Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  After Selwyn’s party left, Young began disengaging his small force. As they withdrew towards the cliff, Germans manning a flat-topped concrete observation post opened fire with a machine gun. The commando’s Bren gunner shot back at a range of five hundred yards, and two Germans on the roof “vanished.” Three Verey lights soared up from Yellow II Beach, and Young’s men hurried back, “wriggling the first few yards for we were under fire... Two or three riflemen followed us at a respectful distance and another sniped at us from the Dieppe side of the gully.”14

  Selwyn had found LCP15 lingering just off the beach. Buckee had held close by, despite occasional bursts of machine-gun fire from the heights. Now seeing four men on the beach, Buckee and Sub-Lieutenant David Lewis were uncertain whether they were commandos or Germans. Buckee decided to go in anyway. Only as the R-Boat grounded did Lewis recognize them as commandos. The tide had ebbed, leaving the beach “very badly ribbed with rocks,” he wrote. “We pulled several men in over the side and the boat seemed to stick fast fore and aft.”15

  Young’s commandos streamed onto the beach and piled aboard. Scrambling down the gully, the lance corporal in charge of the 3-inch mortar tripped a mine. He was moving so fast the blast failed to tear away his foot, but fragments lacerated his ankle. Hobbling onto the beach, he hastily set up the 3-inch mortar there. Chucking out rounds, he covered the withdrawal of the rest until he ran out of ammunition. The mortar crew then dragged the weapon out to the boat.16

  Its 126-pound weight rendered the R-Boat truly stuck. Buckee ordered the commandos to throw it and most of their guns overboard to lighten the load. Snipers were shooting downward from the cliffs into the boat. The coxswain cried out as a bullet pierced his leg. Other bullets tore through the overhead cover, and the fuel tank was holed eight times. Lewis realized the commandos “were fagged out” by the long run to the beach. He alternated between firing a rifle at the snipers and hauling exhausted men over the gunwale.17 Three commandos remained on the beach covering the descent down the gully of Young and Ruxton, who had covered the retreat of the others. Buckee started cursing at the three to get aboard.

  Young, Ruxton, and the Bren gunner dashed into the water, grabbing hold of lines cast out behind the retreating R-Boat. Three hundred yards from shore, Buckee paused so they could be dragged aboard. Bullets showered around the boat, but few struck home. Someone grabbed the Bren gun and fired at the cliffs. Ruxton fetched up a rifle and joined in. The gun battery punched out shells “still at a slow rate and wide.”18 LCP15 gunned away, streaming covering smoke. Lewis was amazed that they had recovered “every man we put ashore.”19 The R-Boat joined ML346, and the two craft made for Newhaven. It was o820 hours. No further sounds of fighting came from Yellow I Beach.20 Major Young and Lieutenant Buckee were both awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Although unable to silence the coastal battery, the attack by Young’s intrepid band threw the battery’s garrison into disarray, and for the duration of the raid the battery fired only occasionally and without effect.

  Having fought their way into Petit Berneval by 0700 hours, the commandos from Yellow I Beach had been halted by the arrival of 3rd Company of 570th Infantry Regiment. More Germans, consisting of the division’s Cyclist Squadron and 302nd Engineer Battalion’s 3rd Company, were rapidly closing from the south. The engineers were in trucks and under orders to “overthrow enemy landed near Berneval.”21

  The commandos quickly broke into small groups to escape the intense fire, and Captain Geoffrey Osmond realized they would never reach the battery. Withdrawing to the beach was the only option.

  Machine-gun fire pinned nineteen-year-old American ranger Lieutenant Edwin Loustalot and a small clutch of commandos close to the path leading to the beach. The German gun covered a wide field between the commandos and the path. To escape, the gun must be silenced. Standing, Loustalot signalled the commandos to follow him. He charged the gun, binoculars slung around his neck bouncing wildly. Several commandos followed, firing from the hip. Suddenly, a long burst slammed into Loustalot, and he dropped. Two more commandos also fell dead or wounded. But the commandos’ fire caused the German gun to quiet abruptly.

  When one commando checked Loustalot, he found the man’s midsection drenched in blood, the binoculars smashed by bullets, and the officer clearly dead. Loustalot was the first American soldier killed in the European land war. The commandos ran for the gully. Ranger Walter Bresnahan hesitated, dropping to a knee beside the fallen officer. Then a fresh rattle of German gunfire nearby sent him scurrying for the beach.

