Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  The Canadian Battle Series*

  Breakout from Juno: First Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign, July 4–August 21, 1944

  On to Victory: The Canadian Liberation of the Netherlands, March 23–May 5, 1945

  Operation Husky: The Canadian Invasion of Sicily, July 10–August 7, 1943

  Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign, September 13–November 6, 1944

  Holding Juno: Canada’s Heroic Defence of the D-Day Beaches, June 7–12, 1944

  Juno Beach: Canada’s D-Day Victory: June 6, 1944

  The Gothic Line: Canada’s Month of Hell in World War II Italy

  The Liri Valley: Canada’s World War II Breakthrough to Rome

  Ortona: Canada’s Epic World War II Battle

  Other Military History Books by Mark Zuehlke

  The Canadian Military Atlas: Four Centuries of Conflict from New France to Kosovo (with C. Stuart Daniel)*

  Brave Battalion: The Remarkable Saga of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) in the First World War

  The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

  For Honour’s Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace

  Ortona Street Fight

  Assault on Juno

  *Available from D&M Publishers Inc.

  We were ready for Dieppe. We were well trained for Dieppe. Why shouldn’t we have Dieppe? Why give it to someone else? I think whoever got it for the Canadians did absolutely right. Our attitude was, “Give us this show. Make it ours. Make it all Canadians. We want it.”

  —Major Norman Ross, Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada

  The Canadians are 1st Class chaps; if anyone can pull it off, they will.

  —Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery, July 1, 1942

  It is incomprehensible that it should be believed that a single Canadian Division should be able to overrun a German Infantry Regiment [equivalent to a Canadian Brigade] reinforced with artillery.

  —German 302nd Infantry Division after-action report on the Dieppe raid

  I am afraid that this operation will go down as one of the great failures of history.

  —Brigadier Church Mann to Brigadier Lucien Truscott aboard HMS Fernie

  Contents

  Preface

  Maps

  Introduction: A Crescendo of Activity

  Part One: The Twisting Path to Dieppe

  1. A Boldly Imaginative Group

  2. For the Sake of Raiding

  3. A Fantastic Conception

  4. Of Considerable Difficulty

  5. Trial and Error

  6. These Are Anxious Days

  7. What a Blow!

  Part Two: Rebirth

  8. A Brainwave

  9. Fraught with Alarming Warnings

  10. Our Historic Task

  11. The Die Was Cast

  12. The Most Remarkable Thing

  Part Three: The Raid

  13. Good Luck to All of You

  14. Smash and Grab

  15. The Real Thing

  16. Hell of a Fix

  17. Such a Carnage

  18. Murderous Crossfire

  19. A Death Trap

  20. Situation Very Grim

  21. Pretty Shaky All Around

  22. Very Heartbreaking

  23. Sorry, Lads

  Photographs

  Epilogue: Dieppe in Memory

  Appendix A

  Appendix B

  Notes

  Bibliography

  General Index

  Index of Formations, Units, and Corps

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Preface

  No single canadian military action remains as well analyzed or as controversial as the August 19, 1942, assault on Dieppe. Operation Jubilee was indisputably a disaster. In a nine-hour battle, 807 Canadian troops were killed and 1,946 taken prisoner—more than during the eleven months from June 6, 1944, to the end of the war in May 1945. At least 568 of these prisoners were wounded. Seventy-two subsequently died in captivity, most from battle wounds. Of 586 wounded who returned to England, 28 subsequently died. Out of 4,963 Canadian soldiers involved, 3,367 became casualties. That is just shy of 68 per cent of the entire Canadian force. The majority who survived unscathed never got ashore.

  British Army losses amounted to 18 officers and 157 other ranks, with 2 of these officers and 12 other ranks dying. Eleven officers and 117 other ranks were reported missing or captured. Fifty U.S. Rangers participating in the raid suffered 22 per cent losses—3 killed, 3 taken prisoner, and 5 wounded. As most of the Americans never made it ashore, the loss percentage among those that did was 73 per cent. Naval losses were also heavy, with 550 men killed or wounded—75 either killed or succumbing to wounds, 269 listed as either missing or captured. The Royal Air Force, fighting the single largest daytime air battle of the war, suffered its heaviest losses. A total of 106 aircraft were lost, 98 being fighters or reconnaissance aircraft. Sixty-seven airmen were listed killed or presumed dead. Among these were 10 Royal Canadian Air Force pilots.1

  How could an operation have gone so terribly wrong? Who was at fault? Why had it even been mounted? And why had Canadians played the lead role and suffered such staggering losses? Was anything gained that could mitigate or justify the casualty toll? These were questions that arose immediately after August 19. They are still debated today.

  When I turned to writing about Dieppe, I saw that the number of preceding books on the assault raised the question of whether a new book was required. But a closer look showed that most of these titles dated back several decades. And most authors had set out to argue a particular case within the numerous outstanding debates. Axes were being ground. Too often this led to a selective spotlighting of some military reports and participant accounts at the expense of others.

