Gold Beach lay at the center of the Allied landing beaches and was divided into the sectors How, Item, Jig, and King. Twenty-five thousand soldiers from the British 50th Division and No. 47 Royal Marine Commandoes assaulted the beach with the objective of establishing a beachhead and securing Bayeux and the Caen-Bayeux Road in order to link with American forces on Omaha and Canadian forces on Juno Beaches. Air and naval bombardments softened the German defenses, and by midnight about 25,000 men had landed with nearly 400 casualties. British forces secured Bayeux, linked up with the Canadians from Juno, advanced about six miles inland, captured Arromanches, and established an artificial harbor for unloading Allied supplies. Axis forces there included the 352nd Infantry Division and 716th Static Division. Among those involved were Bren Gunner Gordon Duffin, who wondered as he embarked whether he would ever touch English soil again; Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis of the 6th Battalion, Green Howards, who led a detachment onto the beach under heavy fire and a smokescreen and destroyed an overlooked German pillbox, an action credited with saving many lives and earning the only Victoria Cross awarded for D-Day; Corporal Al Pymm of 39 No. 47 Royal Marine Commandos, whose boat struck an underwater object and who then saved three men in the water; and Sergeant Neville Howell of the 73rd Anti-Tank Regiment, whose M-10 tank destroyer narrowly escaped destruction after landing and continued serving through the Normandy Campaign and across Europe. During the invasion many soldiers carried folding bicycles to move quickly inland after leaving the beach, and the assault formed part of a larger operation in which weeks of aerial bombardment, further air attacks early on June 6, naval gunfire beginning around 0500 hours, amphibious landings, and about 24,000 airborne landings by parachute and glider combined in an intricate multipart attack.
