On June 6, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Division (supported by tanks of the independent 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade) landed on Juno Beach in the Battle of Normandy. Canadian airborne troops had also landed earlier in the day behind the beaches. By day's end, the Canadians had made the deepest penetrations inland of any of the five seaborne invasion forces. Canada went on to play an important role in the subsequent fighting in Normandy, with the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division coming ashore in July and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division in August. Both a corps headquarters (II Canadian Corps) and eventually an army headquarters—for the first time in Canadian military history—were activated. In the Battle of the Scheldt, the First Canadian Army defeated an entrenched German force at great cost to help open Antwerp to Allied shipping. The First Canadian Army fought in two more large campaigns; the Rhineland in February and March 1945, clearing a path to the Rhine River in anticipation of the assault crossing, and the subsequent battles on the far side of the Rhine in the last weeks of the war. The I Canadian Corps returned to northwest Europe from Italy in early 1945, and as part of a reunited First Canadian Army assisted in the liberation of The Netherlands (including the rescue of many Dutch from near-starvation conditions) and the invasion of Germany.