  Two rangers, Private Edwin Furru and Sergeant Albert Jacobson, encountered each other descending the gully. Twenty feet short of the beach they paused and shared a cigarette, then walked out onto the gravel and saw three stranded R-Boats. The two Americans ran for the cover of a cave in the cliff face. About a dozen men already hunkered in its cover, staring seaward and hoping for the arrival of the other two boats. It was about 0800. There would be no rescue.22

  An hour earlier, responding to a white Verey light that was the pre-arranged signal for withdrawal, Lieutenant Dennis Stephens had led the R-Boats in. It was low tide, and the boats weaved through a network of iron stakes driven into the seabed to create obstacles for any boat landing. LCP157 was first ashore, its crew finding only the two-man naval beach party, which had spent the last two hours “at the base of the cliff avoiding grenades which were lobbed over at them from the top of the cliff.” A coastal gun battery shell had also punched into the cliff about forty feet above their heads and “covered them with debris.”23 Taking the two men aboard, LCP157 began backing away, only to be impaled on an iron stake. LCP1 attempted to help and grounded on the rocky beach. When the coxswain managed to wrest it free, he steered well out to sea. Meanwhile, LCP85 came alongside LCP157 to lift its crew and the beach party. German gunfire quickly set the abandoned boat on fire. The crew of LCP81, badly holed during the earlier sea battle, was also taken off and the boat was left to sink. Exposed by the ebbing tide from its earlier watery grave, LCP42 still held the bodies of Lieutenant Commander Corke and a couple of other naval personnel. After lingering offshore under fire until 0730 hours, Stephens assumed the commando force lost and headed the two remaining R-Boats for England.

  Seeing the three lost boats, the commandos realized their situation was dire. With bayonets, they pinned a Union Jack—to have been raised over the captured gun battery—to the cliff face, hoping that naval forces offshore would come to investigate. Discovering that the beach party had left its wireless set behind, a commando tried raising friendly forces, but the set was hit by gunfire. To escape the German fire and grenades showering the beach, everyone crowded into small caves. Hundreds of Germans lined the cliff face, chucking grenades or shooting. Others could be heard descending the gully. When these were twenty yards from the beach, Captain Osmond ordered a surrender.24 Some men tried to creep away along the beach, but the Germans had it covered with machine guns. Lieutenant W. Druce tried this and ended up hiding with about twenty-two men in a cave until a patrol found them at 1500 hours. Druce surrendered the group, some of whom were wounded.25

  Thirteen of the 117 troops landed at Yellow I were killed in the fighting, another eleven were missing and believed dead, and six died later of wounds. The rest were taken prisoner. In addition to Lieutenant Loustalot, one other fatality was not a member of No. 3 Commando. This was French Sergeant S. Moutalier of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando.26 The only man to escape was Corporal Alexander Sinclair, who swam out to sea and was eventually rescued by a passing Allied ship.27

  14. Smash and Grab

  Aboard HMS Prince Albert, No. 4 Commando’s 252 men had by 0300 hours finished eating and making final preparations for the raid on Hess Battery, which stood to the southwest of Varengeville-sur-Mer. Thirty-four-year-old Major Derek Mills-Roberts, commanding the party bound for Orange I Beach, noted his men’s “quiet concentration” as they readied ammunition, cleaned we
apons, applied greasepaint to hands and faces, and donned the woollen caps this commando wore instead of helmets. The battle was expected to be short, so “it was all weapons and ammunition with no trimmings.”1 Just before boarding the landing craft, they crowded into the wardroom to hear Lieutenant Colonel Lord Lovat’s final words. Disliking greasepaint, Lovat had the only unblackened face. He wore an old beloved sweater with his name stitched across it and comfortable corduroy pants. His favoured Winchester repeater sporting rifle—with which he was deadly accurate—was slung over a shoulder.2

  They embarked, he said, on an “operation of prime importance.” If the guns were not destroyed, “the battery would wreak havoc among the ships of the main convoy.” Lovat reminded them that “the German soldier was not at his best at night, and that here lay our advantage in the first part of the operation.”

  Orange I Beach was a little sixty-yard-wide stretch directly below the headland on which the gun battery was situated about a half mile inland. After the briefing, Lovat took Mills-Roberts aside. “D’you think you’ll find your crack in the cliffs, Derek?”

