The majority of troops who landed on the D-Day beaches were from Great Britain, Canada and the US. However, troops from many other countries participated in D-Day and the Battle of Normandy. The different armed services included: Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.
On D-Day, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy. The American forces landed numbered 73,000. In the British and Canadian sector, 83,115 troops were landed.
The French Resistance were included in the plan for Overlord. Through a London-based headquarters, the French resistance orchestrated a massive campaign of sabotage, attacking railway lines, ambushing roads, or destroying telephone exchanges or electrical substations.
The resistance was alerted to carry out these tasks by means of the coded messages transmitted by the BBC such as Les carottes sont cuites ("The carrots are cooked") and Les dés sont jetés ("The dice have been thrown"). One message was rightly interpreted by the Germans that meant that invasion was imminent or underway, and they alerted their superiors and all Army commanders in France. However, they had issued a similar warning a month before, but this had fallen through due to bad weather so the genuine alarm was ignored or treated as merely routine.
Also operating far behind German lines and frequently working closely with the Resistance, were larger parties from the British, French and Belgian units of the Special Air Service brigade, (SAS).
French commando's stationed in Britain also took part in a frontal attack on Sword Beach, here they led the charge to recapture their homeland from the Germans.
Canadian forces landed on Juno Beach. The first wave suffered 50% casualties, the second highest of the five D-Day beachheads.
Despite the obstacles, the Canadians were off the beach within hours and beginning their advance inland. The Canadians were the only units to reach their D-Day objectives, although most units fell back a few kilometres to stronger defensive positions. In particular, the Douvres Radar Station was still in German hands, and no link had been established with Sword Beach.
By the end of D-Day, 15,000 Canadians had been successfully landed, and the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division had penetrated further into France than any other Allied force.
