Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  Swayne responded on July 4. He had taken the matter up with Paget, who said there was “no room for any more at the Group Headquarters.” Besides, Paget thought, “it would be wrong for General Crerar to go there. There can only be one man in command of the operation... and Montgomery will see to it that he keeps Harry Crerar in hourly touch with the situation.”

  Crerar, meanwhile, had taken the matter directly to Montgomery by telephone on July 4. This led to a personal visit to Montgomery’s headquarters. “I opened by informing that he was making a mistake in attempting to treat the problem of command of Canadian troops as a simple military issue, capable of solution along strictly British channels of command when, in fact, it was a complicated problem, and one involving national policies and Imperial Constitutional relations.”

  While agreeing that the Canadians were under Montgomery’s command, Crerar said this “did not for one moment imply that I could be divested of my personal responsibility through... McNaughton to the Canadian Government in respect to the manner in which those troops were committed to actual operations.” No agreement between Montgomery, Paget, and Mountbatten, or even the Chiefs of Staff Committee, “could affect this constitutional position.” Crerar asked Montgomery to consider the United Kingdom’s situation in the Great War when Field Marshal Douglas Haig and the British Expeditionary Force fell under overall command of the French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Was there not a demand to be present in the headquarters where decisions were being made that could cost the lives of British troops?

  Crerar made it plain that Paget’s suggestion that there was “no room” was mere blowing of smoke and “obviously failed to take into account the really important factor which I had previously explained to him concerning separate Canadian responsibility.” If the decision were not reversed, he said, it would be “raised to the highest political levels,” and Paget and Montgomery would be overruled.

  Montgomery, who could in such confrontations be either irritable and inflexible or politely accommodating, took the latter tack. The conversation was “most frank and friendly,” Crerar admitted after. At its end, Montgomery said he intended to “ring up” McNaughton and suggest he join the command group for “the course of the intended operation.” Crerar was also welcome in a headquarters suddenly bursting with room. “He thanked me for my frankness and for the explanation which I had given which had put a different light on the question at issue.” After Crerar left, Montgomery did call McNaughton.

  This short brouhaha concluded with a note from McNaughton to Paget describing the change. As for himself, McNaughton wrote, “I am not particularly concerned... although for obvious reasons, I would like to see this end of the work at first hand. I do, however, think that Crerar should be present because the Canadian troops taking part are under his command and he therefore should not be excluded.”15 In the end, only Crerar joined the command group.

  Fast approaching was the time for Crerar’s Canadians to fight. On July 1, a bevy of war correspondents joined the Canadian force on the Isle of Wight. Previously, Ross Munro had been the only one inside the security zone. “I guess the job is imminent,” he scribbled in a diary. At midnight, the correspondents crowded into a tiny room on the top floor of Osborne House. Perched on the back of a chair, with the large plaster model before him, Lieutenant Colonel Church Mann briefed them. “In typical breezy fashion, Mann gave us all a crystal-clear understanding of the plan. He made a big hit with the correspondents with his clear-cut approach and his good humour, which persisted even at midnight after weeks of night-and-day work, planning this show.”16

  For security purposes, preparations for boarding ships was conducted under the guise that this was but another exercise— Klondike I. To maintain the illusion of normalcy, each Canadian infantry brigade staged a sports event on Dominion Day. The Essex Scottish delighted in their softball and volleyball victories.

  On July 2, the Essex moved by ferry to Yarmouth and boarded ships there.17 Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, some five thousand soldiers and three thousand sailors took station on ships anchored off ports in the Solent strait running between the Isle of Wight and mainland England. The raid was to occur on July 4.

