On D-Day, he was responsible for dropping paratroopers inland from Juno Beach. Lloyd Bentley was one of the tens of thousands of Canadians who served with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. It was just amazing.” ( See also Juno Beach: Day of Courage.) LLOYD BENTLEY, 48 Squadron RAF Then daylight came, and the sky was filled with bombers and fighters, and there before us was France, with all these landing craft streaming towards it. “Before dawn we could hear aircraft from Britain carrying paratroopers across Juno Beach was a 10 km stretch of coastline between Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, Bernières-sur-Mer, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Graye-sur-Mer - the beaches codenamed Gold and Sword were to its west and east.ĭesmond Piers, a 30-year-old naval captain, watched the invasion unfold from the bridge of his destroyer, HMCS Algonquin. It fell to more than 14,000 volunteer soldiers from across Canada, under Major-General Rod Keller, commander of theģrd Canadian Infantry Division, to storm Juno Beach. Of the Royal Canadian Navy supported the invasion. Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons patrolled the skies and attacked enemy targets onshore, while 10,000 sailors onboard 110 ships Plan many operations, it is now most associated with the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, on 6 June 1944.Ĭanada played a critical role on D-Day. For that reason, the term D-Day was used to refer to the day on which an attack was to begin. When planning a military operation, the specific date on which the attack would occur was not always known in advance. The 3rd Division’s objectives on D-Day were to cut the Caen-Bayeux road, take the Carpiquet airport 18 km inland and form a beachhead linking Gold and Sword beaches. Pour in reinforcements to begin the liberation of France. On the beaches, the soldiers’ task was to storm enemy-held territory and push inland, securing a coastal bridgehead from which the Allies could Among this invasion force were three divisions of paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines. The campaign’s opening day, a vast naval armada, supported by squadrons of aircraft, bombarded German defences along the Normandy coastline before delivering 156,000 American, British and Canadian troops onto five beaches codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, The assault on Normandy, along a 100 km stretch of French coastline across the English Channel from Great Britain, was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Image: Originally published in Time magazine. Map of the Normandy invasion with allied forces.

D day remembrance images