With the German defences crumbling later in August, General Bernard Montgomery shifted the Canadians to the French coast and then to dreadful fighting on the Scheldt. Progress was slow, the casualties again high, and Allies grumbled that the Canadians were hesitant. The rest of Lieutenant-General Guy SimondsРІР‚в„ў II Canadian Corps, the green 2nd Infantry Division and the 4th Armoured Division, joined the action in July, and First Canadian Army, now led by General Harry Crerar, fought its first battle on Aug. But then progress slowed along the Allied beachhead, and two months of fierce combat and heavy losses followed. The troops secured their lodgement and drove off German counterattacks. Now D-Day was at hand and, on June 6, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Armoured Brigade landed at Juno Beach, making up one-fifth of the seaborne invasion force.

But Italy unfortunately seemed a sideshow to the opening of a front in France. McNaughton, and they had eventually been joined by the 5th Canadian Armoured Division to form a corps. The 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the 1st Armoured Brigade had taken part in the Sicily invasion only over the opposition of First Canadian Army commander, General A.G.L. But aside from the disaster of Dieppe, the army in England had not seen action. The air force had been in action since 1940, the navy since the start.

The Second World War had been underway for almost five years and the first Canadian soldiers had landed in England before the end of 1939. It all began with D-Day.Р”В-Day mattered greatly to Canada and Canadians. But the democracies eventually prevailed and by the 1990s, almost all of Europe was led by freely elected governments. The attack began the liberation of Western Europe, the defeat of Nazi Germany and the events that followed led to Europe being divided between democracies and totalitarian communist regimes. Three-quarters of a century have passed since American, British and Canadian forces landed on the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944, in the greatest seaborne invasion in history.

Iron front liberation 1944 dday