Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  His second letter was written after consultation with Major General Ham Roberts. This was a final and critical stage for Hughes-Hallett because it answered the tricky question of how many ships and landing craft would have to be lost before he would scrub the operation. Although the decision to abandon a combined operation technically had to be made jointly by the military and naval commanders, Hughes-Hallett also made it plain that “the executive action which has to be taken is purely naval, is usually irreversible, and therefore needs to be decided upon in advance because there may be no time for consultation when the crisis comes.”16

  He decided that the loss of certain numbers and combinations of LSIs would prompt cancellation. If both LSIs carrying the South Saskatchewan Regiment were lost, there could be no landing at Pourville or subsequent capture of the western headland. This left the main force landing in front of Dieppe threatened from that flank. Consequently, loss of these two ships meant cancellation. The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry would be aboard a single LSI and would land on White Beach at Dieppe. Roberts believed that the loss of this regiment could be counterbalanced by the troops on the LCTs landing in concert with the tanks. So that loss would not trigger a cancellation. Nor would the loss of either of the LSIs carrying the Essex Scottish into Red Beach next to Dieppe’s harbour, because ‘A’ Commando of the Royal Marines could attack alone. If, however, the Essex Scottish LSIs and the one carrying the Royal Marines were all lost, the operation must be abandoned. Roberts advised that loss of one or even both LSIs carrying the Royals to Blue Beach in front of Puys would not, from “a purely military view,” jeopardize the rest of the raid. But Hughes-Hallett felt this would leave the German guns and troops on the eastern headland dominating the harbour entrance and its inner basins. So he declared his intention to cancel if these two LSIs were lost.

  “I wish to place on record,” Hughes-Hallett said in closing, “that the foregoing conclusions would have been profoundly modified had it been possible to have a number of bombers to call in the area from dawn onwards with a view to making low-flying daylight attacks on enemy batteries in the event of an emergency.”17 Hughes-Hallett had not ceased campaigning to reverse the decision against using bombers. Even during a final planning meeting on August 17, he had pressed for commitment of heavy bombers. But Roberts was wedded to the idea that “the destruction... it would cause would make the passage of tanks through Dieppe very difficult, if not impossible, and the decision not to carry out such a bombardment was therefore maintained.”18

  With these letters filed, Hughes-Hallett joined Commander David Luce for a three-hour walk on Portsdown Hill. The two men carefully reviewed “the entire operation in our minds trying to imagine and anticipate all the contingencies that might arise.”19

  Within minutes of the order initiating Jubilee, all the Canadian battalions were preparing to move towards embarkation ports. Security remained extremely tight. In another testament to Brigadier Church Mann’s exceptional organizational skills, this process had been meticulously orchestrated to avoid delays or traffic jams. Inevitably, however, the last-minute nature of the operation’s launch led to some glitches.

  The 3rd Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, for example, provided 10 officers and 236 other ranks for various tasks. Although the gunners were trained to operate Bofors anti-aircraft guns, they were equipped with unfamiliar Bren guns.20 The Brens were brand new and covered in grease. Lacking cleaning material, the gunners had to borrow fuel from the Calgary tankers and use strips of cloth torn from their own shirts as cleaning rags.21

  The Canadian engineers assigned to Jubilee were mostly the same men earlier designated to Rutter. They were divvied up according to assigned tasks and distributed aboard ten LCTs, Motor Gunboat Locust, and the LSIs Glengyle, Prince Charles, and Prince Leopold. Although some loaded at Gosport, the majority boarded LCTs at Newhaven.22 The engineers numbered 666 in all. Ninety-three were tasked to beach and assault parties, 240 to demolition parties, and 333 to engineer groups. Those engineers arriving at Newhaven found their necessary stores well organized and ready, thanks to the efficient work of twenty-one men from 7th Field Company, who had assembled everything at Warnford Park and moved it to the harbour.

