COMMUNICATIONS

William Hart

Seventy-four years , less a day .

The weather is the same as it was on that day , so many years ago . A featureless grey sky merges with gunmetal-coloured water that turns choppy as it nears the shore . Wind gusts tease up whitecaps ; as the waves hit land they collapse into foamy white lines that dissipate before the water retreats back into the Channel . The quiet — more sombre than peaceful — is broken only by the wind , the waves , and a few seagulls screeching and weaving .

Two sloping steel grey walls that mimic the sides of a landing craft frame a sandy opening through grass-covered dunes that mark where adversity , hunkered down in concrete bunkers , waited on that day . The tide is out , and a handful of tourists bundled against the biting wind roam still-damp sand that the waves have mottled and sculpted into seaweed-dotted ripples . Down close to the water , a local from Courseulles , a short walk away , pauses as something the waves have left behind captures the attention of his dog .

It ' s fitting to see the beach like this , rather than in sunshine and filled with vacationers . The cold and the grey and the silence reflect its history , its significance . Crouched on the near-empty beach , looking landward with the waves breaking right behind me , it ' s hard to imagine the utter chaos of fourteen thousand Canadians wading from landing craft , weaving past tank traps and crawling through barbed wire , all the while under unrelenting weapons fire , to dislodge the enemy and breach Fortress Europe .

In Courseulles , a platoon of older Americans in replica khaki uniforms sporting screaming eagle flashes on their shoulders commandeer the streets with a small convoy of army green jeeps and trucks . The throaty growl of a diesel engine and the clattering of steel treads on cobblestones mark the approach of a fully restored Sherman tank , manoeuvring carefully past parked cars and photo-snapping tourists . They ' re here to commemorate America ' s role in that day , so many years ago ... but this wasn ' t their town , and this wasn ' t their beach : they faced their doubts and demons and future forty kilometres up the coast . This was Canada ' s challenge , our challenge . Our beach to secure . Our town to liberate .

And that challenge was met . The Canadians drove farther inland that first day than any of the other landing forces on the other four beaches .

Three hundred and forty of the men who stormed that beach , so many years ago , didn ' t see the end of day . They rest eternal , with about two thousand other countrymen who perished in those early days of liberation , under greying markers inscribed with the maple leaf in a carefully manicured and lovingly maintained cemetery about six kilometres inland . Seeing Canada ' s maple leaf and France ' s tricolour fluttering over that beach , and that cemetery , raises mixed emotions . Sadness . Pride . Respect . But above all , thanks .

Juno Beach . June 6 , 1944 . Lest we forget .

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