Along with Utah, Sword was the second landing sector added to the initial plan in December 1943. Sword theoretically stretched from Langrune to Ouistreham. However, it was decided to concentrate the landing waves on a narrower front, in front of Hermanville and Colleville-sur-Orne.
The British 3rd Division was designated to advance first, accompanied by specialized and amphibious tanks, towards the Sword sector. On its flanks, it was to be supported by two British commando brigades, essential for the planned assault on the Ouistreham battery, the objective of the 1st Brigade , while Lion-sur-Mer and Luc-sur-Mer were to fall to the 4th Commando Brigade. The 185th Brigade of the 3rd Division was then to exploit the situation by capturing Caen before nightfall. Finally, linking up with the Canadians who had landed at Juno constituted the third part of the mission entrusted to General Rennie's division.
Bombings and artillery fire
The armada positioned off Sword opened fire around 5:00 a.m. The first tragedy occurred 30 minutes later. The Norwegian destroyer Svenner was cut in two by a German torpedo. Hit in the engine room, the Svenner sank within minutes. On board, 33 sailors, including one British sailor, were killed, while 33 survivors were rescued. The naval bombardment of Ouistreham continued around 1:185 a.m. under the leadership of the cruiser HMS Scylla, while the German batteries east of the Dives were pounded by the Warspite, the Ramillies, and the Roberts.
Off the beaches of Sword, the barrage of fire against the coastal defenses is intense. The guns of the Frobisher, the Dragon, the Danae, the Arethusa, and the Mauritius gradually fall silent to make way for the land phase of the landing.
The Svenner Drama
Launched by the British in June 1943, HMS Shark was handed over to the Royal Free Norwegian Naval Forces in April 1944. Renamed HNoMS Svenner, this Allied destroyer was the only one to be sunk by the Kriegsmarine on June 6, 1944. ©DR.
The Norwegians in D-Day
The Svenner wasn't always called the Svenner. Launched on June 1 , 1943, in Great Britain, the S-class destroyer was originally named HMS Shark. On the morning of June 6, the Svenner was now flying the Norwegian flag. Within the Allied fleet, it belonged to the Royal Norwegian Navy, which comprised 43 merchant ships, 1 patrol boat, 3 fast attack craft, 3 corvettes, and two other destroyers of British origin, the Glaisdele and the Stord. That morning, concealed behind a smokescreen, three German torpedo boats from the 5th Flotilla , based in Le Havre, left the harbor before colliding with the Allied fleet. The Svenner was mortally wounded by one of the 18 torpedoes launched by the Kriegsmarine crews. The Svenner tragedy should not overshadow Norway's other forms of involvement in Operation Overlord, not only at sea, but also in the air. The Norwegian 331st and 332nd squadrons of the 132nd Wing were attached to the Royal Canadian Air Force, where, until mid-August, Norwegian pilots provided invaluable tactical support to Canadian and British infantry.
The first wave of assault
The first wave of the assault began at 7:20 a.m., with the landing of special units from General Hobart's 79th Armoured Division tasked with clearing the beach. The mine-clearing flail tanks were the first to reach the shore, quickly followed by the special tanks of the 13/18th Hussars.
It was on Queen Beach, in sub-sectors Red and White, in front of Colleville-sur-Orne and Hermanville-sur-Mer, that the first troops of the 3rd Division landed at 7:25 a.m .: the 8th Infantry Brigade and its battalions, the 2nd East Yorkshire and the 1st South Lancashire, and Lord Lovat's 1st Special Commando Brigade, which included the French 1st Marine Commando Battalion under the command of Philippe Kieffer. In the seaside area of Colleville, the 2nd East Yorkshire immediately clashed with the German strongpoint known as "Cod," losing 200 men in the fighting, while the Hermanville Breach was reached by the South Lancashire infantry at the cost of some losses. Cod fell to the South Lancashire troops around 9:00 a.m.
At the same time, 41 Royal Marine Commando (4th Commando Brigade) landed west of Sword Beach to seize Lion-sur-Mer and link up with the 48 Royal Marine Commandos ashore on Juno Beach. The commandos were quickly pinned down at Lion-sur-Mer by strongpoint WN 21. Without radio communication, they were unable to request naval support and suffered heavy losses during the operation. WN 21, codenamed Trout, was not captured until the following day.
Lord Lovat at Sword Beach
Born in 1911, Simon Fraser Lovat, the 25th Scottish chief of Clan Fraser and 17th Lord Lovat, volunteered for the Commandos in the summer of 1940. He first distinguished himself in Norway during the raid on the Lofoten Islands in March 1941, and then again during the Dieppe Raid in August 1942 as a lieutenant colonel commanding No. 4 Commando. On June 6, 1944, he commanded the newly formed 1st Special Service Brigade, with which he landed near Colleville, wearing corduroy trousers, a turtleneck, and carrying a rifle. His personal piper, Bill Millin, was at his side. Following orders, and a few minutes late, he linked up with Major Howard's paratroopers at the Bénouville bridge before joining his men in the heart of the airborne beachhead. Severely wounded on June 12th by artillery fire from the British 51st Division during the fighting at Bréville, he was evacuated to England. After the war, Winston Churchill appointed him Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Retiring from the army in 1962 with the rank of brigadier general, he became involved in politics in the House of Lords and in the county of Inverness, and died at his home in Beauly, Scotland, in 1995.
