It is a very solemn day on the Canadian calendar as we rightfully pause to remember the 359 of our countrymen who died on this date in 1944 in the D-Day landings in Normandy, the largest seaborne invasion in history. Hundreds more were wounded. Countless more would suffer mental health difficulties in the decades that followed after witnessing the horrors of Juno Beach as Canadian after Canadian was killed before their eyes.
Canada’s contribution to the D-Day landings -- codenamed Operation Overlord -- was remarkable when you consider the nation’s relatively small population back then. Of the almost 150,000 Allied troops that landed or parachuted into Normandy on June 6, 1944, approximately 14,000 were the brave Canadians who landed at Juno Beach. At the same time, approximately 10,000 sailors from the Royal Canadian Navy manned more than 100 RCN ships that were part of the Allied forces. In the skies above, aircraft from 15 Canadian squadrons also took part in the invasion.
Back in Ottawa, Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who had not been informed of the exact date the invasion would take place, was woken up at 4:30 am at Laurier House. A police officer, assigned to guard the PM, entered King’s bedroom to wake him with the news. That evening, the PM described in his diary what came next:
The PM was assured the news from France was accurate.
Prime Minister King then worked with his staff on a statement to the people of Canada and had it sent out on the wires. By 8 am, the Prime Minister of Canada had been driven to the Chateau Laurier. spoke to the nation from the radio studio there, officially informing Canadians that the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny had begun.
In his private diary, King described the atmosphere in the room at a cabinet meeting later that day: “Seldom seen the Ministers more silent than they were as I indicated to them nature of that had been received.”
By the time the Normandy campaign ended in August – almost three months after Canada and her Allies had landed in France – more than 5,000 Canadians had made the ultimate sacrifice.
Former Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, then living in England, was to never recover from the Battle of Normandy. Unmarried, and with no children of his own, Bennett lost two nephews in France that terrible summer. He was devastated and would die, his heart broken, shortly after.
Lest We Forget.
caption id="attachment_564492" align="aligncenter" width="440"“I questioned him as what information he had. Rang up (Clerk of the Privy Council, Norman) Robertson immediately. Asked him if he was sure the report was correct; that official communiques had come in.”
Troops from the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade going ashore, in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. (photo: Library and Archives Canada)/caption
Birthday Alert from Art’s History: Sending out birthday greetings to Quebec MP Francis Scarpaleggia.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.