When he led his men ashore at Juno Beach on D-Day in 1944, Maj. Archie MacNaughton had two children and had already survived three years in the trenches of the First World War.
Because of his age and combat experience, he didn’t have to be there.
By the end of the day, his North Shore New Brunswick Regiment had taken the beach and two villages. MacNaughton was dead.
This is the story told in the latest Heritage Minute, released Thursday ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings.
Filmed and edited in Calgary by production company Bamboo Shoots, the poignant 60-second spot was shot last fall at McKenzie Lake and Heritage Park.
It was unseasonably cold as the film crew raced against the fall weather.
"It actually snowed on us overnight, and of course it didn’t snow on D-Day," recalled Brent Kawchuk, executive producer on the project.
Despite the challenges, the crew made the best of their limited time.
The beach scenes were filmed at McKenzie Lake.
While the shoot was tightly scripted, the combat scenes were meant to bring the audience close to the experience of the young Canadian soldiers fighting their way off the sands of Juno Beach.
"It was frightening how real it seemed," said Kawchuk. "How these guys just ran in fear on this lake in Calgary."
This marks the sixth Heritage Minute produced by Calgary-based Bamboo Shoots — and the 90th episode commissioned by the non-profit Historica Canada.
Accuracy was vital to the production team which included historians to review details ranging from patches on uniforms to the way the actors moved.
"How they hold their weapons, where their eyes go when they are on patrol," said Kawchuk.
While shooting took just two days, the editing process took months and included extensive special effects: repainting the backgrounds and explosions, adding Spitfire aircraft flying overhead and anti-aircraft dirigibles hovering over the fleet of landing craft.
Heritage Park stood in for the French countryside, where Canadian soldiers worked their way inland, driving back Nazi forces and making the landing areas safe for the next waves of troops and supplies.
After clearing the beach, MacNaughton was shot in the hand while clearing the village of Saint Aubin but didn’t report the wound.
Around noon, his North Shore New Brunswick Regiment entered the village of Tailleville.
It was there MacNaughton became one of 340 Canadians killed that day and the only officer from his regiment.
Kawchuk says his team agonized over every shot, hoping to bring alive the bravery, tragedy and sacrifice of Canada’s soldiers 75 years ago.
"I would hope we have done that for them."