  There was no shortage of historical material to draw upon. Hundreds of pages were generated during the planning of the attack. In the aftermath, a great effort was made to collect and preserve survivor recollections. Countless after-action reports examined the assault in general or concentrated on specific aspects: How had communication systems functioned? Was intelligence on German defences accurate? What lessons could be learned and applied to future amphibious operations? These and many other questions were examined in microscopic detail.

  Given this bounty, I decided to focus on the historical record and draw from it my own conclusions. I believe this enabled me to examine the controversial questions with a largely unbiased eye.

  It is difficult, though, for a Canadian to write about Dieppe and not be affected by the scope of the tragedy suffered in that single, bitter day. But it is important to remember that Dieppe is not purely a Canadian Army story. I included here a considerable number of non-Canadian experiences, so that Dieppe might be understood in its fuller context.

  Unfortunately, few Dieppe veterans are still alive, and memories have greatly faded. But I found the personal “you are there” style that enriched the other books in the series was still achievable. The many accounts of soldiers, sailors, and airmen gathered in the aftermath of the assault ensured this. Ultimately, I could select only a sampling from literally hundreds of personal stories. Like the earlier books, this one is a tribute to those brave young men who went to war to make a better world.

  Introduction: A Crescendo of Activity

  At the begin
ning of 1942, the war that had raged since September 1939 expanded dramatically in response to two profound developments. First, Germany had invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. By December 7, German forces were within twenty-five miles of Moscow, and a Soviet defeat seemed likely. That same day, Japan attacked British, American, and Dutch possessions in the Pacific. The surprise aerial raid on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii jolted the United States out of neutrality and into the spreading conflict. In less than six months, the situation of Britain and its Commonwealth allies, including Canada, was transformed from a lone fight against the Axis powers to a joint venture with two of the world’s mightiest nations.

  Both the United States and the Soviet Union had stood on the sidelines since Germany’s September 1939 invasion of Poland. When German troops invaded Norway and Denmark on April 9, 1940, neither nation responded. Denmark fell in a day, but British, French, and Free Polish forces reinforced the Norwegians. As the fight in Norway continued, the Germans expanded the war by invading Western Europe on May 10. Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium fell like dominoes. On June 25, France—Paris having fallen on June 14 and 400,000 of its troops having surrendered eight days later—capitulated. Allied forces had evacuated Norway on June 8 to reinforce France, and the last Norwegian division surrendered two days later. Germany—allied with Italy, Hungary, and Romania—emerged as undisputed master of the European continent.

  Only Great Britain, supported by the Commonwealth nations, remained standing. Germany seemed unbeatable. In North Africa, British forces suffered a string of defeats. April 1941 saw Greece’s downfall, and Crete was lost the following month to German airborne invasion. A German amphibious and airborne assault on Britain remained likely, until Operation Barbarossa pulled too much German army strength away to the invasion of Russia.

  Japan’s strike against Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, and Hong Kong stretched the British virtually to the breaking point. When the Hong Kong garrison surrendered on December 25, 1,973 Canadian troops were lost there. Three hundred men from the Royal Rifles of Canada and Winnipeg Grenadiers were killed and the rest taken prisoner.

  The Canadian presence in Hong Kong had come about as a last-minute response to a British appeal for reinforcement. The two battalions and a small command group had only arrived on November 16. Canada’s army strength had been concentrated on England. By early 1942, four Canadian divisions—1st Infantry, 2nd Infantry, 3rd Infantry, and 4th Armoured—and 1st Canadian Army Tank Brigade were in England. All were organized within the Canadian Corps, which in early 1942 began expansion to form First Canadian Army. The 5th Canadian Armoured Division was also scheduled to soon arrive.

  Now Britain was under increasing pressure from its new powerful allies to carry the war to the Germans via major amphibious assault on the European continent. Considering theirs was the only active front, the Soviets demanded that the western Allies open a second one. Soviet propaganda maintained that only they were fighting the Germans and doing so unaided. No thanks was offered Britain and Canada for stripping from their still meagre supply chain massive numbers of artillery pieces, tanks, trucks, planes, ammunition, and fuel for shipping by hazardous convoy to Soviet ports. In two major November 1941 speeches, Marshal Joseph Stalin ignored this assistance. Instead he claimed that German victories over the Soviet Army had occurred because “the absence of a second front in Europe enabled them to carry out their operations without any risk.”1

  Stalin’s claim won sympathy in Britain and Canada—particularly among the largely socialist- or Communist-led trade unions, left-leaning intelligentsia, and popular press. A “Second Front NOW” movement was born that soon could no longer be ignored, especially by Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s government. The slogan adorned countless factory walls. Large rallies drew thousands to venues such as Trafalgar Square, football parks, and large theatres in Manchester and Birmingham. The Canadian-born and -raised Lord Beaverbrook openly supported the movement through his newspaper empire.2