  But transferring the stores onto the LCTs proved a nightmare. “Great difficulty was experienced by the sappers in carrying their equipment, plus their heavy packs, in having to climb down a vertical ladder on the side of the dock and then moving across the 4 LCTs berthed alongside the dock. Towards the end of the embarkation a gang plank was used, but the descent was very steep and the gang plank very narrow and very difficult for the men to carry their packs on board by that method,” 2nd Division’s chief engineer, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barnes, reported.23

  Things started out well on August 18 for the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. Just after 1000 hours, they were notified to be ready to board seventeen trucks and move to Newhaven beginning at 1420.24 The Camerons involved numbered 488. They were joined by three signallers from the Royal Canadian Signals Corps, a member of the divisional field security section, a Special Operations Executive agent, four artillery forward observation officers (FOOs), a Royal Air Force observation officer, a single member of the press, and a U.S. Ranger. This rounded the total number of personnel to 500. The Camerons were organized into a flight designated Group 6 and loaded aboard a mix of 25 R-Boats and the larger LCMs. Group 6 was further subdivided into divisions consisting of five craft each. The number of personnel loaded onto each craft was carefully detailed.

  Major Norman Ross led ‘A’ Company out of the battalion’s tent camp on schedule to meet the trucks rolling along the road. Only the previous day, he had gone personally to fetch a platoon commander, Lieutenant Bill Goodall, back from a course. When the instructors asked why a lieutenant was being dragged off by a major, Ross curtly replied that the officer’s presence was required at battalion. He was painfully aware of how compromised security might be. God knew who had blathered in the wrong ear over a beer somewhere, but there was nothing to be done. Good friends, Ross and Goodall spent the drive back to camp catching up on personal news. Goodall was twenty-eight and married, and Ross considered him a steady hand.

  Not until the truck convoy reached Newhaven at about 1700 hours did Ross learn what vessels they would use for the channel crossing. He had feared it would be the creaky coastal paddlewheeler from Rutter. Although the LCAs and LCMs before him were much smaller, they were quick and manoeuvrable. They could also go straight into the beach at Pourville without the men having to first transfer from a large vessel to the landing craft.25 They found much of their equipment was waiting at Newhaven. But the gremlins were loose again. Instead of being neatly organized and labelled, it had been unceremoniously dumped into a large pile. Many crates, some full of explosives, were unlabelled.26 Included in the stack were 30 Sten guns each with five magazines, 13 Smith & Wesson .38 calibre pistols with holsters, 8,000 rounds of .303 ammunition, 240 rounds of .38-calibre bullets for the pistols, 200 No. 5 smoke generators, 100 incendiary hand bombs, 1,460 detonators to arm the battalion’s No. 36 hand grenades, 500 Mae West flotation devices, 70 wire cutters, 12 medical compresses, 5 scaling ladders, 150 toggle ropes, 24 grappling hooks, 25 bicycles, one signals handcart, 10 Union Jacks, 50 sandbags, 4 stretchers, and 20 bangalore torpedoes.27

  By prior arrangement, the navy provided the troops with dinner. It was poor: a greasy stew with gristly meat and some strong tea most of the men found undrinkable.28 While the Camerons ate, naval personnel divvied up the additional equipment among the various landing craft. Dinner over, the most junior officers, NCOs, and other ranks were “briefed in the part they were to play in this great raid,” as one Cameron report later put it. Major A.T. “Andy” Law then gathered company commanders together to ensure all the necessary supplies were aboard.29

  The only Cameron who had ever fired a Sten gun was Lieutenant Colonel Al Gostling. Each man assigned one was per
sonally instructed by Gostling in how to load and fire it. Designed for rapid production, the Sten had just forty-seven parts, which were stamped out of metal like cookies from dough—the parts were then welded, sweated, or riveted together. From the tip of its stubby barrel to the end of the metal shoulder butt, it was just thirty inches long. The Sten fired 9-millimetre ammunition fed from a 32-round magazine fitted at a right angle to the barrel on its left-hand side. Each gun was still packed in grease, which had to be cleaned off.30

