7 Things the French Found Strange About Canadian Soldiers

"It was all these Canadians landing. Sitting in there, calm, without any agitation, full of composure." — the parish priest of Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, recorded by Radio-Canada in 1964, describing the landing craft he watched come in twenty years earlier. On June 6, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division came ashore on Juno Beach between Courseulles and Saint-Aubin, backed by the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade and ninety-six guns of four field artillery regiments, while the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion had already dropped inland in the dark. The day cost 340 Canadians killed and 574 wounded. Among the units landing was the Régiment de la Chaudière, 735 French-speaking men under Lieutenant-Colonel Mathieu, the only French-Canadian battalion on Juno that day. What followed, in villages like Bernières-sur-Mer, Basly, Bény-sur-Mer and Saint-Aubin, were small moments that never made it into any official history: a soldier answering in Norman patois, a regiment named after a river mistaken for a water heater, chocolate and toilet paper appearing after four years of rationing, a piano rolled into a ruined street, school rulers stamped with a maple leaf, and soldiers who asked for an egg instead of taking it. Children who lived through it — Thérèse, Yvette, Colette, Maryvonne — carried these memories into old age before anyone wrote them down. The reason these liberators sounded like family rather than strangers traces back three centuries, to the Norman settlers who first crossed the Atlantic to New France. If stories like this deserve to be remembered, like the video, subscribe, and share it with someone who still thinks D-Day belonged only to the British and the Americans. 📚 Further context / historical background: for general reading on the Canadian role at Juno Beach and the Régiment de la Chaudière, consult the Juno Beach Centre's historical archives, Canadian Army D-Day unit histories, and recorded oral testimonies collected by Radio-Canada and regional Normandy archives. #JunoBeach #DDay1944 #CanadianHistory