The Free French battleship COURBET off Sword Beach on 7 June 1944. The battleship was built in 1913. For the invasion of Normandy, it has been stripped and will be sunk as part of Gooseberry 5 at Sword Beach to form a breakwater to protect the small landing craft.

Over sixty ships would be sunk off the five beaches on 7 July, HMCS TRENTONIAN was the senior escort of the CornCob convoy that brought the old ships from Oban Scotland to Normandy. During the course of escorting the ships for the five Gooseberry`s, TRENTONIAN and her crew where at all five beachheads in Normandy.

Roger Litwiller Collection, Allen E. Singleton, RCNVR photo, courtesy Bruce Keir, RCNVR. (RTL-BK090)

This photo and collection have been gathered from the crew of HMCS TRENTONIAN and have been used by Roger Litwiller to create the book, White Ensign Flying, The Story of HMCS TRENTONIAN, published by Dundurn Publishing in 2014.

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