  During the move, there had been much grousing among the men about having to participate in yet another exercise. The general feeling was that everyone was fully trained. “Nobody had any fat on them. We were primed and ready,” Major Ross remembered.18 After first crossing to Portsmouth, the Camerons caught a train to Newhaven harbour. Ross’s ‘A’ Company, along with ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies, boarded the Golden Eagle, an old cross-channel paddlewheeler ferry. The battalion’s headquarters and ‘D’ Company loaded onto a similar vessel, Aristocrat.19 Slipping aboard and rejoining ‘D’ Company’s No. 16 Platoon was Captain Hughes-Hallett, again disguised as a British private and determined to go raiding.20

  Elsewhere, the Rileys were distributed on the morning of July 2 onto several ships. ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies boarded Queen Emma, ‘A’ Company was on Jeannie Deans, and ‘B’ Company, less one platoon, loaded onto LCT4. Lieutenant Colonel Bob Labatt and the headquarters embarked on LCT5. “Landing exercises were becoming monotonous,” the regimental historian later wrote.21 As the commander of No. 4 Platoon, tasked with protecting Labatt’s headquarters, Captain Whitaker was on LCT5. The men, he noted, “sweated, swore, and gambled on the role of the dice and the upswing of the barometer. A southwest wind was blowing.”22 Until that wind moderated, the fleet would not sail. But the forecast was for improvement, so the raid was expected to proceed on the night of July 3–4.

  Once the vessels were loaded and “sealed, steps were at once taken to put all ranks in the picture.” Lieutenant Colonel Hedley Basher informed his Royals aboard Princess Josephine Charlotte and Princess Astrid “that the so-called exercise was, in fact, an actual operation against the enemy.” Elsewhere, other battalion and unit commanders did likewise. In the afternoon, Major General Roberts visited each vessel.23

  Maps were distributed that detailed the Dieppe coastline and interior. Company and platoon commanders briefed men on their specific roles. The role each battalion was to undertake accorded with those rehearsed during Yukon I and II. A few refinements were introduced. Major Ross learned that his Cameron ‘A’ Company was to look for specific “books, manuals, and codebooks” when it seized the divisional headquarters beyond the airfield. “They were all described by size and colour. This one being red, another brown. We were to clear them all out.”24

  Hughes-Hallett noted the “great enthusiasm” among the troops. “They spent the evening studying maps... and writing out their wills on special printed forms.”25 Mountbatten visited all vessels on July 3, announcing each time that the raiders would sail that night to be in position to strike at 0430 hours on July 4.26

  When the winds persisted, word passed that the operation would be postponed for twenty-four hours. “As the operation was largely dependent on paratroops and a very large scale of air support, the weather required must be ideal,” the war diarist for the Royals observed.27 The paratroops and glider-borne troops, of course, were to take out the coastal gun batteries on the flanks of the main landing beaches. The raid could not proceed if there was risk of these troops being blown far off course. Expectation remained that the winds would be moderate.

  The morning after the initial postponement, the Camerons aboard Aristocrat had transferred to the Royal Eagle. Another Thames paddlewheeler, the vessel already had two companies of Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal on board. Conditions were extremely cramped, but this was the case on most every vessel. To avoid attracting attention from possible spies ashore, the men on the larger vessels were largely confined below decks. Tarpaulins were slung over the open decks of the LCTs to conceal the “cargo of tanks, carriers, and sweltering soldiers.” Meals were cobbled together from compo ration boxes—a selection of “hard tack, cans of stew, bacon (mostly grease), and
margarine (just like rock); as well as tea, hard candies, powdered milk and eggs, and tins of Woodbine cigarettes.” Water was in short supply.28

  On the morning of July 5, Roberts, Baillie-Grohman, their staffs, and Air Commodore Adrian Trevor Cole—representing Leigh-Mallory—conferred. The forecast called for forty-eight hours of continuing unsettled weather. That meant the raid was unlikely to happen before July 8. The plan called for the raiders to remain ashore through the day’s two tides, but this would mean no withdrawal until 1700 hours. The prospect of keeping the troops ashore for just over twelve hours was worrisome. Only an estimated eight hours’ travel time from Dieppe, the German 10th Panzer Division was stationed at Amiens. There was little doubt that this division’s tanks and well-trained panzer grenadiers would pour down upon the beaches well before the embarkation of troops could be completed. Disaster was assured.