  As August 18 unfolded, more Canadian and British troops were on the move. Lord Lovat and No. 4 Commando left Weymouth in “a kind of vanishing act.” Warned on Monday afternoon that they would depart the next morning on a two-day exercise, the men paraded on the waterfront at 0500 hours with their light packs. Taken into the country, they spent “a hard day weapon training.” Meanwhile, No. 4 Commando’s quartermaster transferred the heavy weapons, ammunition, Mae Wests, iron rations, and explosives onto the LSI Prince Albert at Weymouth. The vessel then sailed to Southampton, where the still unaware commandos—228 strong—unloaded from trucks and boarded. Waiting for No. 4 Commando was an RAF observer and five U.S. Rangers. Watches were zeroed as the men boarded. Major Derek Mills-Roberts had a watch on each wrist. “There was to be split-second timing in the fighter sorties that strafed the enemy at tree-top height next day.” Two watches ensured he would know precisely when the fighters should arrive.31

  The South Saskatchewan Regiment, meanwhile, had departed at 1145 hours “for an unknown destination. No-one knew where they were going until they arrived at Southampton Port... at about 1530 hours.” The battalion boarded two LSIs—Princess Beatrix and Invicta. Then company commanders advised their men “that the scheme Ford I was the real thing, a raid on France, and that there would be no umpires or blanks fired. Every officer and other rank cheered with joy knowing at last the time had come when they could get a crack at the Hun.

  “About 1930 hours tea was served to all ranks. Immediately after, all ranks started to prepare their weapons... All ranks showed the highest of spirits, there was no sign of fright in any man. A look of happiness seemed to be gleaming from all faces knowing that at last the hour had finally arrived to give the Hun some of their own medicine... Officers, NCOs, and other ranks were studying maps of Dieppe and Pourville... so as to make sure of the landing at the proper place and of their objectives which they had to destroy,” the war diarist wrote.32

  Lieutenant John Edmondson had guessed earlier that the raid was back on. Everything about the way the exercises were organized, particularly the insistence on full battle kit, was suspicious. As ‘D’ Company’s second-in-command, he was responsible for its supplies and equipment. Seeing that he was to load the company’s G1098 stores, which was a reserve of ammunition normally carried only during an actual operation, Edmondson asked the company commander, Major Mac MacTavish, “Does everything we do and everything we take have to be completely man worthy and operational?” MacTavish looked at Edmondson consideringly. “Then that little grin came on his face and he said, ‘Yes.’ So I knew.”

  At the dock, the Sasks found that the two ships had been camouflaged with fake stacks and other accoutrements to make them look like freighters to German reconnaissance planes. Nets concealed the troops.33

  Twenty Sten guns had been delivered to Princess Beatrix and ten to Invicta. Edmondson was with the 274 Sasks aboard Princess Beatrix, while another 210 were on Invicta.34 When the men broke open the Sten gun cases and found the weapons packed in grease, “we had to try and clean them,” Edmondson later recalled. “Weren’t allowed to test fire them, so we had no idea whether they were working properly.”35 Some of the more weapon-savvy men eyed these new submachine guns warily. When fitted into the breach, six rivets held the front of the magazine in place. Some rivets protruded too far into the magazine and might cause a jam. The functionality of these guns would not be known until the battle began.36

  Hundreds of No. 36 grenades had to be primed with detonators. Aboard Invicta, a man in Lieutenant Leonard Kempton’s No. 14 Platoon of ‘C’ Company had a grenade suddenly explode. Out of the platoon’s thirty men, seventeen were wounded. Sergeant M. Lehman was impressed to see that this calamity failed to “worry Mr. Kempton. In fact it made him that much more determined and he had us load up with just that much more ammunition to take the place of that the men who were left behind would have carried. The boys were glad to get it and Mr. Kempton carried more than any of us as he was an officer that would not ask you to do anything he would not do himself.”37

  Princess Beatrix had twenty-six non-Sask passengers. Most of these were beach-party and other support personnel. Also on board were a Canadian sergeant from the intelligence corps named Roy Hawkins and RAF Flight Sergeant Jack Nissenthall.38 The twenty-one-year-old Hawkins hailed from Fort McMurray, Alberta. Nissenthall, a twenty-three-year-old Jewish Cockney from London’s East End, was a radar technician. Getting him to the radar station on the eastern headland overlooking Pourville was the job of the Saskatchewan’s ‘A’ Company, commanded by Captain Murray Osten. Because Nissenthall was privy to British radar technology secrets, a special detail of ten men served as his personal guard. Their instructions were to “provide adequate protection as an RDF expert must under no circumstances fall into enemy hands.”39

  Nissenthall was to gather information on German radar directional finding techniques while Hawkins looted documents and files. Nissenthall had become known to the Sasks during Rutter’s preparations; Hawkins was new. His mission, he told Nissenthall, was to protect him. When Nissenthall pointed out that he already had ten minders, Hawkins shrugged. “Now you’ve eleven.” Both men knew what this meant. If things went sour, Hawkins was to ensure Nissenthall was not captured. So it might come to killing him. Each man carried a green cyanide pill in their regulation Evaders Pack.40 But confidence ran high. The radar station gambit was going to be an adventure.

