D-Day Film of Juno Beach - Canada on D-Day

The most significant D-Day film footage was shot on Juno beach by Sergeant Bill Grant. The film shows Canadian troops of the Queen's Own Rifles, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, landing at Bernieres-sur-Mer, Juno Beach, on D-Day.

"It's the film sequence that epitomizes June 6; that indelible sequence showing darkened but clearly visible figures of the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada silently exchanging last moment instructions, moving ladders and rifles into final ready position and patting the forward-most troops on their backs for encouragement. The doors swing open and the brighter outside light streams in. The first troops leap out of the landing craft. Ahead of them, clearly captured in Grant's sequence, are the famous beach-resort houses that the Germans had incorporated into their coastal-defence system. It is point-of-view film of the greatest amphibious invasion in history -- the D-Day landings." (from an article by Ted Barris, Friday, June 4, 2004 - The Globe and Mail).

Watch the silent film shot by cameraman Segeant Bill Grant

Ted Barris, author of Juno: Canadians at D-Day June 6, 1944, gives film credit to Sergeant Bill Grant, Canadian Film and Photo Unit (CFPU): "There is controversy about the origin of the film footage. Some skeptics contend that the famous motion pictures were captured on 16-mm film through a camera that was fix mounted aboard the Queen's Own Rifles' LCA....Both Pte. Chuck Ross, driver with the CFPU and Staff Sgt. Ken Ewart, editor with the CFPU, insist that an LCA crewman would have had neither the time nor the ability to operate the camera in such combat conditions and that Bill Grant wound the camera mechanism and shot the film with a tripod-mounted, 35-mm Eymo camera from the rear of the LCA."