Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  Unlike the Camerons, the Rileys had experience with Sten guns from Rutter training. They had found the Sten “recalcitrant” and easily jammed by the protruding rivets. Filing these down had rendered them more reliable. When Rutter ended, the Rileys had turned in these guns and now “glared helplessly at their replacements... still in crates, packed in heavy grease.” There was no way, working in darkness, to adequately prepare them in time for the landings. Whitaker had another concern. About 5 to 10 per cent of the men were new reinforcements. They were going into an amphibious assault with no training.46

  They also had a stowaway. Padre Captain John Foote “just packed up and went along with the rest of them,” despite orders that chaplains were to remain behind. “I always intended to go. From the time I went into the army, whatever the men were doing I did. I don’t think I would have been a very popular padre if I had stayed on shore and greeted them when they came back.”47

  Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal arrived at Shoreham at 1600 hours on August 18. Instead of immediately boarding their small landing craft, the men were assembled in a requisitioned schoolhouse by Lieutenant Colonel Joe Ménard, who informed them that the raid was on. Then Padre Major Armand Sabourin gave absolution and led them in prayer. At 1645, companies gathered in separate classrooms and were briefed by their commanders. Padre Sabourin then administered communion and said “au revoir.”48 Dinner was served on white tablecloths, with Wrens serving as waitresses. How all this was orchestrated was never detailed, but this lavish send-off certainly contrasted with the boarding procedures of the other battalions. Ménard and his quartermasters ran things their own way and often off regulation. Private Ray Geoffrion later recalled it “as a most delicious meal.” The men boarded their LCAs and LCMs singing.49

  The Royal Regiment of Canada moved in three groups to three ports. To bolster this regiment’s strength, three Black Watch platoons and a mortar detachment were attached. Together, the Royals and Black Watch comprised the full strength that would attack Puys.50

  At Southampton, the Black Watch troops boarded the HMS Duke of Wellington. After Private Harry Smith primed a grenade, he put it aside to take an issue of forks and spoons. Picking up the same grenade, he tried priming it again.51 This set the fuse burning. When he tried to chuck it out an open porthole, the grenade struck the bulkhead and bounced back.52 In the ensuing explosion twenty-six-year-old Private Emile Phillipe Williams was killed.53 Eighteen other men were wounded.54

  Canadian Press correspondent Ross Munro boarded the LSI Queen Emma at 1900 hours. He was one of a score of Canadian, British, and American journalists scattered throughout the ships. Munro thought that few of the Royals he found aboard seemed to be “in as confident a mood” as they had been during preparations for Rutter. “The rush to the port and the mass of detail, which had to be crammed again in a few hours, left everyone rather ragged.” A lot of officers seemed “puzzled” as to “why the raid had been decided upon so suddenly. They would have liked more time to adjust themselves.” Munro agreed. Going over the aerial photographs, studying the maps, and reading the plan details, Munro was surprised how much he had forgotten. “I found misgivings growing in my mind. This seemed somewhat haphazard, compared with the serene way in which the cancelled raid was mounted.”55

  At 1600 hours, the man most responsible for how Operation Jubilee was coming together had risen from a long nap. Captain John Hughes-Hallett then met the other two force commanders, Major General Ham Roberts and Vice-Air Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, in an office at Fort Southwick. The Portsmouth admiral Sir William James and Mountbatten were also in attendance.

  It was the moment of truth. Weather forecasts remained dubious. Admiralty and Air Ministry meteorologists, Captain John Hughes-Hallett thought, “were every bit as gloomy as the Old Testament Prophets.” But Hughes-Hallett and Leigh-Mallory “pressed hard for a decision to sail that evening.” They argued that the meteorological officer at the Fleet Air Arm base at Lee-on-Solent, Lieutenant Ronald Bell, offered a differing forecast. Considered an expert on local weather, Bell predicted “a pocket of fine weather in the central channel... that would last until the late afternoon of August 19.” Although Bell was alone in this prediction, Hughes-Hallett chose to believe him. Leigh-Mallory said Bell’s forecasts could be trusted. After some discussion, all agreed that Operation Jubilee would proceed.

