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Not actually 79th Armoured Division, but the Canadian 1st Hussars of 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. This is one of a series of pictures taken by Sgt Stubbs on 14 January when the regiment was training at Stokes Bay. https://twitter.com/TankMuseum/status/1327330641826902016
Between Nov 43 and April 44, 9 tank regiments trained at embarkation hard G1, having first undertaken somewhat safer training at Fritton Lake. At Stokes Bay they upgraded to open water. At the time, Commonwealth forces were still equipped with the Valentine DD. 
IWM H 35169
IWM H 35169
LCTs would beach at the hard and the tanks would embark. You can see the beach hardening mats that made this such a simple process at the bottom of the picture. IWM H 35175
IWM H 35175
Proof that they're Canadians. IWM H 35178
IWM H 35178
You could fit quite a few Valentines on an LCT tank deck. These are LCT Mk IV though. On D-Day, wider Sherman tanks and slightly narrower LCT Mk IIIs were used instead, so only 5 DD tanks could be lined up along the length of the deck. IWM H 35179
IWM H 35179
The LCT sailed across the Solent to Osborne Bay off the Isle of Wight where the tanks disembarked. This footage doesn't appear to be from the same op as the photos, but was filmed in the same place. It also shows how these exercises could go badly wrong. 
IWM ADM 1051
IWM ADM 1051
For those that survived launching, it was a fairly easy journey to Osborne Beach. Once they were all ashore the LCT would follow them in and they'd re-embark before returning to Stokes Bay. H 35186
H 35186
To the best of my knowledge, 79th Armoured Division never actually had any DD tank regiments in its OOB at Normandy, although they did handle the training for the DD squadrons. Can anyone tell me if this is correct and if it was true for the rest of the war as well?
