Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  Despite this lapse, James was alerted to the convoy’s existence by coastal radar detection. He sent two warnings signals to Calpe—the first at 1327 hours and the second at 1444. Neither signal was received by Calpe.25 Both, however, reached Fernie—the secondary headquarters—but no action was taken, presumably because it was assumed that Calpe had received the signals. Nor was the signal forwarded to Slazak and Brocklesby, the two destroyers positioned to protect the flank towards which the convoy sailed.26

  Unaware that Group 5 was on a collision course with the German convoy, Commander Derek Wyburd aboard SGB5 (HMS Grey Owl) faced a litany of other problems. Group 5 was divided into two flotillas travelling side by side. A slight headwind had forced him to increase speed to 9.75 knots, which he realized “was just more than the [R-Boats] could make comfortably. A number of them dropped back, and at one time it was only possible to see 15 through binoculars and the order became slightly disorganized.”27 Twenty-three R-Boats had started out. Each carried about eighteen commandos, their fighting gear, and a limited amount of specialized equipment that included two bangalore torpedoes, a couple of 2-inch mortars, and a single 3-inch mortar. The R-Boats’ normal top cruising speed was 9.5 knots. Lacking sufficient fuel capacity to make the crossing and back, each boat carried sixteen two-gallon petrol cans for refuelling. Their crew consisted of four sailors, an officer, and three ratings. Armament was provided by either one or two 7.62-millimetre Lewis light machine guns.

  The pace proved too demanding for four of the R-Boats. Defeated by engine trouble, their crews turned about for Newhaven. The rest steamed on, ML346 doing its best to chivvy them into order and catch up to Grey Owl. ML346 was lightly armed with a 3-pounder gun and single 20-millimetre cannon. LCF(L)1 mounted twin 102-millimetre dual-purpose guns and three 20-millimetre Oerlikon rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns. One troop of commandos was on board, the intention being that they would land as a second wave on Yellow Beach I.28 Wyburd’s Grey Owl was more robustly armed. It mounted a 3-pounder gun amidships, two single 6-pounder guns in powered turrets (one each in bow and stern), two twin 20-millimetre Oerlikons in powered turrets either side of the bridge, and two 21-inch torpedo tubes abreast of the funnel.29 In addition to Wyburd and Grey Owl’s crew of three officers and twenty-four ratings, Lieutenant Colonel John Durnford-Slater, most of the commando’s signallers, several liaison officers, and the U.S. Ranger Captain Roy Murray were aboard. All told, the troops in Group 5 numbered 374, of which 325 were from No. 3 Commando. Forty were U.S. Rangers, five Free French were from No. 10 (Inter-Allied Commando), and an officer and three other ranks came from a special signals unit to establish a radio link with RAF No. 11 Fighter Group’s headquarters in Uxbridge.30

  Wyburd’s situation kept worsening. Not only were many R-Boats lost to sight but the SGB’s navigational system was “working erratically, and... I was not sure of my position to within three miles.” At 0345 hours, Wyburd could see only seventeen R-Boats. He could only hope the rest were nearby.

  Two minutes later, about seven miles off the French coast, Wyburd spotted a “shape... on the port bow.”31 A star shell arced into the sky. Sub-Lieutenant David Lewis, a Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) officer who was to serve as beach master on Yellow Beach, was aboard R-Boat15. To his starboard, the star shell “lit the whole fleet in a horrible quivering semi-daylight. Our boat was leading the starboard column. It was immediately enveloped in the hottest tracer fire I have ever seen. The air was filled with the whine of ricochets and the bangs of exploding shells. While after every burst of the streaking balls of fire came the clatter of Oerlikons.”

  The commandos aboard his boat “threw off their blankets, fumbled for tin hats and weapons. The flak was lying but a few feet ahead and a few astern. Some was right above us.” Everybody was shouting, “E-Boats,” thinking that they were under attack by German motor torpedo boats.