  Just before Hughes-Hallett left Fort Southwick, he received a last message from the Admiralty director of operations “begging me not to sail... on account of the weather. However, the die was cast, and... General [Roberts] and I, with our respective staffs, embarked in HMS Calpe at 7:45 p.m. August 18 and sailed at 8 p.m. It was a perfect evening.”56

  As Calpe put to sea, Lieutenant General Harry Crerar signalled Roberts from Canadian Army headquarters. Roberts received the message standing next to Hughes-Hallett on the bridge. “Good luck and give him the works,” Crerar said. Roberts replied, “Thanks, we will.”57

  12. The Most Remarkable Thing

  This is rather a historic occasion,” Captain John Hughes-Hallett told Collier’s Weekly correspondent Quentin Reynolds on HMS Calpe’s bridge. “This is the greatest invasion of its kind ever attempted in modern warfare. We have every type of smaller ship with us from transports to motor-torpedo boats.” In the gathering gloom of nightfall, Reynolds saw boats “as far as the eye could pierce... There were fat transports, heavy bellied, with the small invasion barges which were on their decks, behind protruding coverings of protective burlap. There were the long tank landing craft, low in the water, and occasionally the sleek form of a destroyer slithered by on its way to her post.”1

  A total of 245 vessels had departed from five different ports. On board were about 6,100 soldiers. Of these, 4,963 were Canadian and about 1,075 British. There were also 50 U.S. Rangers and 20 men of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando, 15 of these being French and the other 5 German anti-Nazis.2

  Reynolds was the only journalist aboard Calpe, a plum posting granted personally by Mountbatten. Such was Reynolds’s level of access that Hughes-Hallett presented him with a copy of the entire Jubilee plan before shooing him below because the bridge was too crowded. “I was the luckiest guy in the world... This script was foolproof; it couldn’t miss. And what a show it would be! In addition to the show I’d see, I even knew now what the rest of the audience didn’t know, and wouldn’t know. I knew all of the offstage directions.”3

  As Reynolds poured over the plan, Calpe led one group of vessels through the most southwesterly of the passages cleared of mines by the 9th and 13th Minesweeping Flotillas. Each flotilla’s eight minesweepers had slipped away from the English coast just before midnight. By 0051 hours, the two lanes were cleared and their flanks marked with lighted buoys.4

  When Reynolds visited the wardroom, he found Major General Ham Roberts relaxing in the company of Air Commodore Adrian Trevor Cole, “a lean and affable Australian.” The forty-seven-year-old Cole represented Vice Air-Marshal Trafford.5

  Reynolds was surprised at how calm the officers were. “The tension had gone, and we all had a drink and, except for the uniforms, this might have been the smoking room of a small ocean liner and we a group of business men on a holiday... Roberts was not a general who stood too much on dignity. Like a good soldier he was relaxed now. Tomorrow would be a tough day, but to worry about it now would only be to borrow trouble. The entire plan was made. Now Roberts only had to carry it out and his part in the program would not begin until just before daybreak.”

  Much to the journalist’s surprise, Roberts asked if he would like to join him on the beach at about 0830 hours “if things are going according to plan.” To “actually set foot on enemy soil would be the best story of all,” Reynolds thought, and he quickly accepted.6

  Soon Reynolds rejoined Hughes-Hallett and Commander David Luce on the bridge. Reynolds asked what it felt like to command this great fleet. The two men “agreed... that th
e experience of literally watching hundreds of ships and craft as far as the eye could see wherever we looked, and knowing that all were under our command and committed to the greatest amphibious operation since Gallipoli, had a certain dream-like quality.”7

  Mustering so many vessels capable of greatly differing top speeds and manoeuvrability required a complex timetable, with vessels sailing at different times and following various routes in order to reach their assigned passage through the minefield on schedule and in the right order. Although the craft carrying troops were organized into thirteen groups, most of the supporting destroyers and gunboats operated independently. Given their speed and agility, the destroyers were both protecting the groups and acting as shepherds to keep them on course and schedule.8

  Each group had at least one protective support ship. Landing Craft Flak, Large 6, for example, escorted a group of LCTs. The LCFs were LCTs converted into floating gun platforms by anchoring top decks onto their sides. They literally bristled with gun turrets, mounting four double 2-pounder guns and ten double-barrelled 20-millimetre Oerlikons. In addition to firing against enemy aircraft, the 2-pounders could be directed against naval or land targets. The LCFs had a normal complement of sixteen sailors and sixty marines, the latter manning the guns. Lieutenant W.K. Rogers commanded the marine contingent on LCF6, which had arrived off Newhaven at 2000 hours to meet up with its LCT group. During the two hours spent cruising off the harbour while awaiting the appearance of the LCTs, Rogers briefed his marines that their job this night was to escort a raiding force to Dieppe. “There was a spontaneous cheer!” he wrote.