  So the plan would have to change. The raid would now be a one-tide operation, with everyone withdrawn by 1100 hours. Roberts thought all the planned demolitions could be carried out “under the new short timetable, as practice had increased the speeds attained by the engineers.” Some later stages were “somewhat abridged” to fit with the new timing.29 A key modification cancelled the planned advance by elements of the Calgary Tanks to join the Camerons’ assault on the airfield and headquarters at Arques. There was insufficient time for tanks to push through Dieppe and to Arques before they would need to be re-embarked. Under the new schedule, the last tanks were to be lifted off by 1000 hours. Moving the final departure time to 1100 hours, it was thought, would give “less time to the enemy to develop a counterattack and rendered interference by the Panzer Division at Amiens much less probable.” The LCTs carrying the third and fourth flights of tanks ashore would remain at beachside and begin lifting the first Churchills off the beach at 0800 hours.30 The modified plan was dubbed Rutter II. This was a last-ditch effort. The raid would happen on July 8 or not at all. Tide conditions for July 9 and 10 were deemed unsuitable.

  Aboard the vessels, circumstances were deteriorating. Everyone was so crowded that it was often impossible to move more than a few steps. The rolling boats caused seasickness; the heads were plugged and overrunning. The air stank of vomit, feces, urine, and sweat.31 Still, the Camerons’ war diarist noted that the men “took it without more than good natured wisecracks... The spirit of all ranks was high and morale had never reached such a peak.”32

  To offer some relief, Roberts issued orders on July 5 for Exercise XLAX. Beginning the morning of July 6, the troops were taken ashore in groups to carry out “conditioning marches” along routes carefully “planned to avoid Canadian camps and towns as far as possible.”

  So many vessels standing in the Solent could not escape German detection for such a long period. Not surprisingly, at about 0615 hours on the morning of July 4, four Luftwaffe Focke-Wulfe 190s swooped down on vessels off Yarmouth Roads. Each plane dropped a 500-kilogram bomb. Princess Astrid and Princess Josephine Charlotte were both struck.33 The bombs, however, sliced clear through each ship before exploding. Only four of the Royals on board the two ships were injured, and their wounds were minor. Princess Josephine Charlotte was so badly damaged, however, that the men were put ashore on the Isle of Wight and sent marching to Cowes for re-embarkation on HMS Glengyle.34

  The Royals were still tromping along when a despatch rider roared up with orders turning them back from Cowes. There had been no improvement in the weather. In the mid-morning of July 7, Baillie-Grohman—who, as the senior naval officer, had final say—cancelled the raid.

  From the dock next to the ships bearing the Camerons, a man called over a loudhailer for Captain Hughes-Hallett to make himself known. Major Ross was startled when “who steps forward but this British private.” Without ceremony, Hughes-Hallett was whisked off in a car.35

  “The heartbreaking news comes at 10:30 A.M.,” Ross Munro wrote in his diary. “God, what a blow to these troops! Men break down and cry on the troop decks, they take the disappointment so hard. In the wardroom the officers drink innumerable double scotches (at eight cents a glass—navy prices). ‘Let us hate,’ is the toast. I have never been more depressed in my life. Here was the opportunity for which Canadian troops had waited so long and it has been fouled by weather.”36

  Part Two | Rebirth

  8. A Brainwave

  Three days after Rutter’s cancellation, the Canadians were all returned to camps on the English mainland. On July 10, Major General Ham Roberts circulated a message cautioning everyone “to say nothing about this operation which we had hoped to carry out, because if you do not there is always the possibility that we may be able to do it again at a later date.”1 The Canadians had abandoned the Isle of Wight with haste. Lieutenant Colonel Bob Labatt was one of the last to leave. The Rileys commander found Osborne House deserted. Just the day before, Royal Marine sentries had guarded the entrances, and pretty Wrens worked tirelessly at secretarial duties behind locked doors. Now those doors hung open, and “Rutter papers stamped ‘Cancelled’ were scattered everywhere. There was no doubt that the raid was off for good.”2

  With so many thousands apprised, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery thought it “impossible to maintain security.”3 The raid must soon be “a common subject of conversation in billets and pubs.”4 He “recommended to the powers that be that the operation be off for all time.”5

