The D-D Tanks of Juno Beach

At Coursuelles, a charming village in the middle of the second beach - Juno beach - I saw a "Duplex Drive" tank exhibited near the waterfront just next to my hotel.

This tank was part of Major-General Sir Percy Hobart's 79th Armoured Division. His weird-looking specialised armour - Hobart's "Funnies" - would help the British and Canadian with the special problems and obstacles likely to confront them on the Normandy beaches.

The "Duplex Drive" is a tank which could "swim ashore" thanks to two propellors added to the main power pack.

The most important feature of this tank was a canvas screen raised by pneumatic tubes filled by compressed air bottles. With this screen raised, the Duplex Drive was protected from being overwhelmed with water and sinking as the freeboard was limited to a few inches. The tank would be launched from a landing craft with the screen raised while the commander steered course with a tiller. When it reached the shallows, the front of the screen would be lowered so that the gun could be fired. The back, however, stayed up to keep the waves off the engine.

I visited the tourist office at Coursuelles and had an interesting conversation with Anne, a charming storyteller, Anne, who told me more about the Duplex Drive exhibited in the town. It was driven into Coursuelles at 6:47 a.m. on June 6 by a Sergeant Leo Gariepy of the Canadian 6th Armoured Division.

Gariepy drove his tank from the beach straight through a house adjoining the hotel where I had spent the night. He recalls: "The German machine gunners in the dunes were absolutely stupefied to see a tank emerging from the sea. Some ran away, some just stood up in their nests and stared, mouths wide open."

Like many veterans, Leo Gariepy liked the life-style in Normandy and continued living in Coursuelles.

I drove beyond Coursuelles and stopped near a monument commemorating Juno beach. It was slightly drizzling when I walked along the beach. I thought about that June morning when the first wave came in on a fast-rising tide. The landing craft had to battle with the surf and the deadly maze of wood, steel and mines. Of the first 24 craft, only four made it back to their mother ships. Most blew up, showering advancing troops with debris blown 100 feet in the air.

Only six of the 40 Centaur tanks made it to the beach. The swimming tanks fared better but arrived after the leading infantry instead of before it.

Many on Juno that morning saw the sickening spectacle of tanks running over bodies - not just dead bodies but wounded or even uninjured men unable to hear the machine's approach above the general din. At least one tank commander thought he was running over German bodies. When he discovered that they were Canadians and that some may have been alive, he was horrified.

Despite such mishaps and a 30% loss of armoured vehicles during landing, Juno was a success. The 8th Canadian brigade succeeded in moving 11 kilometres as well as linking up with troops from Gold beach.

I neglected to mention that 101st's drop zone was around Carentan, about 5 - 6 miles inland from Utah Beach. Their drop was really scattered and they took heavy casualties from the flak, and from landing in the flooded areas. Opposition on the ground was spotty and half-hearted by mostly low-quality infantry.