General Crerar D-Day message
Operation Overlord – Normandy landings
It is impossible for me to speak to each one of you, but by means of this personal message. I want all ranks of the Canadian Army to know what is in my mind, as the hour approaches when we go forward into battle.
I have complete confidence in our ability to meet the tests which lie ahead. We are excellently trained and equipped. The quality of both the senior and junior leadership is of the highest. As Canadians, we inherit military characteristics which were feared by the enemy in the last Great War. They will be still more feared before this war terminates.
Canadian formations in the assault landing will have a vital part to play. Plans, preparations, methods and technique which will be employed are based on knowledge and experience, bought and paid for by the 2nd Canadian Division at Dieppe. The contribution of that hazardous operation cannot be overestimated. It will prove to have been an essential prelude to our forthcoming and final success.
We enter into this decisive phase of the war with calm confidence in our abilities and with grim determination to finish quickly and unmistakably this job we came overseas to do.
As in 1918, in Italy and in Northwest Europe we will hit the enemy again and again, until, at some not distant time, converging Allied armies link together and we will be rejoined, in victory, with our comrades of the first Canadian corps.
Lieutenant General H.D.G Crerar
