Dennis landed in what was the second assault wave, not the initial assault. They were scheduled to land at about 8:30am on Jig - Red beach. This was actually at Le Hamel, the last town before you get to the high cliffs to the East of Arromanches. The American sector of Omaha beach was some miles to the West of Arromanches, with further cliffs and unsuitable landing ground dividing the sectors. Due to a strongpoint, which was not taken until the early evening of the 6th, they actually landed by LSI - Landing Ship Infantry, on King - Red beach, at La Riviere near to Ver-sur-Mer, at approximately 12:30pm, that afternoon. Dennis carried a Lee Enfield rifle and a 0.38 revolver.
After landing, the men walked out across the fields, with some Sherman tanks of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, until they reached the outskirts of Bayeaux just as night was falling. With having spent two days on the landing ship, and then having the march across open fields for about 10 miles, it was decided to hold off any attack on the city until the next morning. Just before sun up, several tanks of the Sherwood Rangers went into the city, and fortunately met limited resistance. Shortly after, a 'formal' attack went into the city and within a few hours those that were in the city had been rounded up. Bayeaux was the first major French town to fall to the allies, and with relatively little damage. It was to receive more damage from later shelling and bombing, and the transition of many thousands of troops through and around it over the coming weeks and months, than in the immediate days of D-Day.
For several days they stayed in an area just to the south of Bayeaux, around Juaye, and the Abbey de Mondaye. They remained lucky to see little fighting in those few days, they were just holding onto the flanks and stopping any possible German counter attack that may have come their way! When it came however, it came hard and heavy! Tanks of the German Panzer Lehr division, having already skirted round them previously, and then retreated, came back in force, with FULL infantry support. They had also by then moved forward slightly to the small village of Verrieres. For over a day, including overnight, the men of the 2nd battalion, Essex Regiment, fought off repeated attacks from German Mark IV tanks and Panther's (Mark V tanks!), along with infantry and flame throwers mounted on half-tracked vehicles. The battle took place in and around several wheat fields and an apple orchard, over an area not much bigger than 1 mile by 1/2 mile primarily, but 1 mile by 2 miles at most(!) and centred around the north side of the village of Lingevres. In the battle that ensued, of the just over 600 men that started with the regiment, 198 were killed, wounded(and unable to return to battle for at least one week!) or captured, with the split being roughly equal to each fate!
According to son, Brian, "The battle that did not really end for over two months, and at the cost of over 100,000 lives. Not only were the casualties suffered by the combatants of the Allied and Axis forces, on land, sea and in the air, but by the French inhabitants that either couldn't of wouldn't leave their home areas. The civilian suffering was as great, if not greater, than those of the combatants. For after the fight had moved on, they had to try to rebuild their own homes and livelihoods, as well as their own lives."
" There is a very nice little museum at Ver-sur-Mer, it is called America/Gold Beach. Why America you may ask? Some years earlier, an aircraft called America, made the first trans-Atlantic airmail delivery to France. The museum is therefore dedicated to the history of airmail delivery, and the Gold Beach of the D-Day invasion."
When Brian visited there some years ago, it was being run by a very nice man who had been a young boy during the war. His parents had owned a house very close to one of the few roads that run from the beach into the countryside of Normandy. In the area around the house were several pillboxes and the aerial photograph's of the area call the house 'Lavatory Pan Villa', or sometimes 'Lavatory Pan Farm'. The house had a VERY distinct loop drive, that when viewed from above looked just like looking down onto, or into, a toilet bowl!
Some time later the whole area was leveled to make a temporary British airfield. It may even have been the aircraft that flew from there that supported the regiment in a later battle, saving many casualties, after softening up a hillside with rockets and machine gun attacks!