Sir Winston Churchill stoutly disapproved when the code-name for the beach on which Canadians would land on the 6th of June, 1944, was to be named “Jelly”, taken from jellyfish. Instead, out of British dignity he picked “Juno” which would comprise the area between Saint-Aubin to Courseulles, on which men would give their lives to retake France.
The invasion of Normandy has been for too long concentrated on the American encampment, not only because of Hollywood, rather somehow it has seeped in the consciousnesses of the modern day individual through general mundane “pop-culture” history. Albeit Operation Overlord was indeed a group effort by the Allied Expeditionary Forces in the grandest sea-to-land invasions in human history, yet too often has the Canadian side of things been overlooked, in too many aspects.
In 1941, in honor of Mackenzie King, Churchill said that “Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world”. It is without a doubt that this great honor was endowed by the Prime Minister in order to bolster morale and further commitment by Canada towards the war, yet still he was not so far off in his remark.
