The first echelon of the landing at Golden Beach was the 30th division of the British 50th Army, reinforced with a tank brigade of the 79th Special Armored Division. The second echelon was the British 7th Panzer Division, the only Panzer Division landed by the Allies on D-Day, which had participated in the North African campaign and was the ace of the Allied Panzer Forces. The person in charge of transporting the landing force was made by the British Douglas? Formation G under the command of Commodore Pennant.

At 4:55 a.m. on June 6, the formation arrived at the transfer area. Since the Calvados reef vein at Golden Beach was exposed at low tide, the landing time had to be 60 minutes after the high tide, so that the landing time was set at 7:25 p.m., which made the British fire preparation time relatively sufficient, and the naval artillery fire preparation lasted for 100 minutes, and the continuous and fierce shelling had a great effect, and several major German support points were destroyed.

Due to the strong wind and waves, the landing commander temporarily decided that the amphibious tanks would not be launched into the water, and the tank landing craft would be sent directly to the beachhead, thus avoiding losses like those of the US army. In addition, the firepower of the German support points could only shoot longitudinally at the beach, and could not shoot at sea targets, so that the British landing force was not subjected to artillery fire when it rushed to the beach, and after rushing to the beach and entering the German artillery fire range, it was strongly supported by amphibious tanks and special tanks, and successfully controlled the landing field.

In particular, special tanks played a huge role, quickly clearing a large number of obstacles set up by the Germans, creating extremely favorable conditions for the advance of the infantry. The British advance was very smooth, until the village of Le Amir met with fierce resistance, and the infantry was stopped by the German fire from depth. At this time, three British "Cancer" minesweeper tanks used to act as pioneers were destroyed in the battle after the landing. One got stuck in the swamp, and the only one left drove up and broke into the village, dumbing down the German fire and clearing the way for the infantry. Elsewhere, everything went very smoothly as in the exercises.

By eleven o'clock, the 7th Panzer Division of the second echelon had begun to land, and seven routes had been opened up on the beach by special tanks, so the advance of the British army was unimpeded. At 12:30 p.m., the 50th Division concentrated its two brigades and attacked inland, occupying Aromench at 21 p.m. that night to join up with the Canadian troops who had landed on Juno Beach. Connect the two beachheads.

It is located in Basin Ekspres, at the junction of the landing of American and British troops. It was a small port with only two breakwaters, but it was very valuable to the Allied forces who did not have any port at the beginning of the landing. The task of capturing Basin Eksin was carried out by the 47th Landing Strike Squadron of the British Marine Corps, which landed at Gold Beach.

The unit landed at 9.30 a.m. on the 6th 14.5 kilometres east of Basin Ekspres, losing all communications equipment at the time of landing. Lost contact with the main force. There is no support in terms of firepower. In the face of fierce resistance from the Germans, they fell into an isolated situation and were blocked near the coast for eight hours. It was not until late evening that he arrived at Basings, and because the enemy did not dare to attack easily, he had to lurk under German fire for the night.

At dawn on the 7th, the U.S. forces who tried to contact Omaha were unsuccessful, and finally used the captured German communications equipment to get in touch with the main forces, and only then did they capture Basings Harbor on June 7 with the support of naval and air firepower.

So far, the 50th Division of the British Army has completed its scheduled mission, occupied the division's landing site about 8 kilometers deep, and landed about 35,000 people on the same day, with about 1,500 casualties.

Juno Beach is located on both sides of the mouth of the Searle River, 7 km east of Golden Beach, behind which is a stretch of sand dunes. The Germans built many concrete forts and strong support points in this area, but there were relatively few obstacles on the beach, and the artillery was only equipped with 4 99mm coastal guns, and the defenders were a regiment of the 716th Coastal Defense Division, which was mostly Russian and Pole, with low morale and poor combat effectiveness.

Landing at Juno Beach was the 3rd Infantry Division of the Canadian 1st Army, reinforced by a special tank brigade of the 79th Armored Division, transported by the British Navy's J Formation.

At 4:30 a.m. on 6 June, the formation arrived at the transfer area on time, due to the bad weather during the voyage and the navigation error, the landing time was delayed by 20 minutes compared with the scheduled time, which meant that the landing would miss the suitable tide and had to be carried out in the rising tide, and the landing craft were forced to unload personnel, vehicles and materials between the obstacles flooded by the tide. Of these, 20 of the 24 landing craft transporting a battalion were blown up and sunk, with a loss rate of 83 per cent.

Due to the bad weather when aviation fire and naval artillery fire were prepared, there was little damage to the German fortifications, so when the Canadian infantry came ashore, it was suppressed by the German army for a time. Fortunately, the Allied naval guns were very timely and accurate, and with the active cooperation of amphibious tanks, they finally broke through the German defense line and made progress.

It was only the landing craft that transported the sappers that arrived very late, and the work of removing underwater obstacles did not begin until after the climax, which made the beach have few roads, resulting in a large number of vehicles crowding on the beach, and later opened 12 roads with the support of special tanks, which quickly dredged the beach and ensured the landing and advance of the follow-up troops. The unit with the greatest casualties at Juno Beach was the 48th Landing Strike Group of the British Marine Corps, whose mission was to open up contact with the British forces on Sword Beach on the east side.

Because the landing craft they were riding was wooden-hulled, it was seriously damaged when it hit an obstacle, so the team members had to jump off the landing craft in the deep water area and swim ashore, with the result that many team members drowned because the equipment they were carrying was too heavy, and finally landed ashore and was under German machine-gun fire, suffering heavy casualties, and finally gained a foothold on the east side of the beach with the support of tanks.

By evening, the vanguard of the Canadian army had advanced 11 kilometers inland, and some of the armored units had even reached the Bayeux-Gangcheng road, but they had retreated without infantry cover.

By the end of the day, the Canadian army had advanced to a distance of 5 kilometers from Gangcheng and connected with the British army's Golden Beach, so that the two landing sites were two into one, forming a large landing field of 19 kilometers in front and 10 kilometers in depth. Throughout the day on Day D, the Canadian army landed about 20,000 people from Juno Beach, suffering about 2,000 casualties.

Sword Beach was the easternmost of the five Allied landing beaches, located on both sides of the mouth of the Orne River and the Caen Canal, and due to the continuous reefs on the seabed, the area available for landing was very narrow, so the landing front was only 4.8 kilometers, and only one brigade could be deployed.

The Germans built concrete forts in this area, equipped with coastal artillery units including 406mm heavy guns, and the defense force was relatively strong.

Due to the narrowness of the landing front, the first echelon of the 3rd Infantry Division of the 1st British Army landed here was only one brigade. Transporting the 3rd Division was the S formation under the command of British Rear Admiral Talbot. In order to ensure that the landing formation did not deviate from its navigation, the British army specially sent the X-23 pocket submarine to lurk here for two days and two nights to surface to guide the course during the landing. (To be continued......)

PS: Acknowledgements:

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