D-Day: Commonwealth Sectors

20. Sword Beach

Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandie

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Sword beach was the 7-mile stretch of Normandy coastline between the towns of Ouistreham and Hernanville-sur-Mer. It was divided into the sectors Oboe, Peter, Queen and Roger. Frogmen initially landed twenty minutes before the main force in order to clear a way through for 33 out of the 40 "Funnies" of the 13th/18th Hussars that were launched 3 miles out at sea. The funnies were specially adapted tanks whose role it was to clear the beach of German strongpoints, they consisted of ones able to lay carpets, fill gullies, deploy bridges, destroy mines and launch concrete busting demolition charges. The landing area had originally been intended to stretch only as far as Courseulles but Montgomery and Eisenhower decided to add the fifth beach, codenamed Sword. The eventual landing area was a narrow strip at Hermanville-sur-Mer due to the concentration of defences surrounding the port at Ouistreham and the dangerous reefs just off the coast at Lion-sur-Mer and Luc-sur-Mer. Approaching the beaches in the landing craft would have been a daunting task, the rattle of machine gun fire and exploding mortar shells, broadsides from the great battleships and the whistle of their shells overhead. Major "Banger" King roused his troops blood on the trip shoreward with a reading of Shakespeare's stirring speech from Henry V. "On, on, you noblest English! Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof, Fathers that, like so many Alexanders Have in these parts from mourn till even fought And sheath'd thy swords for lack of argument I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. e game's afoot, Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry God, for Harry, England and St George. " For some that would have been enough. By the end of the day 29,000 British troops with 2,603 vehicles had crossed the channel and landed on the French beaches. The day cost the British army 630 lives with many more injured but they'd arrived on mainland Europe.