  Aboard R-Boat42, Sub-Lieutenant Clifford Davis Wallace of Montreal was shot in the back of the head and instantly killed, while Lieutenant Commander Charles L. Corke was badly wounded. A bullet punched through the windscreen and killed the coxswain. Corke ordered a commando to grab the wheel and steer towards the coast.32 Five other R-Boats followed. Corke, whose wound would prove fatal, guided the little party towards Yellow Beach I.33

  Wyburd initially thought the fire came from the covering destroyers, but quickly realized it was enemy fire. Mistakenly believing his fragile flotilla under attack by E-Boats, Wyburd fell back on a contingency plan and ordered Grey Owl to maintain course and speed with the intention of “fighting our way through.” To radically alter course would surely throw his already straggling formation into confusion and make an orderly landing impossible. For the next ten minutes, Grey Owl churned on at 9.5 knots in a straight line, presenting a main target to the Germans. “She was hit a very large number of times,” he wrote. “All guns were put out of action; all wireless sets were hit; boiler and engine room received several hits (there were five direct hits on the one boiler). Approximately 40% of those on board became casualties, although fortunately only one man was killed. At the end of this ten minutes it was evident that my plan to get through had failed. SGB5 can only be described as in a shambles.” Realizing most of the R-Boats had scattered, Wyburd ordered Grey Owl turned away from the enemy and limped off at 5 knots, with five landing craft tagging along.34 As all navigational equipment had been shot away, Wyburd had no idea of his precise location. He told Durnford-Slater, who had been slightly wounded by shell splinters, that there was little chance they could find the beach. Even if they did, it would be after daylight. Durnford-Slater looked out at the R-Boats and judged he had about sixty men there and possibly two boatloads of signallers and other people on board Grey Owl. The two officers decided, Durnford-Slater wrote, “to proceed towards the beaches of Dieppe to report to the Force Commander, as a daylight landing from R-Boats with the very limited force available and no naval support was not considered practicable.”35 En route to Dieppe, Grey Owl lost power. Durnford-Slater and Wyburd transferred to an R-Boat and carried on, instructing the other four to tow Grey Owl back to Newhaven.36

  As they set off, Wyburd saw LCF1 still “energetically continuing the action.”37 Under command of Australian lieutenant F.M. Foggitt, LCF1 slashed away at the German craft with heavy gunfire that left UJ-1404 burning. Despite all the officers and many of the crew of LCF1 being wounded, she continued fighting until 0450 hours. Realizing that Zero Hour for the landings was nigh, Foggitt steered clear of the action and, with three R-Boats trailing behind, sailed towards Dieppe. Lieutenant Alexander Fear’s ML346 had also kept fighting, partly due to his confused attempts to marry up with either Grey Owl or LCF1. Each time Fear closed on what he took to be one of these ships, it proved to be a German sub-chaser. Finally, he broke off the engagement, linked up with the six R-Boats under Corke’s command, and guided them towards Yellow Beach I.

  The swirl of vessels caught in the surreal light of star shells had left the Germans equally confused. UJ-4014’s captain had initially believed this was just “one of the usual [speed]-boat skirmishes” common to Channel actions. All the R-Boats dashing every which way were misidentified as being British motor torpedo boats. “Then UJ-4014 brought under fire a clearly visible target that was a long, rather heavily armed vessel. A noticeable feature was that this vessel had its bridge superstructure very far aft.” He was engaging LCF1.

  In the fury of the moment, both sides overestimated the destruction they caused. Lieutenant Foggitt claimed not only UJ-1404 sunk but possibly also two other small armed trawlers. The German convoy commander reported exchanging fire with “numerous gun boats and E-boats.” At least two enemy boats, he said, were engaged with “rapid fire from all weapons” and sank after exploding. He also reported ramming a large landing craft with about fifty troops aboard and seeing “many of the embarked soldiers down in the propeller wake” of his rampaging ship. It is probable this was a
ctually the R-Boat being driven by commando Corporal Tom Gerrard, who was steering it while lying prone. Seeing a German boat steaming towards him with obvious intent to ram, Gerrard managed to jam the boat into reverse and narrowly avoided the collision.

