The Assault

The invasion of Normandy on D-Day required air cover and fire support, tasks that were performed by the Royal Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the United States Air Force. The Allies had a combined strength of 4,000 bombers and 3,700 fighters/fighter bombers.

Just before the invasion began, RCAF Lancasters from No. 6 (Bomber) Group, composed of 14 squadrons, dropped tons of bombs on several key German defenses, such as railways, bridges, and fuel and ammunition depots.

 Then Allied aircraft transported 450 members of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion who jumped inland before dawn on June 6 and were the first of our soldiers to engage the enemy on D-Day.
The RCAF then deployed 15 fighter squadrons equipped with Spitfires to provide air cover for the invasion fleet and escorts for RCAF bombers. 
Four RCAF tactical support squadrons flew Typhoons, heavily armed ground-attack planes that could carry a 2,000-pound (908-kilogram) bomb load or eight rockets. Tactical fighters supported the ground forces by attacking German armoured forces and fortified defensive positions. 
In addition, four RCAF squadrons patrolled the skies with Coastal Command and two more squadrons provided air defence of Great Britain.
Approximately 1,000 Canadian aircraft were in the air on D-Day of which seven were either shot down, listed as missing or crashed due to battle damage. Twenty Canadian airmen were killed. 

_{Source: Veterans Affairs, Canada and Imperial War Museum, London.}

More than 156,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed on five beaches code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. Once on the beaches, the soldiers’ goal was to storm enemy-held territory and push inland, securing a coastal bridgehead from which the Allies could begin the liberation of France.
The job of storming Juno Beach fell to 14,000 Canadian soldiers with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Armoured Brigade. The Allied plan called for the Canadian units to establish a beachhead, capture the three small seaside towns that lay directly behind it, and then proceed 16 kilometres inland to occupy the high ground west of the city of Caen by the end of D-Day. 

Before the infantry actually set foot on the beach, the artillery launched a steady barrage against enemy defences beginning at 6:55 am and lasting more than 30 minutes. Then at 7:40 a.m. the Canadians rushed the shore. During that first wave of attack, almost one in every two men was either wounded or killed. The Royal Winnipeg Rifles lost 15 men in the company’s dash up the beach. The two other infantry regiments on the western end of Juno — the Canadian Scottish and the Regina Rifles — also lost men to the mines in the sand, and to the bullets and mortars fired by Germans from concrete bunkers overlooking the sea. “One thing you couldn’t do was stop on Juno Beach,” recalled Francis Godon of the Winnipeg Rifles. “If your buddies got hurt… you couldn’t stop, you had to keep going. If you stopped, well you were a dead duck too. So you had to keep going.” 
 

At 8:30 a.m., the reserve battalions began to arrive. By the end of the day, the Canadians seized the beach and its seaside villages. Although none of the Allied forces achieved all their D-Day objectives, the Canadians managed to push farther inland than Allied troops on any of the other beaches.
Of the 14,000 Canadians who landed on D-Day, 1,074 were wounded, 359 were killed and 47 were taken as POWs.

_{Source: Veterans Affairs, Canada and Imperial War Museum, London.}
 

The naval component of Operation Overload was code-named Operation Neptune.

Operation Neptune consisted of 6,900 Allied vessels, ranging from battleships to merchant ships, including 63 Canadian warships, and 4,100 landing craft, of which 46 were manned by the Royal Canadian Navy.

The first Canadian sailors to see action were the 16 Bangor-class minesweepers that had the crucial task of clearing corridors through the German defensive mine belt so that landing craft could reach the beaches. Following them were hundreds of landing craft approaching the coast under the cover of a heavy shore bombardment carried out by battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to neutralize the German shore defences. HMCS Algonquin and Sioux participated in this bombardment. Their initial task was to fire at shore batteries located on the eastern side of Juno Beach and both destroyers commenced shooting shortly after 7 am. Sioux engaged a shore battery for 40 minutes before ceasing fire as the first landing craft approached the beach. The two destroyers stood off the coast until the assault troops had secured the beaches, after which they provided fire support. At 10:51 a.m., the Algonquin destroyed two German self-propelled guns with its third salvo.

The Canadian LCI (Landing Craft, Infantry) flotillas and the LCA (Landing Craft, Assault) flotillas carried by HMCS Prince David and HMCS Prince Henry faced significant challenges. The 529th Flotilla from Prince David transported troops of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division into Juno Beach, but a 10-minute delay in landing meant that a rising tide covered many of the beach obstacles and seven of the eight LCAs in this flotilla were lost either from mines or German fire. The 528th Flotilla from Prince Henry suffered both shore fire and explosive charges attached to obstacles and lost one LCA when it hit a mine. The 260th LCI Flotilla encountered similar perils when seven craft landed later in the morning. This flotilla’s craft managed to get off the beach, but the 262nd LCI Flotilla was forced to leave five of its 12 craft on the beach after they suffered mine damage.

Operation Neptune was a complete success and when darkness came on June 6, 1944, just over 156,000 Allied troops were in France. 

_{Source: Veterans Affairs Canada & The Royal Canadian Navy and Overseas Operations (1939-1945).}