D-Day Landings: Sword Beach

Sword Beach was assigned as a British landing beach and was the Eastern most of the five D-Day beaches. The key objectives were to take the town of Caen and a nearby airfield. The landings began at 7:25am and was met with only light German resistance and by 8am, forces were pushing inland. Commando units linked up with paratroopers by 13:00 who had earlier destroyed the Merville Batteries. At 16:00, the Germans launched their only significant counter attack of D-Day with the 21st Panzers. By late evening, the Germans were fought off losing more than half of their 98 tanks.

Nearly 29,000 men came ashore at Sword Beach with only 630 casualties. However, Caen had not been taken by the British did join up with the Canadians the following morning.

Tours for 2010

Our battlefield tours to Normandy are among our most popular. All tours include a full day at the British sector of Normandy. For more information, prices and availability, call 0208 816 8789 or send an enquiry via the “Contact Us” page.