Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  At Mountbatten’s urging, it was agreed that the three force commanders would “prepare and sign a combined plan,” which he would then “forward to the Chiefs of Staff Committee for approval.” Roberts emphasized that he would be acting under direct orders from Crerar.

  A new element Mountbatten introduced was the inclusion of fifty American rangers. Durnford-Slater said he “could very usefully employ about 20 of them.”49 American interest in commando operations had led to Brigadier Lucien Truscott and a small team being posted to Combined Operations on May 17, 1942. Nine days later, the tall Texan had written the American Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, suggesting that formation of a purely American unit for raiding be adapted to U.S. tables of organization and equipment. He suggested calling them rangers, after a band of irregulars who had fought during the French-Indian Wars under command of Major Robert Rogers and had been known as Rogers’ Rangers. The 1st U.S. Ranger Battalion was activated on June 19, 1942, at Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, under command of Major Bill Darby. It consisted of 29 officers and 575 men.50

  On July 11, Eisenhower had reported to Marshall that the British recognized “our keenness to participate” in what he understood would be “raids on an increasing scale in size and intensity.” He was “very hopeful that not only our 1st Ranger Battalion, but other units... can gain this experience during the summer.” On July 25, Truscott ordered 1st Ranger Battalion to report to the commando headquarters in Scotland and begin combined operations training. When the Americans learned that only fifty rangers were to be mixed in with British commandos for the raid, President Roosevelt expressed their dissatisfaction. “For reasons of politics and prestige,” he wanted a U.S. “military contingent” to participate in the assault. But the British General Staff refused, stating that “the few American units in Britain at that time were green troops.” The offer to “take along a token number of Rangers to gain combat experience” was a sop to U.S. prestige.51

  Much of the raid planning covered well-travelled ground. Putting in a “synchronised attack,” where everybody hit the beaches at once, was impossible. Some landings, such as those of the commandos, had to take place at night. In other cases, the ships involved were too slow and ponderous to carry out a landing except in daylight. Again Leigh-Mallory was pressed to see if bombers could neutralize the artillery batteries on either of Dieppe’s immediate flanks while the commandos silenced the more distant ones at Varengeville and Berneval. He agreed to try. Hughes-Hallett said the navy would look into providing support fire against these guns. It was suggested that perhaps the air force could blind these guns with smoke. Everyone agreed that it was “preferable that Jubilee town [Dieppe] should be submitted to naval fire and not be bombed by RAF.”

  Leigh-Mallory worried that the air force would be stretched too thin by now having to support the commandos. Lovat said that “air support though not essential, would definitely be an advantage in [his] attack.” A Spitfire squadron was promised to support the commandos, and bombers would attack the outer coastal batteries, “providing that the light made this a reasonable target.”

  Mountbatten said he was obtaining meteorological data for the chosen period. The best day for a two-tide operation was agreed to be August 18, 19, or 20. A one-tide raid might happen on either the 22nd or 23rd.

  Hughes-Hallett, meanwhile, was still seeking heavier bomber support for the raid. Could not the “troublesome batteries” be silenced by putting a force of twelve Stirling bombers in the air over Beachy Head and then calling them in once the targets could be pinpointed? Leigh-Mallory took the idea to Bomber Command, only to be rebuffed. “The Stirlings would inevitably be shot down,” was the reason given. Leigh-Mallory thought “that adequate fighter protection could have been arranged for these Stirlings,” but there was nothing more he could do.

  Then, in a meeting attended by Crerar, Leigh-Mallory voiced his most dire thoughts. Was the military plan practicable? “Are you speaking as an airman?” Crerar wondered. Leigh-Mallory replied that he spoke “as a last-war Western Front subaltern.” He feared “that the troops would be pinned down in the very beginning and would never get going again.”52

  9. Fraught with Alarming Warnings

  Introduction of the commandos brought into the scheme two officers seasoned in combat and combined operations. Thirty-one-year-old Lord Lovat—“Shimi” to his friends—had joined the commandos in 1940 and first raided in March 1941 against targets on the Lofoten Islands, off Norway’s northern coast. In April 1942, he won a Military Cross at Hardelot. Promotion to lieutenant colonel and command of No. 4 Commando soon followed.1 The thirty-three-year-old Lieutenant Colonel John Frederick “Torchy” Durnford-Slater was so nicknamed because of his red hair. As a founding member, he had recruited the first troops to form No. 3 Commando. By the summer of 1942, he was a veteran raider.2