  Nissenthall’s mission was not the only caper afoot. Various attached 30th Commando intelligence specialists were to scour a Dieppe harbourfront hotel for possible Ultra-related codes and equipment. La Maison Blanche was “believed to be a white house” used as an officer’s mess. Papers from there were deemed worthwhile. The airfield at St. Aubin would be searched for “papers, pamphlets, code books, and signal papers.” Signal equipment should be carried off. At the last moment, it was recognized that the divisional headquarters at Arques-la-Bataille—still identified as 110th Infantry Division’s—might have moved. (In fact, 302nd Division had relocated its headquarters to Envermeu, about eight miles inland from Dieppe.) If the headquarters was still in place, the Camerons capturing it were to collect “secret files, pamphlets, order of battle, code books.” Almost every battalion had at least one specialist attached, with a list of specific tasks. One three-man group landing at Red Beach in front of Dieppe was to loot an identified wireless transmission station of its “wireless plan, three-letter codes, [and] instruction pamphlets,” all within ninety minutes. In the next thirty minutes, they would scour the hundred-room Grand Hôtel for military papers. In continuing thirty-minute phases concluding three hours and thirty minutes after they landed, the three men were to have scoured the forty-room Hôtel Bellevue, the seventy-two room Hôtel Étrangers, and the Maritime command headquarters. This last target was to be stripped of “military passes, R.T.O’s papers, Movement control, instructions and tables, etc.”41

  Because the Essex Scottish and Royal Hamilton Light Infantry would lead the charge against Dieppe, the two battalions deployed eighty-two men each onto the LCTs carrying the Calgary Tanks that were to land in the first armoured flight. This meant dispersing Essex personnel by truck to vessels at Portsmouth, Southampton, and Newhaven. At Portsmouth, ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies embarked on HMS Prince Charles, while ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies and the battalion headquarters loaded onto HMS Prince Leopold at Southampton.42 A total of 455 Essex Scottish boarded these ships. Meanwhile
, two groups of thirty-five loaded onto two LCTs carrying tanks. Another three men would accompany the tanks from a third LCT slated to land a few minutes later.43

  Despite orders to clean weapons and load up with a heavy issue of ammunition before leaving camp, secrecy was so well maintained that “the men had no inkling” the raid was reborn. “There was no excitement evinced,” the regiment’s war diarist wrote.44

  Once aboard the two LSIs, junior officers and the other ranks were “informed that they were there for the purpose of attacking Dieppe.” Captain Don MacRae observed that this “announcement was greeted with high spirits and considerable eagerness to get on with the job. Pistols, Sten guns, ammunition, hand grenades and hand incendiaries were turned over to the unit and... issued to the appropriate personnel. New air photographs of Dieppe taken 16 August were made available and the troops got down to intensive study of the plan of attack. As most of the troops had been completely in the picture from the first attempt [Rutter] it was more or less a case of review. By 2300 hours... arrangements were all ready and the troops bedded down for some sleep.”45

  The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry’s 31 officers and 551 men had been alerted at 1400 hours that they were to parade in full battle order to meet twenty-eight three-ton lorries in just two hours. The column proceeded from Arundel Castle via Chichester to Southampton, a forty-two-mile journey. On a motorcycle, Captain Denis Whitaker guided the convoy as it rolled along at a steady fifteen miles per hour. No stops were permitted. Standing dockside was HMS Glengyle, the battalion’s Rutter vessel. Walking up the gangplank, Whitaker wondered if “Dieppe had been revived.” A few minutes later he learned that it had and that his platoon would be providing protection for the battalion headquarters.