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Dieppe-The raid on Dieppe

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Historical introduction

Raid on Dieppe

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In his admirable “Six armies in Normandy”, historian John Keegan notes the Dieppe raid looks in retrospect a recklessly hair-brained an enterprise that it is difficult to re-construct the official state of mind which gave it birth and drove it forward. I quote more: “The 2nd Canadian Division was to sally forth in high summer from ports only 70 miles form the German-occupied coastline and disembark on the esplanade of a French seaside resort.” Lord Mountbatten wasthe creator and animator of this war episode. His role and motivations are still heavily debated today.
Anglo-Canadians called it “Operation Jubilee” and mainly executed by the 2nd Canadian infantry division, entirely composed by voluntaries. Six thousand men engaged the combats on the Dieppe cobblestones of which 4,963 Canadians, 250 British commandos, a group of “Français Libres” and a section of American Rangers. Only 2,211 survived, of which 378 wounded, and returned to Great Britain.  1874 were left behind as prisoners (72 died of their wounds).

Planning was imperfect. Aerial photographic reconnaissance did not show the extent of the German defences. Intelligence underestimated the strength of the German defences and of the terrain. We can still form a picture of the operation as the port is still recognisable what it was like in 1942.
The attack upon Dieppe took place on August 19, 1942. The raid was supported by eight Allied destroyers and 74 Allied air squadrons (eight belonging to the RCAF). Major General J.H. Roberts, the Commander of the 2nd Canadian Division, was appointed Military Force Commander, with Captain J. Hughes-Hallett, R.N. as Naval Force Commander and Air Vice Marshal T.L. Leigh-Mallory as Air Force Commander.
Two battalions disembarked, each landing on a separate beach, supported by the 14th Canadian Tank battalion. Commandos went in, scaling the cliffs over the Arques river to silence the German positions covering the port entrance. But they did not account for other German gunners some of whom, when the Royal Regiment of Canada moved into the mouth of the gully leading into the cliffs and dropped their landing crafts, could aim right down the open mouths of the vessels. It was a slaughter. Other landing craft brought in later, tried again the same futile exercise. Every one of the 554 men who tried were killed or captured. Other landing crafts, called LCT, carrying Churchill tanks, undertook a direct assault on the harbour and the promenade. But what was not known is that the access was blocked by concrete obstacles on which the sapper’s explosives had no impact. One by one all tanks were wiped out. None got away. Without any support from the shore, the troops on the beaches were mown down. The last troops to land were part of the Royal Marine "A" Commando, which shared the terrible fate of the Canadians. They suffered heavy losses without being able to accomplish their mission.
The raid also produced a tremendous air battle. While the Allied air forces were able to provide protection from the Luftwaffe for the ships off Dieppe, the cost was high. The Royal Air Force lost 106 aircraft, which was to be the highest single-day total of the war. The RCAF loss was 13 aircraft.  At 1300 hours General Roberts sent the code word VANCOUVER telling the entire naval force to turn around and head for England. Operation Jubilee was over.

It will be quite some time before the controversy of the Dieppe raid will ever be put to rest. New information continues to be uncovered and the in-depth analysis of the operation's key players continues even today. It was a complete military failure. It went wrong in every conceivable way. The reasons for the poor planning and poor execution are so deeply rooted that they defy analysis and conventional investigation. We will never know for sure how such a terrible thing could have happened. All we can do is look at the information presented and make educated guesses and form theories. One can only hope that we have learned something from the events leading up to the 19th of August 1942, and that we shall never repeat the horrors of that day; a day that will forever remain a black page in the books of history. “As illuminating”, says, Keegan, “as to say that the Titanic taught important lessons about passenger liner design!”

Bibliography

“Six armies in Normandy”, by John Keegan, (paperback ed. Pimlico), “Green Beach" by James Leasor (Heinemann 1975),  "The War of the Landing Craft” by P Lund and H Ludlum (Foulsham 1976), Ville de Dieppe information leaflet, “ Battlefields of Northern France" by Michael Glover (Michael Joseph 1987), ) "Dieppe: The Valor and the Furore", by Brian S. Osborne.

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