  “Yes,” Mills-Roberts replied. “No need to worry.” Mills-Roberts was actually very worried about finding this small target in the dark.3 He could only trust in the navigational skill of the boat commander, a man he trusted, Lieutenant Commander Hugh Mulleneux. Aboard MGB312, Mulleneux would guide the entire force to a point two miles off the coast. The LCMs would then split. Three landing craft carrying eighty-eight men under Mills-Roberts would head for Orange I behind Mulleneux. In four other LCMs, Lovat and 164 men would run into Orange II supported by Lieutenant Peter Scott’s SGB9 (HMS Grey Goose). Orange II was larger—about three hundred yards wide. It lay just east of Quiberville, next to the River Saane’s mouth. Lovat’s force would advance along the river’s eastern bank for about a mile before cutting cross-country a mile and a half to attack the battery from the south.

  Five U.S. Rangers and two Free French commandos had joined No. 4 Commando. One French commando accompanied each party as a guide and translator. Two rangers were bound for Orange I, the other three Orange II. At 0330 hours, Corporal Frank Koons climbed into an LCM destined for Orange I. The soft-spoken Iowa native rechecked his weapons—rifle, 260 rounds, three No. 36 grenades, and a smoke grenade.4

  The boats were loaded well beyond “stipulated weight” due to all the munitions—particularly mortar rounds—and explosives. Mills-Roberts worried that the davits might jam while lowering the LCMs, but the convoy was soon afloat and away. Prince Albert turned sharply about and made for England. All the LSIs were racing to gain harbour before dawn exposed them to the Luftwaffe.5

  “The sea was a little choppy and it was very dark,” Koons wrote. “We moved off at once and everything was so comfortable that I fell asleep... and dozed... till some spray... woke me up.”6 Mills-Roberts napped too until wakened by the sound of gunfire and tracer flash well off to the left. It was about 0350 hours, and he realized some part of the raiding force had been discovered.7

  Almost dead ahead, a light flashed three times and again twenty seconds later. After five minutes, the light ceased, only to start up with rhythmic regularity five minutes later. Mulleneux realized the beam of light originated from the eighty-foot-high octagonal tower of Pointe d’Ailly Lighthouse, which perched on a headland 250 feet above the sea. Almost precisely midway between the Orange Beaches, the lighthouse provided an excellent navigational marker. Its silhouette was starkly visible through binoculars on clear nights to about five miles offshore.8 A naval contingent of seventy-seven Germans manned the lighthouse, and nearby Hess Battery had an observation post connected by communications cable to the battery fire control centre. Having no direct seaward view, the guns were dependent on the observers near the lighthouse to provide firing coordinates.

  Mills-Roberts, warily watching the lighthouse beam sweep the sea, observed that he and his men were “like thieves in an alley when the policeman shines his torch.” He was grateful that the low-riding boats would be difficult to spot. As planned, at 0342 hours, the boats divided into two groups. “Good luck,” Lovat whispered across the water to Mills-Roberts.9

  Eight minutes later, the darkened silhouettes of three ships appeared between Lovat’s group and shore. Lieutenant Scott had the small flotilla swerve hard to one side to avoid a meeting. They had chanced upon a coastal convoy, and Lovat realized the lighthouse beam had been turned on to help guide it. The convoy chugged past, the landing craft unseen.

  Just before 0430, Lovat’s group split again as an LCM carrying ‘A’ Troop under command of Lieutenant A.S.S. “Fairy” Veasey surged ahead. Suddenly, at 0443 hours, the lighthouse’s beam went out and several star shells arced skyward. Surprise lost, Lovat shouted for the LCMs to make for the shore at full speed. Veasey’s boat, meanwhile, set down precisely as dictated in Lovat’s plan at 0450 hours. Almost immediately, three RAF fighter-bombers swept in from seaward and up the River Saane valley. German anti-aircraft and machine-gun positions around the beach opened fire, all their attention concentrated on the aircraft. This diversion was to buy the commandos a few more undiscovered minutes.10