First breakthroughs and first liberations
The second assault wave of the 3rd Division allowed, at 8:45, the landing of the HQ of the 1st Special Service Brigade, its boss Lord Lovat and his piper, the famous Bill Millin.
Hermanville-sur-Mer was liberated around 9:30 a.m. by the 1st South Lancashire Regiment (8th Brigade ), which continued its advance before being halted by 88mm fire towards the Périers ridge. The village then became the assembly point for the units of the second echelon.
At the same time, Colleville-sur-Orne owes its liberation to the 1st Suffolk Regiment (8th Brigade ) which advanced towards the "Morris" strongpoint on the road to Saint-Aubin-d'Arquenay. The German position surrendered without a fight.
The fortified position of Riva Bella—the casino, the port, and its locks—was quickly reached by Lord Lovat's commandos. The French of Commando Kieffer, with the help of a British tank, managed to neutralize the casino position shortly after 9:00 a.m. The German garrison surrendered to the British troops a few minutes later, while the French regrouped to resume their march toward Saint-Aubin-d'Arquenay in the direction of Bénouville. Ouistreham-Riva Bella was finally liberated around noon.
The French on D-Day at Sword
Commando Kieffer attacks Ouistreham
For the vast majority of the 177 men of Commando Kieffer, the landing was a true baptism of fire, even if some, engaged in this Free French battalion since its formation in England in 1942, had already participated during the winter of 1943 in probing raids on enemy coasts, including those of France. Attached to Colonel Dawson's 4th Franco-British Commando, itself integrated into Lord Lovat's brigade – with Commandos No. 3, No. 6 and No. 45 RMC – Commando Kieffer received the honor of being the first to land in front of Colleville. Three men were killed on the beach before the assault on the fortifications of the Ouistreham casino, which began shortly before 9:00 a.m. Twenty minutes later, Kieffer finally managed to neutralize the German defenses established in the basements of the building thanks to the support of a British tank. This French coup came at a high price: 7 men lost their lives during the morning in the streets of the seaside resort. The second part of the mission, the junction with the Airborne at Bénouville, was completed around 16:00 p.m. In the early evening, the French Commando accomplished its third objective by establishing a defensive position on the heights of Amfreville, east of the Orne River, to consolidate the British-held bridgehead. Kieffer, wounded twice, lost 44 men that day, including 10 killed. The French would defend this bridgehead until mid-August before launching a pursuit of the German troops as part of Operation Paddle towards the Seine. Kieffer and his troop, reduced to 95 men, would leave Normandy on September 5, 1944, for a rest period in England, before participating in a second landing in the Netherlands on November 1, 1944.
The closure of access to Caen
Although the situation is favourable on the beaches and in the airborne troops sector, the advance inland is far from easy.
In the early afternoon, the 185th Brigade 's advance was halted by the 21st Panzer Division near Biéville-Beuville. The situation became critical for the British when, around 7:00 PM, a company of motorized grenadiers and six tanks from the 21st Panzer Division launched an attack from Mathieu (8 km from the coast), crossed Douvres-la-Délivrande, and managed to infiltrate the 5 km gap between the Sword and Juno sectors near Luc-sur-Mer. At 8:00 PM, the German column was forced to retreat before the arrival of 250 gliders and troop transports from the 6th Airborne Division. Isolated and harassed, the German group retreated to the Bois de Lébisey north of Caen under cover of night.
Meanwhile, the Germans abandoned to the British some of their strongpoints which had long resisted and slowed the advance towards Caen: WN 17, coded "Hillman", which protected the HQ of the 736th Grenadier Regiment, was taken in the evening by the 1st Suffolk Regiment and armored vehicles of the 13/18 Hussars, while north of Saint-Aubin-d'Arquenay, the strongpoints coded "Daimler", "Sole" and "Morris" fell late under the assaults of the 2nd East Yorkshire.
Firstrd Panzer Division at Sword
On June 6, 1944, General Feuchtinger's 21st Panzer Division was the only German tank division present on the D-Day landing front. Composed of 98 Panzer IV tanks and 120 armored vehicles, it could field over 16,000 men in Normandy. However, the hesitations and procrastination of the German high command from the very first hours of the "invasion" hampered the armored division's effectiveness. Its first elements were not committed until around 3:30 a.m. to halt the formation of the airborne beachhead north of Caen. Forced to deploy the majority of its units between Caen and the sea, the possibility of a large-scale counter-attack, on which Feuchtinger had counted to push the British back to the sea, vanished hour by hour amidst the confusion of orders and the reversals of his superiors. The only breakthrough was achieved late in the afternoon at Luc-sur-Mer before the Germans had to retreat. The only positive outcome for the 21st Panzer Division by the evening of June 6th was that it had secured all access routes to Caen and repelled British offensives until the liberation of the right bank of Caen on July 9, 1944. Throughout all phases of the battle, the 21st Panzer Division was one of the German units most severely affected in Normandy, losing nearly 8,000 men, more than half of them between June 6th and July 31st, 1944.