  In fact, no R-Boats were sunk. Although only seven continued towards the Yellow Beaches, the others all remained afloat. Badly scattered, some with naval crew all dead or wounded, each made its way to safety. Some headed west to be picked up by ships of the main raiding force. When a shell killed the naval crew aboard his R-Boat, Sergeant Clive Collins took the helm. The craft’s compass was shattered, so he sailed for England by guiding on a prismatic pocket compass and limped into Newhaven harbour at 1000 hours.38

  R-Boat15, commanded by Lieutenant H.T. “Henry” Buckee, meanwhile, had initially sought cover under Grey Owl’s stern. But he and Sub-Lieutenant Lewis knew their orders “were to land the troops at all costs or the operations would be a bloody failure. At full speed we tore away from the lashing beams of flak. Another star shell went off on our port side, but it was distant. Still unhit, except by shrapnel,” the boat “belted all alone for the French coast.”

  Crouching as low as they could, none of the commandos aboard were hit, despite the fact that Major Peter Young, their commander, saw that the “canopy... was full of holes.” As soon as the R-Boat was clear of the German fire, Young saw that “we were now alone.” Buckee, who believed Grey Owl to be disabled and floating adrift, said that undoubtedly some of the others would find the beaches despite Wyburd being unable to guide them in.39 It was 0420 hours, and thirty minutes before the commandos were to land. The coast ahead “was perfectly quiet in spite of all this firing at sea.” Buckee and Young agreed they should try to find Yellow Beach II. They hoped to “fall in with other... boats scattered during the fighting, but none came.”40 Locating the beach proved fairly easy, as the lighthouse near Dieppe still flashed its beam seaward. By that light they were able to see “the cliffs quite clearly and a black patch which Buckee said was the gully at Yellow [II]. I thought it was Yellow I, but Buckee insisted that he was right.”

  The two men kept pondering what to do, with Lewis listening in. “It seemed suicidal to go ashore. But they must,” Young and Buckee agreed. “It might mean the loss of twenty men. But who could tell how many would be lost if they did not keep the six-inch batteries on the cliff above Berneval from firing at our heavy ships.”41

  “There you are,” Buckee said. “There’s your beach.”

  “What do we do now?” Young asked.

  “My orders are to land even if there’s only one boat.”

  Young was not about to show timidity. After quickly conferring with his second-in-command, Captain John Selwyn, he said, “Those are my orders too. We are to land whatever happens, even if we have to swim.” Buckee offered to land his sailors to bolster the small party, but Young refused. He also told Buckee to flee if the R-Boat was fired upon. The commandos would withdraw overland to join the Canadians at Dieppe.42

  The sudden flurry of tracer fire east of the main fleet confused everybody aboard Calpe. Someone shouted that it was the Polish destroyer firing. Red and green tracer rose lazily into the air, accompanied by the “sharp bark” of anti-aircraft guns firing. “It was a beautiful display of fireworks... They flamed incredible distances across the sky and then melted into the darkness.” A radar station had mistaken the ships for aircraft, somebody else declared. “They haven’t spotted us.”43

  On Fernie, Brigadier Church Mann thought he had “ring side seats for a considerable naval battle about two miles to the north east... It was like watching a demonstration of tracer firing punctuated with the flash and crash of [4-inch] guns from both sides and although it was a thrilling and spectacular display, it filled us with foreboding as we all realized that the chance of our effecting surprise was greatly diminished.”44

  Most everyone in the Dieppe raiding force thought that the element of surprise was lost. Yet 302nd Infantry Division issued no alarm or orders for defences to be manned. This was largely due to the German convoy commander’s failure to recognize that he had encountered more than a normal coastal interception force, which he reported to Naval Group Command West. Not until 0545, long after it no longer mattered, did the naval command pass a signal to OB West that at “0450 [hours] our convoy attacked by surface craft 4 km off Dieppe. No further details yet available. In the opinion of Naval Group Command customary attack on convoy.”45

  Even later, with the Dieppe raid under way, Fifteenth Army headquarters reported to OB West it had received a report from LXXXI Corps headquarters that “English fast units attacked our convoy at 0500 hrs 20 km off Dieppe. Troops in higher state of alert, Navy and Air Force have been informed.” In a lengthy after-action report on the raid, Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt noted, “As appeared later, this convoy had run into the first wave of English landing craft and partly upset the time plan and beaching of the English, having at least the effect of delaying them.”46

