VE Day 75th: Even the longest journey starts with a single step – Standard Freeholder

This photo, provided by the Imperial War Museum AFP/Getty Images, was taken on June 6, 1944 and shows Canadian soldiers from 9th Brigade landing with their bicycles at Juno Beach in Bernieres-sur-Mer as Allied forces storm Normandy beaches in northwestern France on D-Day. The 75th anniversary of the D-day landings falls on Thursday, June 6.

NORMANDY, France Its Tuesday, June 6, 1944 D-Day.

An historic day for Europe, for German-occupied France, and for Joe Sullivan.

The 23-year-old radio operator from Douro, Ont., near the City of Peterborough, is one of about 200 soldiers of the Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry Highlanders who are fighting seasickness on board of LCI299 (Landing Craft Infantry).

Clumsily, the bulky troop transport is searching its way through the high waves towards the beach. A day earlier, Sullivan and his regiment had embarked in Southampton, England, and had been transported to the French coast by the Southampton Road.

We didnt know anything, Sullivan recalls, only on our way to France did the officers tell us where we were going and that this would not be another exercise, but a real operation.

This mission is the largest landing operation in history.

At 6 a.m., the ships artillery begins the bombardment.

There was deafening noise around us, says Sullivan.

In addition to a battleship, several cruisers and destroyers fire salvo after salvo towards the French coast. Simultaneously, the allied bomber fleet is flying attacks on German coastal positions.

Around 7 a.m., under the roaring noise of the guns, Sullivan sees the first wave of Canadian troops head towards the coast. They are men from the 7th and 8th Infantry Brigades of the 3rd Canadian Division.

The conditions for the troops were very bad, Sullivan describes, looking back at the landing on Juno Beach.

The first wave of assault craft were hampered by high seas and dangerous coastal reefs. Several of them hit the notorious beach obstacles, and are destroyed by exploding mines that are attached to rammed piles just below the waters edge.

We saw the clouds of smoke on the beach and heard the battle noise. I suspected that there would be huge losses on that section of the beach that day, Sullivan says.

Library and Archives CanadaLanding craft 299 lands at Juno Beach, Courseilles-sur-Mer, France, on June 6, 1944. The men making their way ashore were members of the Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry Highlanders.Handout Not For ResaleSupplied

His 9th brigade, called the Highlander Brigade, has been declared the reserve on that day. At 11 a.m., in addition to the Glens, the Highland Infantry of Canada, and the North Nova Scotia Highlanders all receive their marching orders for the small seaside resort of Bernires-sur-Mer, which is part of the Canadian landing section called Juno Beach.We landed before noon and for me as a greenhorn as a green boy it was the first shocking encounter with the war, Sullivan recalls of his first day in combat in the Second World War.

Packed with weapons, equipment, rations and his radio, he and his comrades, some with folding bikes, disembark over the landing ships narrow, rocking gangway and work their way through the deep water to the beach with the help of stretched ropes.

The buildings located close to the beach are massively damaged. Numerous dead Canadian and German soldiers still line the landing site. Sullivan sees how medics are taking care of the wounded in hastily erected emergency hospitals.

It was a harrowing sight to see the scores of dead and wounded on the beach, he says.

In Bernires-sur-Mer, he has his first encounter with the Germans. Weary from battle, they wait on the beach for their transport to prison camp in England. For them, the war is over.

For Sullivan and the advancing troops of the 9th brigade, it is just beginning.

In late April of the following year, he would set foot on German soil for the first time. On May 6, 1945 exactly 11 months after the landing he and his regiment would march into the completely devastated City of Emden, Germany.

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VE Day 75th: Even the longest journey starts with a single step - Standard Freeholder