  In late July, Special Service Brigade’s Brigadier Bob Laycock had shown up at the training base where Lovat was leading mock combat exercises. “Can you climb cliffs?” Laycock demanded, because a “big raid was on.” Lovat turned to troop leader Captain Robert Dawson. Educated in Switzerland, Dawson had rock climbed since his youth and was No. 4 Commando’s mountaineering expert. Dawson said he had sixty men “who could scale anything with a reasonable surface, provided there was no overhang.”

  Lovat and Durnford-Slater caught a night train to London while their respective commandos were to move within forty-eight hours to Weymouth in southern England. “There was no time to spare,” Laycock warned the two officers. “The job was on.”3

  The two commanders hated Richmond Terrace. It was not unusual to be kept waiting for hours, even days, for an appointment of little consequence. So Durnford-Slater, whom Lovat considered “a go-ahead fellow,” led the way past the gatekeepers without a sideways glance and burst in unannounced upon Major General Charles Haydon. Unperturbed, Haydon locked the door and disconnected the telephone for security reasons before outlining the operation and what was expected of the commandos. Haydon said he “did not like the overall plan,” but the commandos’ job was to destroy two batteries before the main landing could occur. It was Haydon who had proposed using Nos. 3 and 4 Commandos, and “he had staked his reputation that we would succeed.”

  Haydon arranged for them to study air photographs and models of the target area. Soon Lovat and Durnford-Slater returned to his office. They wanted some changes. First, the commandos would land before daylight. Second, each commando would be independent, “fighting its own way in.” They would maintain wireless contact with the Military Force Commander and only report when their jobs were complete.

  Haydon agreed and briefed them on the shipping arrangements. Lovat’s men would be on the LSI Prince Albert and then board its LCAs. Durnford-Slater’s commando, however, would have to make the crossing aboard the small and vulnerable R-Boats.

  Lovat said the Canadian battalions were landing too late. A daylight attack, presumably on Dieppe, was asking for trouble. Haydon blanched. “And why the devil do you settle on Dieppe, may I ask?” he bellowed. There had been rumours that such an operation had been staged last month and then cancelled, Lovat said. But the best evidence was in the photos studied. Each was backed by a label reading: “Les Falaises de Vasterival près Dieppe.” Haydon swore both men to secrecy.4

  Lovat and Durnford-Slater first met the rest of Jubilee’s senior officers at the July 21 meeting. Major General Ham Roberts, Lovat found, was “a nice fellow but very thick; he sat there looking very bovine and solid.” Roberts expressed no concerns about the operational plan. The only negative voice was Leigh-Mallory’s. Although Lovat had concerns about the operation overall, he never doubted that No. 4 Commando would succeed. Developing his plan independently, Lovat was not to be distracted by things beyond his influence.5

  No. 4 Commando established itself at Weymouth and No. 3 Commando at nearby Seaford. While the rest of Jubilee force was scattered
and unaware that the Dieppe raid was back in play, these two commandos set about training for it. Lovat picked Weymouth in order to conduct mock raids at nearby Lulworth Cove, a property once owned by a great-uncle. “Here we trained tirelessly in eight rehearsals, working night and day from Albert’s landing-craft... The boat crews were good and trained with a will as No. 4 Commando wound up to concert pitch. Every soldier would meet the events of the day like a trained athlete off his mark to the crack of a starting pistol. We were playing for high stakes. All knew it.” Lovat considered he had “the cutting edge,” which was intelligence. “Usually a battle is fought at short notice, with little or no plan of action. Here the data had been sorted out and sifted like a jigsaw puzzle. We had an admirable model prepared to scale by RAF intelligence. We knew the range and the distance to be covered.” The men tirelessly examined “every fold and feature... on the ground.” Guns were repeatedly live-fire tested, as everyone “blazed ammunition on short-range practices.” The 2-inch mortar men were soon dropping eighteen out of twenty rounds within a twenty-five-foot square from a range of two hundred yards. They practised throwing rolled rabbit netting—a wire mesh blanket—over barbed-wire aprons and rolling over the obstructions. Assigned specific spots in the landing craft, each man was soon able to be out and away precisely as required. Officers exchanged roles so each could seamlessly replace anybody wounded or killed. Then one landing craft or another would be declared sunk, and the entire force had to adjust to compensate for the losses. The withdrawal to the beach and re-embarkation were repeatedly rehearsed. Men carried others on stretchers while pursued by fierce opposition, covering their withdrawal with heavy screens of smoke.