  The Dieppe port commandant was alerted by signallers at 0450 hours that “a naval engagement was in progress about 4 nautical miles on the bearing of 352 [degrees].” He passed the report to the naval signals officer at Le Havre and also the Luftwaffe local Air Reporting Centre. “It was assumed that [the engagement] was a matter of a fight between the expected convoy... and enemy naval forces.” The commandant ordered only that it be further observed, even though the “fighting was more severe than normal.” No further action was taken beyond noting that the engagement seemed to “terminate towards 0525 hours.” The three harbour protection boats standing offshore of Dieppe were neither recalled nor warned to be extra vigilant. Tugboat 32 also stood outside Dieppe harbour. A pilot aboard waited to guide the convoy into dock.47

  More locally, the offshore engagement did alert a field picket at Berneval, which reported hearing the naval battle at 0345 hours. Two minutes later, the Luftwaffe crew at the radar station on the eastern edge of Berneval manned their points of resistance, which overlooked Yellow I. These actions were reported to 302nd divisional headquarters, which merely logged them as part of an escalating number of reports that some naval action was occurring. “The divisional order for all troops to move to action stations was not issued until 0501 hours, by which time landing craft had been sighted off both Pourville and Puys some thirty minutes earlier. The 571st Infantry Regiment reacted only a minute earlier, as British troops were seen landing at Pourville. [In the division’s log, all times are given an hour later than recorded here. There was a one-hour difference in British and German time-keeping practices. For simplicity, British times are given.]”48

  As the Canadian Army official historian later wrote: “All in all, we seem forced to the conclusion that the convoy encounter did not result in a general loss of the element of surprise. It did seriously impair our chances of success in the eastern sector off which the fight took place. To this extent it had an effect upon the operation as a whole.” But he was unable to accurately assess how or to what degree.

  For his part, Hughes-Hallett decided he must assume that the operation was compromised. Reynolds watched as he discussed the situation via talking tube with Roberts, who remained below. He struck Reynolds as being icily calm.49 But his mind raced. It seemed obvious that Group 5 had become mixed up in some firefight. But why had Wyburd not broken radio silence and reported?

  Why, too, had the destroyers Slazak and Brocklesby not joined the fight? No guns heavier than their 4-inchers had been fired. The senior destroyer commander was the Polish Captain Romuald Tyminski. Although he had seen guns firing five miles distant, no enemy ships were detected by his radar. Consequently, Tyminski decided No. 5 Group was being fired on by shore batteries. To investigate would only betray the destroyers’ presence to the enemy, so he ordered them to maintain their patrol track. As a result it was not until 0500 hours that the vessels passed the area where the engagement had
occurred. Thirty minutes later, Brocklesby encountered the still-burning UJ-1404, sank her with shellfire, and rescued twenty-five German sailors.

  Hughes-Hallett later declared Tyminski’s decision an “error of judgement,” because “the sole reason for his patrol was to provide support for vessels engaged in the landing in the event of a contingency such as this.” Tyminski’s failure to rush towards the fight convinced Hughes-Hallett that all detached naval units during combined operations should thereafter be under command of British naval officers.50

  At the time, however, Hughes-Hallett’s thoughts were focused on what to do now that surprise seemed lost. Should he abort the raid? Could he do so when landing craft were already moving towards the beaches, particularly those of No. 4 Commando bound for the Orange Beaches near Varengeville? In England, such a brush between a coastal convoy and unknown vessels would likely result in coastal defence batteries being put on alert but not the infantry battalions charged with beach defences. Hughes-Hallett decided to leave the raid in play, gambling that the Germans defending the beaches would not be alerted.51 This irrevocable decision taken, the raid on Dieppe continued.

  Part Three | The Raid

  13. Good Luck to All of You

  Lieutenant colonel Bob Labatt blinked rapidly as a light flashed on in the captain’s cabin of Glengyle at 0200 hours. The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry commander had been vainly trying to sleep for a few hours. “Breakfast in ten minutes,” the steward said. “Captain won’t be there.” An “enormous waxed paper packet of white bread sandwiches” went into Labatt’s haversack. “No need to fight on an empty stomach, sir, and I’ve put in something extra to eat on the way home. Weather’s fine.”