W Commando was made up of volunteer members of the Royal Canadian Navy. In August of 1943 it was assigned overseas to HMS Armadillo at Ardentinney in the Clyde estuary of Scotland. The Commando unit was made up of 3 sub-units, W 1, W 2 and W 3 each with 25 ratings and leading seamen and 3 officers under the combined leadership of a Commanding Beach Master and an Assistant Beach Master.
The Commando was set up to organise and control the flow of vehicles, men and supplies onto and through Juno Beach on D-Day and for several crucial weeks thereafter. Any congestion on the beach resulting in delays in the orderly supply of ammunition, vehicles. equipment, food, medical supplies, not to mention fresh troops, would have dire consequences for the progress of the war.
https://archive.org/details/RCN_Beach_Commando_W_Part_1
http://gallery.commandoveterans.org/cdo ... ops/W+Cdo/
https://www.combinedops.com/W%20Commando.htm
Royal Canadian Navy Beach Commando ‘W’
Re: Royal Canadian Navy Beach Commando ‘W’
Photo Caption - Lt. Donald Sutherland W-1 Beach Master, and others from the unit. Photo courtesy of Bill Newell, veteran of W Commando who adds " Lt. Sutherland at the left end, Lt. Eric Findlay on the extreme right, and myself partly behind John Fox in the center of the front row." Photo as found at Commando Veterans Assoc