  Timing, timing, became a Lovat mantra. They would hit the beach at 0450 hours, ten minutes before the end of nautical twilight. “Those ten minutes, I believed, were vital.” The covering darkness would help the commandos get off the beach without being lashed by German machine guns. Unable to see, the “jittery” gunners would “shoot high.” It was what men did. But once they could see targets, the fire would become deadly.6

  Despite their late entry, the two commandos would be ready. Even the introduction of American rangers caused no hiccups. Four men joined No. 4 Commando. Under command of Captain Roy A. Murray, forty rangers were divvied up within No. 3 Commando.7 Six other rangers would be posted to Canadian units as observers at the last minute.8

  While the commandos trained in full awareness, the Canadians nursed disappointment over Rutter’s cancellation. On July 19, the Royals learned their long-time commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hedley Basher, was being eased out by promotion to No. 1 Canadian Divisional Reinforcement Unit. The good news was that the regiment’s second-in-command, Major Doug Catto, was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assumed command of the regiment. A Great War artilleryman, Catto had worked as a Toronto architect during the inter-war years. He had been with the regiment a long time and “enjoyed the confidence of all ranks,” the regiment’s historian wrote.9

  Deliberately kept in the dark about the raid’s revival, the troops began a series of training exercises like those that had preceded assignment to combined operations. At Billinghurst, the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry spent July 21 through 24 engaged in Exercise Lenin. Although used to exercises involving machine guns firing on fixed lines, they were perplexed at having to undergo the same form of fire from the 6-pound guns of Churchill tanks. Lenin over, the battalion moved to Arundel Castle on the Duke of Norfolk’s huge Sussex estate. Billeted in tents, the men spent their days being bused out into the countryside in order to march back to camp. This, the regimental historian later learned, was all “part of Combined Operations’ elaborate plan to avoid arousing suspicion of the revival of Rutter.”10

  Periods of leave were granted on a rotational basis. Consequently, many men and officers of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders were on leave when Lieutenant Colonel Al Gostling held a parade on July 27 to explain future tasks. He promised only more rigorous training. The following day, a divisional sporting match was held. Major General Roberts presided over the event, and Lieutenant General McNaughton’s wife handed out awards to winning teams. None went to the luckless Camerons, who had lost in every category.11

  Roberts shunted regularly from divisional headquarters to Combined Operations for meetings, fine-tuning Jubilee. It was decided that not only No. 3 Commando would make the crossing in their small landing craft—the Camerons would also embark at Newhaven in landing craft, while Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal would do likewise at the small port of Shoreham, in Sussex. Neither Canadian battalion would cross in R-Boats, however. Instead, they were equipped with the newer LCAs. This decision was made to enable greater dispersion of the battalions to various ports than if all were assigned to the larger LSIs.12

  As soon as Captain Hughes-Hallett resolved one channel-crossing problem, another cropped up. Towards the end of July, naval intelligence reported that a German minefield had been laid in the middle of the channel. Roughly shaped like a hockey stick, it lay between the Pas-de-Calais and the Baie de Seine. The raiding force would have to sail through it to reach Dieppe. Normally, minesweepers would go out during daytime, clear paths through the field, and mark these with buoys. Doing so now might warn the Germans. The two minesweeping flotillas—the 9th and 13th—must then precede the raiding convoy by only a short distance. Each flotilla’s eight ships would create a passage about a quarter mile wide. Their operational speed was about eight knots. Careful timing would be required to ensure the job was complete before they were overrun by the main ships—now comprising eight destroyers and nine LSIs—which would barrel along at speeds of sixteen to nineteen knots. “There was no margin of time, or indeed, of sea room,” Hughes-Hallett later wrote. Another puzzle was how to ensure that the leading ships found their assigned passage entrances in the darkness of night “with dead accuracy.”13

