Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Lt. Col. Ridley “Bob” Labatt

  Royal Regiment of Canada, Lt. Col. Doug Catto

  South Saskatchewan Regiment, Lt. Col. Cecil Merritt

  German

  Commander-in-Chief, West, Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt

  Fifteenth Army, Generaloberst Kurt Haase

  302nd Infantry Division, Generalleutnant Konrad Haase

  Appendix B: Allied Order of Battle, Operation Jubilee

  MILITARY UNITS

  CANADIAN

  HQ 2nd Canadian Division

  Intelligence Section

  Field Security Section

  4th Canadian Infantry Brigade

  Royal Regiment of Canada

  Royal Hamilton Light Infantry

  Essex Scottish Regiment

  5th Canadian Infantry Brigade

  Three infantry platoons, Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada

  Mortar Platoon, Calgary Highlanders

  6th Canadian Infantry Brigade

  Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal

  Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada

  South Saskatchewan Regiment

  Calgary Tank Regiment (14th Canadian Tank Battalion)

  Royal Canadian Engineers

  2nd Field Company

  7th Field Company

  11th Field Company

  1st Field Park Company

  2nd Road Construction Company

  Mechanical Equipment Company

  Other Supporting 2nd Division Detachments

  Toronto Scottish Regiment (MG)

  Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps

  Provost Company

  Signals

  3rd Light Infantry Anti-Aircraft Regiment

  4th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery

  8th Canadian Reconnaissance Regiment (14th Hussars)

  11th Canadian Field Ambulance

  BRITISH

  No. 3 Commando

  No. 4 Commando

  No. 30 Commando (Assault Unit)

  ‘A’ Section No. 40 Commando, Royal Marines

  Royal Engineers (beach gradient parties)

  OTHER NATIONALS

  Detachment 1st U.S. Ranger Battalion

  Detachment No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando

  NAVAL FORCE

  Destroyers

  HMS Calpe (HQ ship)

  HMS Fernie (2nd HQ ship)

  HMS Albrighton

  HMS Berkeley

  HMS Bleasdale

  HMS Brocklesby

  HMS Garth

  ORP Slazak

  Sloop

  HMS Alresford

  Motor Gunboat

  HMS Locust

  Minesweeping Flotillas

  9th Minesweeping Flotilla (8 ships)

  13th Minesweeping Flotilla (8 ships)

  Landing Ships

  HMS Glengyle—LSI(Large)

  HMS Queen Emma—LSI(Medium)

  HMS Princess Beatrix—LSI(Medium)

  HMS Duke of Wellington—LSI(Small)

  HMS Prince Albert—LSI(Small)

  HMS Princess Astrid—LSI(Small)

  HMS Invicta—LSI(Small)

  HMS Prince Charles—LSI(Small)

  HMS Prince Leopold—LSI(Small)

  Landing Craft on LSIS Numbered:

  60 Landing Craft Assault (LCA)

  8 Landing Craft Support (LCS)

  7 Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM)

  First Flotilla Group 5 (Yellow Beach)

  Landing Craft, Personnel—R-Boats Nos. 1, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 95, 118, 128, 145, 157

  Second Flotilla Group 6 (Green Beach)

  R-Boats Nos. 19, 88, 94, 119, 124, 125, 129, 147, 156

  Fourth Flotilla Group 7 (Floating Reserve)

  R-Boats Nos. 28, 53, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 186, 187, 188, 192, 196, 199, 212

  Fifth Flotilla Group 7 (Floating Reserve)

  R-Boats Nos. 31, 45, 155, 163, 165, 166, 167, 208, 209, 210, 614

  Sixth Flotilla Group 6 (Green Beach)

  R-Boats Nos. 127, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 153, 158

  Seventh Flotilla Group 6 (Green Beach)

  R-Boats Nos. 83, 84, 99, 101, 102, 104, 110, 113, 159, 160

  Twenty-fourth Flotilla Group 5 (Yellow Beach)

  R-Boats Nos. 3, 4, 13, 15, 23, 24, 34, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 79, 115

  Second Landing Craft Tank (LCT) Flotilla

  LCT Nos. 121 (LCT5), 124 (LCT7), 125 (LCT8), 126 (LCT4), 127 (LCT2), 145 (LCT1), 163 (LCT6), 165 (LCT10), 166 (LCT9), 169 (LCT3)

  Fourth Landing Craft Tank (LCT) Flotilla

  LCT Nos. 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 318, 325, 360, 361, 376

  ESCORTING CRAFT

  First Landing Craft Flak (LCT) Flotilla

  LCF Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  Motor Gun Boats (MGB)

  MGB Nos. 50, 51, 52, 57, 312, 315, 316, 317, 320, 321, 323, 326

  Steam Gun Boats (SGB)

  SGB Nos. 5, 6, 8, 9

  Motor Launches (ML)

  ML Nos. 114, 120, 123, 171, 187, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 208, 214, 230, 246, 291, 292, 309, 343, 344, 346

  Free French Chasseurs

  Nos. 5, 10, 13, 14, 41, 42, 43

  AIR FORCE UNITS

  RAF Fighter Command No. 11 Group

  Spitfire Squadrons

  19, 41, 64, 65, 66, 71, 81, 91, 111, 118, 121, 122, 124, 129, 130, 131, 133, 154, 165, 222, 232, 242, 302, 303, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 312, 317, 331, 332, 340, 350, 400 (RCAF) 401 (RCAF), 402 (RCAF), 403(RCAF), 411 (RCAF), 412 (RCAF), 414 (RCAF), 416 (RCAF), 418 (RCAF) [two aircraft only], 485, 501, 602, 610, 611, 616

