Canadians moving inland, says first news dispatch from beach head
By Ross Munro
WITH CANADIAN FORCES LANDING IN FRANCE, June 6, 1944 (CP Cable) – In two hours and 45 minutes of fighting on the beaches here, the Canadian invasion force won its beach-head and shoved on inland.
At 10:45 this morning the Canadian commander (Gen. Keller) sent this message to Gen. Crerar, G.O.C. 1st Canadian Army: “Beach head taken. Well on way to intermediate objective.”
The strip of coast won by the Canadians in this initial assault was quite narrow, but it gave them the beaches and provided a base for further penetration.
There was some stiff street fighting in the little coast towns and the Canadians also met considerable enemy fire on the beaches and as they worked their way into the defences. They had to overcome numerous steel and wooden obstacles which were placed out on the tidal part of the beach and which were covered at high tide to trap landing craft. However, the assault went in at 7:15 a.m. just as the tide began to rise and many of these obstacles were cleared away by engineers before the water covered them, thus enabling followup craft to beach and unload.
Some casualties were suffered in the assault by the Canadians from enemy machine-guns, mortars and artillery fire.
By 10:00 a.m. the Canadians were about 1,000 yards inland and going strong, meeting only small pockets of Germans. The first prisoners were taken and identified as belonging to a coastal unit.
On other parts of the front near us the operation is moving along. Canadian and British airborne troops did a good job when they dropped and came in by gliders at 3:30 this morning. They captured several bridges and held them.
Cruisers provided very effective support to the Canadians and one cruiser knocked out a troublesome battery about a mile and a half from the coast with six direct hits.
Enemy tanks are reported about 10 to 15 miles south of the beach-head and some enemy transport is also moving.
Up to noon the German air force has not shown up. It is estimated to have 2,350 aircraft in western Europe but it looks as if the air attack will come tonight.
The French coast is still wreathed in smoke driving far down the Channel. In some of the bombarded towns, fires are burning ….
So far the operation seems to have gone as well as could be expected. Destroyers and gunboats are cruising up and down the coastline banging away at last coastal points of resistance on our beach.
Now the rest of the assault troops are going in. I am going ashore with them.
The rest is here.
(Ross Munro, war correspondent for The Canadian Press, died in Toronto in 1990 at the age of 76. Why can’t our war reporting of today be as clear and unobstructed by bias as this?)
Hat tip – Rick Hiebert