  “Public opinion is shouting for the formation of a new Western Front to assist the Russians,” Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke fretted in early 1942. “But they have no conception of the difficulties and dangers entailed. The prospects of success are small and dependent on a mass of unknowns, whilst the chances of disaster are great and dependent on a mass of well-established facts. Should Germany be getting the best of an attack on Russia, the pressure for invasion of France will be at its strongest, and yet this is just the most dangerous set of circumstances for us.”3

  On the heels of Pearl Harbor, Americans were quick to join the clamour for a second front. About two weeks after the surprise Japanese attack, President Franklin Roosevelt, Churchill, and the British and American Chiefs of Staff met in Washington to discuss mutual cooperation. Two key stratagems were decided during this Arcadia Conference. First, all American, British, and Commonwealth resources would be pooled under direction of a Combined Chiefs of Staff. Roosevelt and Churchill would provide political guidance, with Stalin offering input from, as it were, afar. This pooling was to ensure a common strategy implemented by a coherent Anglo-American command. The second decision affirmed an informal American and British “staff agreement” of March 1941 that should the two countries become allies, ultimate victory would rest on defeating Germany first over any other Axis power. American confirmation of this point greatly relieved Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff. Such was the anger in the United States over Pearl Harbor that they had feared Roosevelt would concentrate the American war effort against Japan. But General George C. Marshall, chair of the American Chiefs of Staff, had immediately stated that “Germany is still the prime enemy and her defeat is the key to victory. Once Germany is defeated, the collapse of Italy and the defeat of Japan must follow.”4

  This “Hitler First” stratagem left unanswered how to effectively make war on Germany. Having agreed to this approach, the Americans were hell-bent on starting immediately. Marshall particularly believed that the “decisive measure would be a blow directed across the Channel from the British Isles... and... that this should be struck at the earliest possible moment.”5

  Britain’s Chiefs of Staff Committee agreed that a cross-channel assault would be required to defeat Germany. In late 1941, they had even drafted an invasion plan, code-named Operation Roundup. But the plan was meant to be a final step set in motion only after Germany began to collapse. As Hitler’s armies fell back on Germany for a last stand, the British would land on the beaches west and east of Le Havre stretching from Deauville to Dieppe. Once control of a seventy- to hundred-mile-deep beachhead between Calais and the Seine was won, a northward advance would seize Antwerp and then penetrate Germany. Six infantry and six armoured divisions, along with six tank brigades and supporting troops, would comprise the invasion force. Only three naval vessels, including one battleship, would support the planned series of small-scale landings dispersed over a large front.6 This version of Operation Roundup was a modest affair, and its timing little impressed the Americans during the Arcadia Conference.

  They felt the British had given “only minor attention” to land operations in Europe and instead were relying on naval and air power to defeat Germany. Wars, the Americans chided their British counterparts, “cannot be finally won without the use of land armies.”

  The British little needed this obvious reminder. However, as one U.S. Army official historian later noted, “close to the scene of the war, [they] tended to focus on the difficulties of the assault, and the tactical and logistical problems involved, while the Americans, some 3,000 miles away, found it easier to start with the large view of the strategic problem. British planners were deeply and continuously conscious that to attack northwest Europe armies had to get across an ugly piece of water called the Channel, that this crossing took boats and special equipment, that when the troops landed they had to storm fortifications and fight a German Army that had all Europe by th
e throat. Americans were aware of these problems only at second hand and at a distance. They worked from maps.”7

  Churchill proposed that instead of a cross-channel attack, the first step should be a joint Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa, controlled by the German-backed and -beholden Vichy regime. Resources were sufficient for such an invasion to occur in 1942. If successful, the Allies would control the Mediterranean—making it easier to transfer supplies to the Soviets via the Persian Gulf. It would also pull German forces away from both the embattled British Eighth Army in Libya and the even harder-pressed Soviets. It might also somewhat mollify Stalin’s ever-louder demands for action by the western Allies.

  When Arcadia wound up on January 14, the broad outlines of a western Allied strategy were agreed. Throughout 1942, German resistance would be worn down by increasing British and American air bombardment. The Russians would be assisted “by all available means.” This would include operations aimed at gaining possession of the “whole North African coast.” It was seen as unlikely that “in 1942 any large scale land offensive against Germany, except on the Russian front, will be possible.” In 1943, however, the “way may be clear for a return to the continent across the Mediterranean, from Turkey into the Balkans, or by landings in Western Europe. Such operations will be the prelude to the final assault on Germany itself.”8

  Despite agreeing that North Africa would be the immediate target, Marshall and his planners did not abandon their belief that a cross-channel assault might remain feasible in 1942. In fact, they thought such an attack might prove essential to keeping the Soviets in the war. On March 10, 1942, First Canadian Army commander Lieutenant General Andrew McNaughton met in Washington with Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisenhower—chief of the Operations Division of the War Department General Staff. Eisenhower warned McNaughton that Stalin might negotiate a separate peace with Germany unless the western Allies drew German forces away from the Russian front.9 This was no idle concern, for the month before, Stalin had publicly declared a willingness for armistice discussions with Hitler.10