approached the coastline in their landing craft. Wet, cold, and seasick, they were also confident. On "Mike" sector, most of the 1st Hussars' tanks managed to get ashore in good order to provide covering fire as the Regina Rifles touched down just after 8:00 a.m. That was fortunate since the preliminary bombardment had failed to knock out many German defensive positions. The near invulnerable pill-boxes could be destroyed only by direct hits through their observation slits but, working in tandem, the tanks and infantry succeeded in fighting their way off the beach and into the nearby town of Courseulles-sur-Mer where they became engaged in house-to-house combat. They were moving inland by late afternoon. Other Reginas never reached the beaches – a reserve company suffered terrible losses when its landing craft struck mines hidden by high tide.

The company of Victoria's Canadian Scottish and most of The Royal Winnipeg Rifles at "Mike" made it ashore without much trouble, the beneficiaries of accurate naval gunfire which neutralized the German battery that dominated their area of the beach. The Winnipeg company at the western edge of Courseulles was not so lucky. There the bombardment had missed its targets, and the landing craft came under brisk gunfire while they were still far offshore. Although forced to "storm their positions cold [they] did so without hesitation," the unit's war diary noted. Many men died the instant they waded into the chest-high water. Nonetheless, the survivors advanced past the beach defences, cleared the minefields, and occupied the adjoining coastal villages. The victory did not come cheaply. In a few hours, the company lost almost three-quarters of its men.

But none of the "Little Black Devils", as the regiment was nicknamed, "had flinched from his task, no matter how tough it was [or] failed to display courage and energy and a degree of gallantry." They had not been alone. The Winnipegs' commanding officer later paid tribute to The 1st Hussars' "gallantry, skill and cool daring" in coming to the assistance of his battalion "time and again throughout D-Day, without thought of their own safety or state of fatigue. ..."

At "Nan" sector on Juno Beach, The North Shore Regiment and The Queen's Own Rifles also encountered enemy gun emplacements that had survived the preliminary bombardment. One concrete bunker and its defenders inflicted heavy casualties on the North Shores and destroyed several Sherman tanks of The Fort Garry Horse before being silenced. The North Shore's other companies made it ashore without incident, but needed six hours and armoured support to take the town of Tailleville.

Toronto's Queen's Own Rifles received the worst battering of any Canadian unit on D-Day. The initial bombardment on their sector of "Nan" had barely dented the enemy's fortifications. The DD tanks, supposed to "swim" in ahead of the infantry to diminish German resistance, had been forced by high waves to land after them, "within a few hundred yards of the muzzles of the beach defence guns," one tank commander recalled afterward. Only a few made it into action.

aerial photo A half-hour late, the landing craft carrying the Queen's Own hit the beach more or less intact. Then the bloodbath began, the men making a mad dash from the shoreline to a seawall 183 metres away with no cover in between. A hidden German 88 opened up on the lead platoon of one company, decimating two-thirds of it before being silenced. Only a handful survived to get off the beach.

A second Queen's Own company landed directly in front of an untouched enemy strongpoint and very quickly lost half of its men, until three riflemen eliminated it with hand grenades and small arms fire. The price had been high, but the Queen's Own moved off the beach. The war diary of this, one of the oldest regiments in the Canadian Army, reflected the unit's unflagging spirit under onerous conditions.

The reserve units of the Canadian Scottish and the Chaudières arrived on the heels of the initial assault. The Scottish suffered the lightest casualties of any Canadian battalion on D-Day. But, coming in on the rising tide, many of Le Régiment de la Chaudière's landing craft struck concealed mines, and their occupants had no option but to throw off their equipment and swim to shore. Soon, both regiments were surging forward. By noon, the 9th Infantry Brigade was on its way to the beaches to exploit the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division's hard-won gains.

Although only one Canadian unit reached its D-Day objective, the first line of German defences had been completely smashed. By evening, Canadian troops had progressed further inland than any of their Allies. It was a remarkable achievement but, despite casualties being less than expected, it was an expensive one, too. "The German dead were littered over the dunes, by the gun positions," a Canadian journalist reported. "By them, lay Canadians in bloodstained battledress, in the sand and in the grass, on the wire and by the concrete forts. . . . They had lived a few minutes of the victory they had made. That was all." To ensure that D-Day would succeed, 340 Canadians had given their lives. Another 574 had been wounded and 47 taken prisoner.

Photo, D-Day Landings And a resounding success it was. The British and Americans had also come ashore and pushed inland; the Allied beachheads soon formed a continuous front. By the end of D-Day, the Allies had landed as many as 155,000 troops in France by sea and air, 6,000 vehicles including 900 tanks, 600 guns and about 4,000 tons of supplies and, astonishingly, had achieved complete surprise in doing it. The Atlantic Wall had been breached. But the battle had just begun. The bridgehead had to be secured and expanded to prevent the Wehrmacht from driving the Allies back into the sea

never forget.