  “The decision... must have been a bitter disappointment to all commanders, regimental officers, and other ranks,” Montgomery consoled Lieutenant General Harry Crerar. “The raiding force had been trained up to a high standard of efficiency, and I have no doubt whatever that, given average luck and weather, the operation would have been carried through with all that élan and dash which has always been so typical of the Canadian troops.” Montgomery asked Crerar to convey to Major General Ham Roberts his “appreciation of the good work done, and his regrets that the operation had to be cancelled.”6

  He was not truly disappointed. Despite Montgomery’s previous supporting and pivotal role in planning the Dieppe raid, it had always been of peripheral importance to him—perhaps even a “distracting operation,” as biographer Nigel Hamilton put it. In Montgomery’s “heart of hearts,” Hamilton believed, he had “written off” the raid and was now grateful to no longer be responsible for it.7 “I considered the operation was cancelled and... turned my attention to other matters,” Montgomery wrote.8

  Montgomery’s main concern, even during the lead-up to Rutter, had been ensuring that all South-Eastern Command was fighting-fit. As 2nd Division trained for Rutter, the other Canadian and British divisions had continued to learn how to fight coherently at army scale. With Rutter consigned to the dustbin, Montgomery continued on this track without pause.9

  Meanwhile, at Combined Operations Headquarters the mood was initially funereal. First the Alderney raid had been scrubbed, now Dieppe. “Abandonment of these two raids,” Hughes-Hallett thought, “was rightly felt to be tantamount to a defeat.”10 Mountbatten and Hughes-Hallett presided over “a post mortem” to “discuss the experience gained during training.”11 An angry Hughes-Hallett demanded a formal inquiry “by some outside authority into the question of whether there was a defect in the method of planning and whether the recent cancellations of operations had been justified.”12 Before leaving the meeting, Mountbatten airily dismissed this notion. He was currently distracted by the demands of stardom, for Noël Coward was in the process of filming In Which We Serve. Loosely based on Mountbatten’s loss of HMS Kelly off Crete, the film was intended as propaganda, but Coward had encountered stumbling blocks within both the military and government that jeopardized its completion. Mountbatten had personally intervened, serving as primary consultant and also smoothing the political waters. This was but one of many concurrent demands that forced Mountbatten to compartmentalize tasks—including the Dieppe raid.13

  After Mountbatten’s departure, only Hughes-Hallett, t
he three force commanders, Major General Charles Haydon, and a couple of headquarters staff officers remained. Discussion revolved around an apparently insoluble dilemma. Operation Rutter had been considered essential tactically to provide lessons for the ultimate invasion of the Continent and politically to appease Russian and American demands for a major cross-channel operation. “The government,” Hughes-Hallett pointed out, “would probably expect a divisional operation to be mounted that summer; and there appeared to be no other possibility so good as the Dieppe operation.” There was a “ready-made plan... and a force had already been trained.”

  But Rutter’s security was blown. Everybody acknowledged this. It must be assumed that German intelligence would learn of it and recognize a restaging was under way the moment troops moved to concentration points close to the ports. Ever quick thinking, Hughes-Hallett suddenly saw the solution. The operation could “be re-mounted,” he suggested, “without preliminary concentration, and therefore without danger of the Germans discovering what was afoot.” If Roberts “was prepared to undertake the operation without further combined training,” Rutter could be revived.14

  The troops would move directly from their camps and billets to the ports for embarkation, and the ships would only arrive in time to load them aboard and set sail that same evening.15 It was a formidable proposition that would require split-second timing and precise organization to ensure that everyone loaded correctly and with the equipment required to complete particular missions. But Hughes-Hallett knew it could be done. There just needed to be “the united determination of the Chief of Combined Operations and his subordinates to drive on, unless told otherwise by superior authority.”16 Roberts, now nursing second thoughts about Rutter, gave Hughes-Hallett a mixed response. He agreed that no other division was trained to execute the raid.17 But he was unwilling to immediately commit to a restaging on Hughes-Hallett’s terms.