Bagpipes played their eerie sound as the Royal Highland Regiment left the harbour in England. They played the pipes on the transports as they rocked up the shore. They bagpipes howled as the Black Watch hit Juno Beach The bagpipes gave a simple message to the Germans defending Juno beach: we are crazy, we are coming, and you are going to die.
After delays, and a night suffering form rocking boats, the ramps dropped and the Canadian's charged the beach. All Canadian assault teams had planed to land right after the tanks hit the shore. It would be nice if things went as planed. You were in a lucky assault team if you actually had tank support on the beach. In many cases the tanks never landed on the beach until after the Canadians had jumped the seawall and were engaged in street fights in the near by towns.
B Company of the Highland regiment land to find the fortifications destroyed by naval fire and were able to move off the beaches quickly and with few casualties. Other regiments of the assault force were not so lucky. The Regina regiment lost half of her fighting force before it even got to the beach. The Winnipeg assault teams found the German defenses intact and ready for an attack. The Winnipeg regiment suffered dearly for every step they took to get of the beaches. German defenders cut down B Company of the Winnipeg's to one officer and 25 men by the time they finally reached the Seawall (a company has about 150 men). One of the bravest acts was accomplished by a solider in a Winnipeg platoon, in a attempt to get off the beach. A pioneer platoon in the Winnipeg infantry was trapped behind barbed wire with no means to get through the wire. One Solider in that platoon threw himself on the barded wire so the men in the platoon could walk on his back and get to the safety of the seawall. The attack on Juno Beach is filled of stories of men crawling thought minefields and barded wire, under heavy fire so they could toss a couple grenades into pillboxes. Sergeant Sigie Johnstone of the Winnipeg regiment is quoted, "Very few publications ever get the truth of what our Winnipeg infantry faced and did."
In the first hour of the Assault on Juno beach the Canadian forces would suffer conditions and causality rates almost identical to what the Americans would suffer on Omaha beach. Once the Canadians cleared the seawall (about an hour after jumping off the transports) they would start to advance quickly inland and have a much easer time subduing the German defenses than the Americans at Omaha.
Once the beaches were secure the Canadians started to steadily move inland. Each platoon was assigned sections to secure. Some of the platoons found little or no Germans in the area while others spent the entire day trying to liberate the towns along the beach. By 1200 the 3rd Canadian division was completely landed and using the momentum of the morning to try and push Germans back. The Winnipeg and Regina regiments along with tank support penetrated several kilometers inland and gained control of the bridges over the river Seulles.
The North Shore (New Brunswick regiment) spent the day in heavy street fighting trying to capture St Aubin. St Aubin was finally secured by the North Shore regiment by 1800. After an hour of street fights and silencing German guns Courseulles and Bernieres comes under allied control. Later that day the Highland regiment would push ahead of the Winnipeg regiment to capture Colombiers-sur-seulles.
A 1st Hussar Armored troop was the only unit in Normandy that had reached its objectives. It had pushed 15 km inland and crossed the Caen-Bayeaux highway. This troop had reached the day's objective but were forced to pull back because they had passed the supporting infantry. Without the infantry support the tanks would not have been able to defend against a German counter Attack.
At the end of the day The Canadian troops dug in and prepared for a counter attack. A 4 to 7km gap separated the British on Sword beach and the Canadians on Juno. The next day the German panzer division that had kept the British on Sword beach busy would counter attack the Canadian and British forces through the gap.
At the end of the day the Canadian 3rd division was able to join up with the British forces on Gold beach. Also The Canadian would push farther inland on D-Day than any other army that landed on the Normandy shore. As John Keegan said, "At the end of the day its forward elements stood deeper into France than those of any other division." Stephen Ambrose concludes that statement with, "Insofar as the opposition the Canadians faced was stronger than at any other beach save Omaha, that was an accomplishment in which the whole nation could take considerable pride."