Sword Beach – D-Day – Normandy landings

The assault on Sword Beach was assigned to the British 3rd Infantry Division, nicknamed “Iron Sides” placed under Major General Thomas “Tom” Rennie
British 2nd Army
commanded by General Miles Dempsey
and to French and British Commandos placed under the command of Lord Lovat,
and supported by armour regiments.
The 3rd Division’s objective was to take control of the beach and Ouistreham and move inland in order to capture Caen and Carpiquet airfield. The British Commandos of Lord Lovat had to breakthrough 5km inland towards the two bridges that span the Orne River and the Caen Canal. They then had to link up with the 6th Airborne Division under command of Major General Richard “Windy” Gale
who had been dropped in that area in the early hours of the morning and had taken control of the bridges and destroyed the battery at Merville. Gale died 29 July 1982, aged 86, Kingston upon
Thames, London, England. The objective of the Command Philppe Kieffer‘s French Commandos – who had been integrated into Lord Lovat’s Brigade – was to destroy the Riva Bella-Ouistreham Casino.
The Germans had indeed converted the casino into a stronghold with several bunkers connected by a network of trenches and protected by mine fields.
The coastal enemy defence along the Sword Beach sector was ‘relatively light’. It consisted of beach obstacles and various bunkers scattered along the shore, plus a second line of defence in the dunes with machine guns and mortars.They had installed anti-char ditches, mines and concrete walls in the coastal towns.
However, the infantry regiments and the 21st Panzer Division were stationed farther inland, ready for an eventual Allied attack. The real threat was Merville Battery, situated 8km farther east, on the right bank of the river Orne, where the bulk of the German forces were positioned.
The first aerial bombardment began around 3.30am. The Royal Navy took over before the landing. The first LCA’s
landed at 7:25 am. Thirty-four amphibious tanks were put to sea some 4000m off the coast. Twenty-eight tanks landed in order to support and protect the British engineers units (1st South Lancashire
and 2nd East Yorkshire Yeomanry
), who dug canals and opened a breach in order to reach Hermanville and Colleville.
N.B. Colleville is situated a few kilometers inland from Ouistreham and must not confused with Colleville-sur-Mer near Omaha Beach to the west. The Germans had installed machine guns, mortars, bunkers, anti-tank lines and mine fields in the dunes.
However, they had protected but Hermanville Beach (sector Queen) with only two rows of obstacles supposed to rip the barges at high tide. The British 3rd Division’s assault was supported by regiments of the British 79th Armoured Division under the command of Major General Percy Hobart.
Hobarts’s specialized tanks, the famous ‘Hobart Funnies’,
dismantled the beach obstacles. Hobart died age 71 on 19-02-1957 in Farnham, Surrey.
Commander Kieffer and his French Commandos (Bérets Verts – Green Berets) attacked the casino of Ouistreham from the rear with grenades and anti tanks weapons.The British troops therefore managed to take control of the sector relatively quickly and under moderate enemy fire.By 8.00am they had reached the dunes.
They, however, failed in their attempt to neutralize the building’s two main defence, a bunker and a water tower. Kieffer returned alone to the beach and persuaded the pilot of a Sherman tank to assist him and his men in knocking out the bunker and the water tower in order to open a breach that would allow them to enter the stronghold and seize it.
The French Commandos successfully reached their objective despite their high rate in casualties (21 killed and 93 wounded). By 1.00pm the British Commando had linked up with the paratroopers of the 6th Airborne near the two bridges. At 4.00pm the Germans attempted a counter-attack with the support of the 21st Panzer Division, which had moved towards the rear the beachhead in order to stop the Allied troops in their progression towards Caen.

Some Panzer units managed to reach the beach four hours later. However, they were defeated by Allied tanks and aerial bombardment. By the end of D-Day, the British had lost 630 men, but had successfully landed 29 000 troops on Sword Beach. However, they had not been able to link up with the Canadians landed on Juno to the west, and Caen and Carpiquet airfield had not yet been captured.
The Allied troops would resume their progression towards Caen the following day, June 7. However, the northern districts of the city would not be freed until June 9 and the southern until July 18 (Operation Atlantic).Entirely destroyed by bombardment, the medieval town was nothing but a pile of rubble.
But, it had been freed!

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