  Lieutenant Veasey’s ‘A’ Troop raced across the beach and towards two concrete pillboxes overlooking the beach from a low cliff. They were to knock these out and then advance through woods in a direct line to close on the battery from the western flank. Veasey’s commandos belted up to the cliff, and those in the lead slammed a couple of tubular scaling ladders in place. Surprise was complete. One pillbox proved unoccupied. The Germans in the other died without firing a shot. Preparing an all-round perimeter defence, Veasey’s men were ready to cover the second flight of landing craft. Veasey sent Trooper William Finney to cut a nearby telegraph line connecting Quiberville to the hamlet of Ste. Marguerite just west of the lighthouse.11 As Finney began climbing a pole, a German machine gun opened up. Clinging to the pole, ignoring the splinters being ripped from it by bullets, Finney calmly snipped the line with cutters. “Finney bore a charmed life and got down again uninjured,” his Military Medal citation concluded.12

  The second flight landed just three minutes behind Veasey’s man. Machine-gun fire laced the beach. Most of the commandos hit the dirt in front of a great tangle of barbed wire that blocked passage up the river’s eastern bank. Although most of the fire was passing well overhead, Lovat knew that would soon change. His men were “like herrings in a barrel.” Suddenly, a mortar bomb killed a section of ‘B’ Troop.13 A shell fragment struck its commander, Captain Gordon Webb, in the right shoulder, rendering the arm useless.14 Shouldering his rifle, Webb gripped a pistol in his left hand.

  Having ranged in perfectly with their first round, the mortar crew could have slaughtered Lovat’s men. Instead, they went after the withdrawing LCMs. As these were fleeing at high speed and streaming smokescreens, chances of hitting one were slight. The wire barrier in front of Lovat was fifteen to twenty-five feet wide, and the commandos were too close now to use bangalore torpedoes to blast it apart without endangering themselves. Luckily, the mortar shell had catapulted the men into action. Those previously appointed to form wiring parties began throwing rabbit netting onto the wire to create a bridge. When the five-man wiring party was killed by machine-gun fire, six others took over. Everyone knew “it was better to go forward than to remain lying on the beach to be picked off by the mortar at leisure.”

  Men crossed the wire on the rabbit-netting bridge and moved rapidly inland under continuing heavy machine-gun fire coming from positions near Ste. Marguerite. Most of the fire remained high, and soon the commandos were sprinting up the river’s edge. This was dead ground that the Germans could not fire on directly from their fixed positions. By 0435 hours, the sprinting commandos had crossed 1,600 yards of open, boggy country. Their time on the beach had been two minutes, but it had seemed much longer.

  Lovat had known this hard run lay ahead and that it must be done quickly for the
raid to succeed. So every day at Weymouth, No. 4 Commando had donned all their equipment and gone running before breakfast. Length and speed increased daily until they were “covering one mile at top speed.”15

  The commandos bound for Orange I Beach were still headed for shore when a star shell rose from a semaphore tower next to the lighthouse. Major Mills-Roberts shouted for his LCM commander to head for the beach at top speed. Just three minutes behind schedule, at 0453 hours, the three craft touched down precisely where they were supposed to. Mills-Roberts jumped ashore without getting wet feet.16 Corporal Koons was less fortunate. He went into hip-high water and waded forty yards to the beach.17

  Two narrow gullies led to the top of the cliff. Mills-Roberts sent Lieutenant David Style with a subsection of ‘C’ Troop to see if the left one was passable. Style discovered it “was full of complicated wire in depth” about thirty-five yards in. Although he then found the right-hand gully similarly blocked, the wire here was not as thick. Still, it took two bangalore torpedoes to clear a path wide enough for men to pass through in single file. Mills-Roberts feared things were taking too long, but there was no recourse. The white chalk cliffs were too sheer to scale. It was the gully or nothing. If the torpedo explosions had been heard, it would have taken only a couple of Germans and a machine gun to prevent their exiting the gully. Fortunately, each time a torpedo detonated, its sound was masked by RAF fighters strafing the battery and lighthouse.

  The plan was for Mills-Roberts to attack the battery head on and draw its defenders onto ‘C’ Troop. This would leave the guns exposed to capture and destruction by Lovat’s larger force. To bring the battery under fire from a distance, ‘C’ Troop was heavily armed with a 2-inch mortar, a 3-inch mortar, a Boys anti-tank gun that fired a 14.3-millimetre armour-piercing round, several Bren guns, and two grenade-launching rifles. Moving up the sides of the gully, the commandos avoided the well-worn path in the centre. It was surely mined. Coming into Vasterival-sur-Mer, an area of luxurious seaside villas, Mills-Roberts ordered Style to take his section and clear the houses left of the road leading to the battery. Captain Robert Dawson’s section did the same to the right.18