  The LCF would also serve as an amphibious field-dressing station during the raid. A medical officer and two stretcher-bearers were aboard. They had brought with them a large stock of stretchers and cases of medical supplies.

  It was almost dark before Rogers saw the LCTs emerge out of the murky gloom of Newhaven harbour. The LCF’s commander flashed a light signalling the LCTs to form on him. Then LCF6 led the group off. Rogers detailed half his marines to be on duty at any given time; the other half were allowed to sleep “on deck around their guns.” As the group entered its assigned minefield passage, he noted how well it was marked by the buoy lights.9

  Calpe had lingered outside Portsmouth harbour until Hughes-Hallett was certain the main units were away. Then the destroyer dashed at full speed to take the van. Calpe led four other destroyers and the LSIs towards the western passage. The duplicate headquarters ship, HMS Fernie, guided the landing craft groups and LCTs through the eastern channel.10 Once Calpe was out front, its speed was cut to eighteen knots. “I felt a deep sense of relief that at last the entire force was safely at sea, and without apparently having been detected.” Lying down in the captain’s sea cabin, Hughes-Hallett reflected “that perhaps the most remarkable thing about the operation was that it had actually been launched despite so much obstruction and so much frustration that had dogged Combined Operations since early April 1942.”11

  Aboard Queen Emma with Royal Regiment’s headquarters and two rifle companies, correspondent Ross Munro also pondered the extraordinary fact of the raid’s remounting, which left him “confused and baffled.” Munro joined the officers in the wardroom for dinner “as the last sunshine poured through the open portholes.” The food was good, and the Royals “were in good spirits... Looking around the table you would never have thought that they were facing the biggest test of their lives. They joked and bantered across the tables and renewed old friendships with the naval officers whom they had known in ‘practice Dieppe’ training days.”

  Dinner over, Lieutenant Colonel Doug Catto spread maps, photos, and orders across a table illuminated by a “weird blue blackout light.” He and the company commanders worked through everything, ensuring each knew his appointed role. “In every cabin on the ship other officers were running over their orders and scanning their maps once again. It was the same on the troop decks. Platoon commanders, company commanders, sergeants, corporals, and privates were going over the details of the plan and their part in the attack.

  “Weapons and ammunition were checked and then the soldiers just lay down on the decks or on their own kit and dozed. Through the darkness the Queen Emma pounded to the rendezvous with the other ships of the fleet.”12

  Back on Calpe’s bridge, Hughes-Hallett thought Queen Emma was actually “proceeding at an excessive speed.” So fast, in fact, that Calpe and the other destroyers had to race to catch up. At 0016 hours, Calpe pulled abeam of the charging LSI and flashed a signal to her commander, Captain G.L.D. Gibbs, “that she was ahead of station and instructing her to reduce to 18 knots.” The destroyers then lined up to enter the western passage. Hughes-Hallett began fretting they were off course, but just two minutes before Calpe was to enter the passageway, the navigator spotted the buoys and motor launch marking the entrance. The destroyers sailed smoothly into the passage.13

  Not so the Queen Emma. With Prince Albert, Princess Beatrix, Invicta, and Princess Astrid all doggedly following, she set off on her own heading and plunged into the eastern passageway—racing past the groups of LCTs and landing craft already in the passage. Nobody aboard the Queen Emma contingent realized they were off course. Ross Munro “could vaguely distinguish ships around us” as he was carried through the minefield.14

  Finally, Queen Emma and the other LSIs passed the destroyer Fernie just as it emerged from the passage. Calpe, meanwhile, had stopped just beyond the minefield and was able to get Gibbs’s attention with a signal lamp. Once the wayward ships were back on station, Hughes-Hallett sent them off under the protective and navigational watch of the destroyers towards their landing craft launch points about ten miles from the coast. Calpe lingered at the passageway exit until Group 4, consisting of HMS Glengyle escorted by the destroyer Brocklesby and Polish destroyer Slazak, emerged at 0210 hours. Joining this group, Calpe proceeded to Glengyle’s drop point.15

