Like GolcL, Juno beach was wide enough to land two brigades side by side, Canadian 7th Brigade at Courseulles and 8th Brigade at Bernieres. The Canadian landing was deliberately delayed in the plan, to give the rising tide time to cover underwater shoals near the landing area revealed by air reconnaissance (it was later discovered that many of these “rocks” were floating seaweed). The tide, the rough weather and the high wind delayed the approach of the landing craft still further, and both brigades touched down ten minutes later than planned, the troops at Courseulles at 07:45, and those at Bernieres at 07:55, the last of the first wave to land. As at Gold, the sea was far too rough to risk launching the DD tanks ahead of the infantry. Most came in by landing craft, but a few were launched from close to the shore, and reached the beach ahead of the infantry at Courseulles as planned. But the rising tide covered more of the beach obstacles, and the current pushed landing craft out of position. “The heavy seas meant that people who should have been in front were behind,” remembered one sapper, “and we ourselves were twenty minutes late.” The Regina Rifles had to endure 20 minutes on their landing beach before the first armor arrived. It was nearly 08:15 before the last troops of the two brigades finally struggled ashore. Just 30 minutes later. No. 48 Royal Marine Commando of 4th Special Service (Commando) Brigade came ashore and moved off eastwards along the coast to link up with the forces from Sword.
3rd Canadian Divisions objective for D-Day was the Caen-Bayeux road and Carpiquet aerodrome, forming a link between the two British lodgments. As on the other beaches, on Juno the Canadians found that the extra firepower from the DD tanks or the Funnies often made all the difference between overcoming a German strongpoint or being held up. Between the beach obstacles and German fire, mainly from mortars onto the beach, the landing craft had a difficult passage. One Canadian naval officer recalled that he was just disembarking the troops from his landing craft when “a wave lifted it onto an obstruction. The explosion that followed ripped the bottom out of the craft.” Despite severe injuries to a boat officer, all the troops got ashore safely.
Bypassing positions that they could not take quickly, the Canadians moved inland. The French Canadian Regiment de la Chaudiere of 8th Brigade recorded that “the French were very welcoming and greeted us heartily in the midst of the ruins of their houses.” Some Canadians of Polish origin also found that their “German” prisoners were Poles, surprised to hear a familiar language. By mid-afternoon, the 3rd Canadian Division was ashore and its third brigade, 9th Brigade, started its advance through the remaining German defenses. To the west, the division made good progress and its leading armor reached almost to the Caen-Bayeux road. But closer to Caen the German resistance intensified. Neither the Canadians, nor the commandos who were held up at Langrune, could break through to close the gap between themselves and the men coming off SwordV>&2ic\. By evening the Canadian line conformed roughly to that of 50th Division to the west, a few miles short of its objectives, but still in a strong position. But to the east a gap of two miles (3.2km) still separated them from the troops from Sword, and the airborne forces beyond.
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