Location 4 – MIKE Red Sector, JUNO Beach, Courseulles-sur-Mer West

Directions – Return to the car and proceed eastwards through St Côme-de-Fresné where you should be able to spot the remains of one of the WN39 casemates on the right as you descend the hill. Proceed through Asnelles on the D514 towards Ver-sur-Mer. Continue on through Ver-sur-Mer following the D514 and, just before you reach the houses of Courseulles-sur-Mer, take a left onto the Rue les Marinas which takes you up to the yacht club. Park in the car park opposite and walk down to the beach.

View of GOLD Beach – The wide expanse of GOLD Beach, and particularly the sub-sectors codenamed JIG and KING can be clearly seen to the left as you leave Asnelles and the road begins to rise. This was the landing zone for the British 50th Division and supporting troops on D-Day. As already evidenced by the rapid march to Arromanches by the 1st Hampshires, apart from a persistent strongpoint in Le Hamel, this beach was secured relatively rapidly by the 231st Infantry Brigade coming ashore on JIG (to the east of Le Hamel/Asnelles) and the 69th Infantry Brigade disembarking on KING (north of Ver-sur-Mer). Whilst not possessing the number of points of interest as other D-Day landing beaches, the success at GOLD in getting troops, armour and artillery ashore and inland quickly is too often forgotten in accounts of D-Day. Without this progress in the centre of the battlefront, the story of the Normandy landings may well have been very different. The long-overdue illumination of this, often forgotten sector, will be undertaken by the author in a future warwalk dedicated to the events that took place here.

MIKE Red Sector assaulted by The Royal Winnipeg Rifles of 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade on D-Day and supported by Royal Engineer Armoured Vehicles and Duplex-Drive Sherman tanks of the 1st Hussars. MIKE Green Sector, landing zone for C Company of the Canadian, Scottish can be seen where the beach sweeps round to the right. Photo: Mark Sluman. Click on image for full size (292 KB).

What Happened on D-Day? – MIKE Red Sector was one of the most heavily-defended beaches to be assaulted by the British and Canadians on D-Day. In the middle of it lay a Weiderstandneste, WN31, encompassing three large casemates and fifteen other concrete structures, housing machine-gun teams and an 88mm gun. WN31 was surrounded by trenches, wire and minefields and, of course, the seaward approaches to it included the usual Atlantic Wall beach defences. WN31 was also mutually supported by a strongpoint known as WN29 located on NAN Green Sector to the east of the River Seulles.

To breach these defences the Allied airforces had begun their bombing programme in May 1944, but the aerial attacks reached their maximum intensity on the night of 5th June as medium and heavy bombers focused on German batteries and troop concentrations including WN31 and 29. At 0552 on the morning of 6th June, the 6-inch and 5.2-inch naval guns of HMS Belfast and Diadem and the 4-inch guns of eleven destroyers joined the aerial onslaught. As the landing craft of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles approached MIKE Red the guns of four field regiments of the Royal Canadian Artillery, themselves aboard landing craft and still at sea, began firing at WN31 and 29 and the two strongpoints further along the coast at Bernières and St-Aubin-sur-Mer. In total around 2,500 105mm shells pummelled each of the Weiderstandneste still further. Lastly, eight Landing Craft Tank (Rocket) launched their deadly salvoes against the shoreline. One of the occupants of the German defences, Grenadier Christian Hubbne, recalled,

"We had not expected anything like it and cowered in our holes waiting to be buried alive or blown to bits. The great shells from the battleships made a fantastic noise and the ground shook when they detonated. Then, at last the noise seemed to lessen and our Sergeant told us to stand-to as the enemy were about to land, so we jumped to our weapons, trembling with fear and from the effects of the bombardment…Then we would see the enemy landing craft coming in to the shore and the warships still firing. We forced ourselves to get ready."

Unfortunately, for the Canadians of B Company of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles who were approaching MIKE Red Sector, a navigational error had delayed the specialist engineers of 79th Armoured Division and they would now have to rely solely on the Duplex-Drive (DD) tanks of A Squadron of the 1st Hussars for support when they hit the beach. As it was, even these arrived six minutes after the vulnerable infantry. Worse, the massive concrete casemates emerged from the bombardment largely intact and their occupants, although heavily outnumbered, stood determined to repel borders.

As at Dieppe, two years before, the initial results were grimly predictable. Machine-gun fire and mortar fire began when the landing craft were still 700 yards out. As the ramps went down at 0749 hours the German defenders aimed for the disgorging infantry. Those that made it onto the beach sought shelter behind beach obstacles and in shell holes. Casualties mounted. Some men tore through the wire entanglements at the edge of the beach to reach the dunes beyond, but the real turning point of the battle was when seven DD tanks of the 1st Hussars at last reached the beach and began engaging the German emplacements at point-blank range. Inch by inch, B Company filtered into the heart of WN31 and, in fighting as bloody as any other on D-Day they broke into the casemates one by one with grenade, rifle, sub-machine-gun and bayonet.

The other assault company, D, landed clear of WN31 at the eastern end of MIKE Green Sector and managed to sprint across the beach and into the dunes with few casualties allowing them to move quickly inland to Graye-sur-Mer. The second wave companies, A and C also managed to get inland fairly intact, although follow-up units were still taking casualties from WN31 into mid-morning.

Altogether B Company lost 90 men out of 117 landed on the morning of D-Day. It was a salutary reminder of the importance of landing specialised armour and tanks on the beach before the infantry and a testament to the extraordinary courage and sacrifice of the young Canadian infantrymen on that June morning.