  Navigational radar technology was in its infancy. But after some trial and error, it was decided to situate a motor launch at the entrance of each passage. Using Type 78 directional finding beacons, the launches’ locations would be transmitted in Morse code on a frequency received by ships fitted with Types 286 and 290 radio directional finders. The ships leading the various force convoys would pick up the signals when they were within five to seven miles’ range. Inside the passage itself, buoys mounted with flashing lights would mark the outside boundaries.14

  For several nights in early August, Hughes-Hallett took the LSIs to sea from Southampton harbour to rehearse “passing through a dummy minefield. This was difficult and complicated, as it involved getting the ships out of Southampton and getting them back in again, both during the short hours of a single summer night. This was successfully done, but not without arguments with the Southampton port authorities, who had never heard of such goings-on.”15

  Operation Jubilee’s final plan, meanwhile, had been finished on July 31 and distributed to the small coterie in the know. It was a massive document, almost three hundred pages long. Its three parts set out the naval plan as drafted by Hughes-Hallett and his staff, a military plan generated primarily by Brigadier Church Mann and his 2nd Division planners, and a less detailed air plan worked up by Leigh-Mallory’s RAF team at Uxbridge. Each section was supported by many supplementary documents. With regard to the military plan, Mann continued to disseminate ever more detailed instructions to the relevant officers as the scheduled launch date neared. These covered such matters as allocation of weapons and other equipment, intelligence reports on enemy strength, analysis of tidal action on the beaches, and other minutiae running to hundreds more pages. No detail was too small to warrant consideration. Nobody involved could afterwards recall a more thoroughly documented operational plan.

  One instruction issued by Mann to 3rd Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment’s Lieutenant Colonel B. Russell Kerr, for example, ordered him to assemble a party of 113 men and officers under command of Major C.R. Ostrander. It then instruc
ted that five specific soldiers—Bombardier M.W. Phillips, Gunner R.A. Antille, Gunner R. Donaldson, Gunner A.N. McKenzie, and Gunner A.V. Drake, along with two others, “but not Gnrs. Stewart or Fry”—would travel to Dieppe aboard LCT13. Once on board, each man would be given a pistol.16 Considering the thousands of personnel involved, Mann’s extent of personal oversight was astonishing.

  With Jubilee fast approaching, the number of officers informed began to increase on August 1. First let in on the secret were 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Brigadier Sherwood Lett, 6th Brigade’s Bill Southam, and Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Andrews of the Calgary Tank Regiment. Roberts warned the three men that an emergency operation might be imminent. Everyone tasked to Rutter would raid against the same objectives. Mann then pulled aside a cover to expose the same plaster model of Dieppe. Lett’s heart sank. The naval problems with exercises Yukon I and II in landing at the right spot and on time had convinced him such a raid was sure to be costly. “When the fact that the actual Dieppe operation was on again sank in, I knew at once that we were for it.”

  All three officers responded negatively to there being no heavy aerial bombardment. Roberts and Mann offered assurances that the element of surprise would enable them to overwhelm the German beach defences. Nobody was convinced. The only ray of hope was the promise that it would be a one-tide operation of about five hours’ duration. Such a hit-and-run operation might succeed without too heavy loss. Still, the officers considered the scheme overly risky.17 Their agreement was not, however, being sought.

  Sustaining the veil of secrecy while at the same time ensuring that the necessary preparations were carried out required a delicate dance. It was the kind of dance Mann was ably suited for. On August 4, a divisional training summary set out the month’s exercises. There would be three: Foothold, Popsy, and Stranglehold.18 On August 7, Exercise Foothold would entail “the invasion of Britain,” with 2nd Division securing a bridgehead between Littlehampton and Arundel. Eight destroyers would be in support. The best dates were between August 21 and 23, with the 21st favoured.