Gold Beach : Inland from King – June 1944
The two authors, both formerly senior professional soldiers, have compiled an easy-to-follow itinerary to the British landings on 6 June 1944 on Gold Beach and the ensuing bitter fighting. Covered in detail are the actions which earned CSM Hollis of the Green Howards his VC and other inspiring battle stories.
by Christopher Dunphie
Gold Beach
On D-Day, British XXX Corps was ordered to break open the German defences on Gold Beach and advance to capture Bayeux. Its commander, Lieutenant-General G.C. Bucknall, chose the 50th (Northumbrian) Division, a veteran formation blooded in North Africa, to spearhead the landing, supported by 47 Royal Marine Commando. Despite poor weather conditions hampering the planned armoured support, the assaulting infantry overcame stiff resistance and heavy casualties to storm the beach.
by Simon Trew
Juno Beach: Canadian 3rd Infantry Division
By June 1944, Juno Beach was a key part of Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic Wall, with no less than four major strong points along its length. German pillboxes were sited to sweep the beaches with machine gun fire and were surrounded by belts of barbed wire and mines. Leading the attack were the 3rd Canadian Division, supported by the specialist assault tanks of the 79th Armoured Division (Hobart’s ‘Funnies’). Despite careful planning, poor D-Day weather led to a piecemeal landing and heroic individual battles in the streets of the seaside towns.
by Tim Saunders
Juno Beach: Canada’s D-Day Victory – June 6, 1944
Of the five Allied forces landing that day, they were scheduled to be the last to reach the sand. Juno was also the most exposed beach, their day’s objectives eleven miles inland were farther away than any others, and the opposition awaiting them was believed greater than that facing any other force. At battle’s end one out of every six Canadians in the invasion force was either dead or wounded. Yet their grip on Juno Beach was firm.
by Mark Zuehlke
D-Day: Juno Beach, Canada’s 24 Hours of Destiny
Many have called it the most important event of the twentieth century – and Canada played a key role. When Canadian troops landed at Juno Beach, they faced some of the fiercest opposition of the attack, and yet they managed to advance further inland than all the other Allied forces. D-Day: Juno Beach, Canada’s 24 Hours of Destiny chronicles that momentous day hour-by-hour, through the words of the men themselves. With more than 300 illustrations, this is a vivid remembrance of one of Canada’s greatest military achievements.
by Lance Goddard
Battle Zone Normandy: Juno Beach
The Juno Beach landings were just the start of the Canadians’ long struggle to Germany and victory. In the coming days they would face some of Hitler’s toughest troops, including 12 SS-Panzer Division ‘Hitlerjugend’, in a war of ideals where duty faced fanaticism and surrender often led to massacre.Ken Ford takes the reader back to the battlefields of June 1944, revisiting the scenes of the fighting in the green fields and lanes of Normandy, identifying the places that remain from the war and remembering the young men who fell in the service of Canada and the Allied cause.
by Ken Ford
D-Day 1944 : Gold & Juno Beaches: Gold and Juno Beaches – Part 4
Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, was the greatest sea-borne military operation in history. At the heart of the invasion and key to its success were the landings of British 50th Division on Gold Beach and Canadian 3rd Division on Juno Beach. Not only did they provide the vital link between the landings of British 3rd Division on Sword Beach and the Americans to the west on Omaha, they would be crucial to the securing of the beachhead and the drive inland to Bayeux and Caen. In the fourth D-Day volume Ken Ford details the assault that began the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe.
by Ken Ford
Sword Beach: 3rd British Division/27th Armoured Brigade
As the left most inland flank of the D-Day landings, Sword Beach was thought most likely to receive the first German counterattacks. The British troops selected for the assault had the tasks of securing the beach and advancing on the heavily defended medieval town of Caen. The troops also were determined to link up with British paratroopers and glider units who had landed the night before on special missions and were not equipped to withstand an armored counterattack alone.
by Tim Kilvert-Jones
D-Day 1944 – Sword Beach & the British Airborne Landings – Part 3
At 0016hrs on 6 June 1944 a Horsa glider ground to a halt a mere 60 yards from the Orne Canal bridge at Bénouville in Normandy. A small group of British paratroopers burst from it and stormed the bridge within minutes. The Allied liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe had begun. Within a few hours landing craft would swarm towards Ouistreham as British 3rd Division stormed ashore at Sword Beach. The battle would then begin to break through to relieve the paratroopers. In the third of the D-Day volumes Ken Ford details the assault by British 6th Airborne Division and the British landings on Sword Beach that secured the vital left flank of the invasion.
by Ken Ford
Sword Beach
Sword was the only Allied beachhead to suffer armoured counterattack by a German panzer division on D-Day and from then on the invaders struggled to make any progress. Advances that should have been measured in miles were reduced to a few hedgerows, or a field here and a wood there. Caen was not captured for seven more weeks. Covering both the triumph of the Sword Beach landings and the disappointment of the failure to capitalise on that early success, the first seven days that British troops were back on the soil of mainland Europe make a fascinating story. Ken Ford allows the reader to stand on the spot where momentous decisions were made, see how and why the battle lost its momentum and understand why the Caen attack slowed almost to stalemate.
by Ken Ford
D-Day Beach Assault Troops
This book is an in-depth study of the uniforms, equipment, weapons, passage, landings, and tactics of US, British and Canadian assault units during the period from before H-Hour on June 6 to dawn on June 7.
by Gordon L. Rottman
D-Day: Untold stories of the Normandy Landings
Relive the events of June 6, 1944, through eye witness accounts that describe 20 real-life stories from the D-Day landings. This book—which presents collated photographs, personal accounts, and testimonies from all sides with full-page illustrations dramatizing individual roles—brings a key moment in history to life for young readers hearing about the event for the first time (published at the occasion of the D-Day 75th anniversary).
by Michael Noble
Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day, The Allied Invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe
Normandy depicts the planning and execution of Operation Overlord in 96 full-color pages. The initial paratrooper assault is shown, as well as the storming of the five D-Day beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. But the story does not end there. Once the Allies got ashore, they had to stay ashore. The Germans made every effort to push them back into the sea. This book depicts the key events in the Allied liberation of Europe.
by Wayne Vansant
Dawn of D-Day
In this intimate chronicle, we see D-Day through the eyes of the men on the ground as Howarth weaves together the larger story of the beginning of the battle of Normandy with the stories of the beachhead itself. The scope of Howarth’s vision—focusing on England and France, on sky, beach, and hedgerow, on divisions and squads—makes Dawn of D-Day a franker portrayal than any other of the turning-point of the war on the Western Front and the greatest amphibious operation in history.
by David Howarth
Remember D-Day: The Plan, the Invasion, Survivor Stories
Remember D-Day combines compelling narrative, dramatic archival photographs and memorabilia, detailed maps, and a timeline to bring readers the exciting story of one of the world’s most daring invasions. This landmark book will provide children with valuable insight into the significance of the invasion and help them understand D-Day in the overall context of the war.
by Rondald J. Drez
D-Day (Young Reading Series 3)
The story of D-Day – the Normandy beach landings which saw the start of the Allies’ major offensive against German forces – specially written for readers of 9 and up. Includes photographs, maps and full-colour illustrations, as well as internet links to recommended websites. Published in association with the Imperial War Museums, to tie in with the 70th anniversary of D-Day in 2014 and part of the Usborne Reading Programme.
by Henry Brook