  Queen Emma’s captain was not the only one to lose his way. The gunboat Locust, unable to keep up with her assigned LSIs, lost contact shortly after leaving Portsmouth. Accompanied by ML291, Locust was unable to locate either passageway. Resorting to dead reckoning, Commander Red Ryder sailed directly into the minefield on a bearing aimed at bringing him to where Glengyle was to discharge her landing craft.16 That neither craft struck a mine was later credited to their shallow draft.17

  Aboard Calpe, an officer on the bridge pointed to where a lighthouse’s beam flashed. Good news, he told Reynolds. The lighthouse would not be operating if the Germans knew of the raid, because it provided a perfect marker against which the ships could check their locations.18

  Everything seemed to be unfolding as planned. The LSIs and other groups of landing craft were all in position and on time to begin the final runs towards the beaches. By 0305, the troops from the LSIs were aboard the LCAs and LCMs and had been lowered to the sea. At 0340 hours, six flotillas of landing craft would lead the way towards the beaches. MGB312 and SBG9 were protecting the No. 4 Commando LCAs, bound for Orange Beach I and II. The South Saskatchewan Regiment’s LCAs and LCMs, heading for Green Beach at Pourville, were guarded by MGB317 and SGB6. The Royals bound for White Beach at Dieppe were watched over by MGB326, while ML291 supported the Essex Scottish headed for adjacent Red Beach. Those Royals moving towards Blue Beach at Puys were under care of MGB316 and SGB8. On the far-eastern flank, No. 3 Commando’s R-Boats headed in with SGB5, ML346, and LCF(L)1 supporting.

  Not far behind the assault formations, the flotilla of LCAs bearing the Royal Marine contingent from Duke of Wellington was inbound—absent the delayed Locust and accompanying ML291. Following even farther behind and separated by several miles were the LCT formations bearing the Calgary Tanks and engineers towards White and Red Beaches, the LCAs and LCMs carrying the Camerons towards Green Beach, and the sloop Alresford accompanied by the seven French chasseurs headed for Dieppe’s harbour. The destroyers Garth, Bleasdale, Albrighton, and
Berkeley swept out to the westward flank to guard against possible attack by enemy ships from that direction, while Slazak and Brocklesby did the same to the east.19

  Aboard Queen Emma, the Royals had climbed into their landing craft, with Munro boarding one of the large LCMs. “Nobody spoke. Silence was the strict order but as our boat... jammed with about 80 soldiers, pushed off from the Emma, a veteran sailor leaned over and in a stage whisper said: ‘Cheerio, lads, all the best; give the bastards a walloping.’ Then we were drifting off into the darkness and our coxswain peered through the night to link up with the rest of our assault flotilla... Eyes were accustomed to the darkness now and we could discern practically all our little craft; the sea was glossy with starlight.

  “The boats plunged along, curling up white foam at their bows and leaving a phosphorescent wake that stood out like diamonds on black velvet.”20

  To the east, the darkness suddenly shattered “brilliantly in a riot of dazzling green and bright-red streaks that arched the sky, flashing vividly against the black velvet of the night.” On Calpe, Hughes-Hallett and Reynolds stood on the bridge “stunned. These were tracer bullets, hundreds of them, and they came from our left. What had happened? To the left were the Royals and No. 3 Commando. Were they the targets?”21

  Thirty minutes after Group 5, bearing No. 3 Commando, had departed Newhaven at 2030 hours, a small German convoy left Boulogne for Dieppe. It consisted of five coastal freighters protected by two sub-chasers, UJ-1411 and UJ-1404, and Motor Launch 4014. UJ-1411 was commanded by Oberleutnant S. Wurmbach, the convoy leader.22 His vessel was a converted 331-ton whaler built in 1936.23 Capable of twelve knots, it mounted a 37-millimetre dual-purpose gun, four 20-millimetre cannons, and several 12.7-millimetre machine guns. UJ-1404, a converted deep-sea trawler, was similarly armed. The convoy proceeded at a leisurely six knots. Although its sailing had been detected by an Ultra signal intercept that was deciphered by 0316, Portsmouth’s naval commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir William James, was not informed.24