The first Canadian L.C.I.'s to beach, perhaps the first in the whole British assault areas, were L.C.I.'s 299, 121, 301, and 249 commanded by a veteran foursome of most experienced officers who had served together in Combined Operations with the Royal Navy for three years before assuming Commands in a Canadian Flotilla.

The passage had been uneventful. Like the L.S.I.'s, L.C.I.'s had seen flares and Anti-aircraft fire during the night, and the bombardment and bombing after dawn but nothing had happened to them. In fact in 301's deck log there is an entry on D-morning expressing the thoughts of thousands who had not expected to see France without a fight, "It is all too easy". There was Normandy; yet it looked much like Bracklesham Bay, where the last great invasion rehearsal had been held a month before.

About an hour after the destroyers had begun their bombardment, the L.C.I.'s received a signal that gaps in the beach obstacles off shore had not yet been cleared but they were nevertheless to proceed in execution of their orders. The flotilla left the waiting position and deployed into line abreast at about 0825. L.C.I.'s 298 and 121 got into position off their beach, "Nan Red", just west of St. Aubin-sur-mere, while 301 and 249 prepared to assault "Nan White" beach a mile to the westwards at Bernieres-sur-mere, where the shell-torn church spire formed an excellent land mark above the smoke of battle. Each ship could plainly see the rows of obstacles, many of them mined, yet each Commanding Officer picked a spot on the beach and headed for that at full speed, 16 knots. Had the craft tried to pick their way slowly through the lines of obstacles it is very doubtful that they could have avoided the mines and quite certain that they could not have got far enough up the beach, which had a very flat gradient of about one in a hundred, to give their troops a dry landing. The only course under the circumstances, as had been impressed on all Commanding Officers in the briefing for the operation, was to think only of landing their troops safely and disregard the safety of their craft. Like the L.C.A.'s the L.C.I.'s were expendable.

Under these conditions there could be no real attempt at station keeping. It was up to each Commanding Officer to pick his spot and judge his own timing. L.C.I. 299 made the first run and beaded at 0900. Fortunately she escaped serious damage, riding over a post or two but hitting no mines although three of them were seen on the way in and avoided only by violent alterations of course. In the remarkably short space of ten minutes all her 160 troops were safely ashore without casualties although the beach was under considerable mortar and machine-gun fire. One of the naval personnel was slightly wounded in the chest, probably by a sniper, and was subsequently transferred to an L.S.I., S.S. "NONOWAI". Some sniper fire had been observed coming from one of the houses directly inland and it is possible that the sniper may have been put out of harms way by oerlikon fire from L.C.I.298's bow oerlikon.