Gold Beach

Gold Beach was one of the five beaches unloading of Normandy the June 6th 1944. 25.000 men approximately unloaded the D-day, one counted approximately 413 dead (either 1,7% of the unloaded men). The beach, entrusted to the British (30e body) was thus conquered without too many difficulties. It was divided into four sectors: Item, Jig, King like How (this last not having been used). The objectives were mainly filled, a German counter-attack was even pushed back towards 16:30.

In Gold and Juno, objective triple of the Anglo-Canadian army is to take Bayeux, to bar the Bayeux-Caen main axis with any German tank and to operate the junction with the Americans with Port-in-Bessin. The evening of the 6, the British about filled their objectives with a head of 9 km broad bridge on as much of depth. Bayeux is not yet taken but is not deserted by the German occupant. June 7th at the end of the morning, it will be the first released and intact French sub-prefecture. June 8th, Port-in-Bessin is transformed into oil port. Arromanches, curiously released by the grounds and not by the sea, is transformed into port city.

Artificial harbor

Vis-a-vis the impossibility of seizing a large port in the first days of the unloading, the Allies had decided to create 2 artificial harbors on the conquered beaches: Mulberry has for the English Canadians built with Omaha Beach and Mulberry B, built in Arromanches. Only this last will be operational and will be later renamed Winston port, in the honor of Winston Churchill, one of the initiators of the idea. The port Mulberry B was destroyed by a terrible storm on June 8th. Prefabricated in eight month in Great Britain, the parts were towed through the English Channel until the broad one of Arromanches. As of on June 7th, 1944, to 1,5 km of the coasts, 115 boxes out of concrete from 3.000 to 6.000 tons, called Phoenixes, as 17 ships were cast to be used of mole and dams on 8 km length. Thus protected from the swell, several floating steel platforms, sliding on piles (until 1.000m ²) were installation. Resting on floats, 4 let us bridge connected them to the beach. In 12 days, the artificial harbor of Arromanches was operational. It license to unload 400.000 vehicles and more than 3 million tons of material.

Naval artillery support

HMS Pète
HMS Ajax
DS Flores, Dutch ship
13 destroyers

Unloaded units on June 6th

30e British Army corps (General Bucknell)

50e British division of infantry ( 50th Northumbrian Infantery Division )

231e brigade

1st battalion of Hampshire ( 1st Hampshire Battalion )
1st battalion of Dorset ( 1st Dorsetshire Battalion )

69e brigade

6th Green Howards
'5th East Yorkshire

49e British division of infantry ( 49th West Riding Infantery Division )

the 7th British armor-plated division ( 7th Armoured Division )

External bonds

Normandy Mémoire Spaces Historical: ''' Gold Beach '''
the Second world war: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg
D-Day: Inventory of fixtures Operations of June 6th, 1944 on Gold Beach

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