HMS Belfast and D-Day

Juno Beach was one of the five assault beaches of D-Day. On 6 June 1944 HMS Belfast supported the British and Canadian assaults on Gold and Juno beaches. At 1:20 a.m. on 6 June 1944 the ships of bombardment group E made their way through a minefield and then took their positions about 2 to 3 miles offshore here under the flagship command of HMS Belfast. HMS Belfast, HMS Diadem and 11 other destroyers which formed the bombardment group, then from 5:27a.m. began firing in support of the landings on this speech being made by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. 

Just before the bombardment started Vice Admiral Hew Dalrymple in command of bombardment force E sent the signal from HMS Belfast to all of the ships under his command using a cricketing metaphor: "best of luck, to all, keep a good length, keep your eye on the middle stump and soon we'll have the enemy all out'. Almost 7,000 vessels participated in Operation Neptune the naval component of D-Day. 

Brian Butler Seaman, HMS Belfast: "In the early hours of 6 June as it began to get light, I've never seen a sight like it in all my life, there were literally thousands and thousands and thousands of ships of every size, every description all round us."

Here I am at the German gun battery at La Mare Fontaine which was the first target of HMS Belfast guns on D-Day when they opened fire at 5:27am. The La Mare Fontaine battery position had no direct line of sight to the sea, so they were reliant on a forward command post which would telephone back to the guns to allow them to fire on positions on the beaches and out at sea. The bombardment cut the phone line relatively early on in the day and the guns played no further role in D-Day. 

HMS Belfast is sometimes mis-reported to have fired the first shots of D-Day. in fact another ship stole her thunder by about a minute. Lieutenant Peter Brook Smith who was serving on board HMS Belfast recorded in
his diary that another Cruiser to the west fired first at 05:23. The entry in HMS Belfast's log records that she opened fire three minutes later at 05:27 with a full broadside to port. 

As one of the larger warships present at D-Day HMS Belfast had a fully equipped sickbay staffed by surgeons this meant she also played a medical role on 6 June 1944 taking on board casualties from 1 p.m. 

Lancelot Tyler Signalman, HMS Belfast: "on D-Day my captain, Captain Parem, he was in charge of the battleship HMS Belfast which was awesome responsibility. He sent me down to the sickbay on D-Day itself because he knew that an Army Corporal had been badly blown up and they were trying to save this man's life."

For the next five weeks after 6 June HMS Belfast sat offshore and fired almost continuously in support of the landings, and the Canadian and the British Army's push inland. Supporting the D-Day landings was the last time HMS Belfast fired her guns in anger in the Second World War. At the beginning of July she returned to Plymouth for a well-earned refit.