​Troops of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade (Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry Highlanders) going ashore from LCI (L) 299, Bernières-sur-mer​

​Troops going ashore​

​Infantrymen of Le Régiment de la Chaudière talking with French civilians, Bernières-sur-Mer, France, 6 June 1944​

​Soldiers and civilians​

​“Maison Queen’s Own Rifles”, now known as “Canada House” or “Maison des Canadiens​

Canada House

​​On 6 June 1944 Allied forces launched Operation Overlord. Along with British and American troops, more than 14,000 Canadian soldiers, including 110 warships of the Royal Canadian Navy with 10,000 sailors and fifteen squadrons of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), took part in the invasion of France, which was under German occupation. Canadian soldiers landed on a ten-kilometre stretch of the French coastline between Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, Bernières-sur-Mer, Courseulles-sur-Mer, and Graye-sur-Mer. The Allied code name for this area was ‘Juno’ Beach.​Today, Canada House stands on the beach near the village of Bernières-sur-Mer, where the Queen’s Own Rifles, a Toronto-based infantry regiment, prepared to land. Despite extensive training, soldiers faced difficult conditions due to bad weather and high waves, making it challenging to disembark from the ships to the Landing Craft Assault (LCA) boats. Each soldier had to manage the weight of heavy equipment. Early in the morning, ten assault boats were successfully loaded. Naval gunfire and rockets were meant to weaken the enemy defences on the beach, but the naval guns had overshot the target, and the assault fleet behind them quickly disappeared from view. The ten Canadian assault crafts at Bernières-sur-Mer were isolated. As Charles Cromwell Martin noted in his Battle Diary, "We had never felt so alone in our lives."​At 08:15, the ramps dropped, and soldiers charged across the open beach, facing minefields and heavy machine-gun fire. Within twenty minutes, Canadian soldiers had engaged the enemy and expelled German troops from a nearby house. Troops from Quebec’s Régiment de la Chaudière soon joined the Queen’s Own Rifles, advancing past the seawall and into the village streets.​‘La Maison des Canadiens,’ or Canada House, is one of the most iconic buildings in Canadian military history. It symbolises the courage of Canada’s soldiers and honours the sacrifice of about 100 Canadians who were killed or wounded on the beach in front of the house in the early moments of the battle. In the 1980s, Canadian veterans began returning to the house. The Hoffer family, who owned the house, transformed it into a museum that pays tribute to the Canadian troops who helped liberate France.

Huis in Canada

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