  Hurricane Squadrons

  3, 32, 43, 87, 174, 175, 245, 253

  Typhoon Squadrons

  56, 266, 609

  Boston Squadrons

  88, 107, 226, 418, 605

  Blenheim Squadrons

  13, 614

  Mustang Squadrons

  26, 239, 400, 414

  Beaufighter Squadron

  141

  USAAF 97th Bombardment Group

  B-17 Squadrons

  340, 341, 342, 414

  Notes

  Abbreviations: ADM–Admiralty Papers (U.K.). AHQ–Army Headquarters. CMHQ–Canadian Military Headquarters. CWM–Canadian War Museum. DND–Department of National Defence. DEFE–Ministry of Defence (U.K.). DHH–Director of Heritage and History. LAC–Library and Archives Canada. PRO–Public Records office (U.K.). TNA–The National Archives of the U.K. UVICSC–University of Victoria Special Collections. WO–War Office (U.K.).

  Preface

  C.P. Stacey, Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1957), 387–89.

  Introduction: A Crescendo of Activity

  John Mosier, Deathride: Hitler vs. Stalin—The Eastern Front, 1941–1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 200–01.

  Quentin Reynolds, Dress Rehearsal: The Story of Dieppe (Garden City, NY: Blue Ribbon Books, 1943), 111.

  Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 1939–1943: A study based on the diaries and autobiographical notes of Field Marshal the Viscount Alanbrooke (London: Collins, 1957), 360.

  Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe (London: Collins, 1952), 101.

  C.P. Stacey, Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1957), 311.

  Gordon A. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack: United States Army in World War II; The European Theater of Operations (Washington: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1993), 6–8.

  Ibid., 9–10.

  Ibid., 9.

  Stacey, Six Years of Wa
r, 311.

  Robin Neillands, The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition (London: Aurum Press, 2005), 71.

  Stacey, Six Years of War, 311–12.

  Wilmot, 103.

  Harrison, 12–13.

  Bryant, 354–60.

  Neillands, 76.

  Wilmot, 104.

  Harrison, 18.

  Stacey, Six Years of War, 313.

  1 A Boldly Imaginative Group

  The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, “Address to the Dieppe Veterans and Prisoner’s-of-War Association, 29 September, 1973,” pamphlet in the author’s possession, 2.

  Combined Operations: The Official Story of the Commandos (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 49.

  Robin Neillands, The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition (London: Aurum Press, 2005), 80.

  Quentin Reynolds, Dress Rehearsal: The Story of Dieppe (Garden City, NY: Blue Ribbon Books, 1943), 17–18.

  Ibid., 14–15.

  Neillands, 34.

  Reynolds, 18–22.

  Combined Operations, 26.

  Ibid., 4–5.

  Ibid., 6–7.

  Neillands, 89–90.

  Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 1939–1943: A study based on the diaries and autobiographical notes of Field Marshal the Viscount Alanbrooke (London: Collins, 1957), 370–71.

  John Hughes-Hallett, unpublished memoir, MG30 E463, LAC, 110–111.

  Ibid., 106.

  Ibid., 112.

  Ibid., 106.

  Ibid., 112.

  “COHQ–War Cabinet–Yalta,” Combined Operations, accessed Oct. 3, 2011, www.combinedops.com/zCOHQ.htm.

  Denis Whitaker and Shelagh Whitaker, Dieppe: Tragedy to Triumph; A Firsthand and Revealing Critical Account of the Most Controversial Battle of World War II (Whitby, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1992), 90.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 113.

  “Military Intelligence Service, Special Series No. 1, August 9, 1942: Commando Operations–Section I. Vaagso (Norway) Raid,” Lone Sentry, accessed Sept. 27, 2011, www.lonesentry.com/manuals/commandos/vaagso-norway-raid.html.

  Combined Operations, 70.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 117.

  Combined Operations, 70–72.

  Terence Robertson, Dieppe: The Shame and the Glory (London: Pan Books, 1965), 45–46.

  Combined Operations, 73.

  Ibid., 77–78.

  Ibid., 88–99.

  Ibid., 99.

  2 For the Sake of Raiding

  John Hughes-Hallett, unpublished memoir, MG30 E463, LAC, 118.

  “Report No. 159, Operation ‘Jubilee,’ Additional Information on Planning,” Appendix A, CMHQ, DHH, DND, 2.

  C.P. Stacey, Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1957), 324.

  “Report No. 159,” Appendix A, 5.

  Stacey, Six Years of War, 324.

  The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, “Address to the Dieppe Veterans and Prisoner’s-of-War Association, 29 September, 1973,” pamphlet in the author’s possession, 2.

  Terence Robertson, Dieppe: The Shame and the Glory (London: Pan Books, 1965), 61.

  Ibid.

  Brian Loring Villa, Unauthorized Action: Mountbatten and the Dieppe Raid (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989), 168.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 118.

  Mountbatten, 2.

  “Report No. 159,” Appendix A, 1.

  Villa, 170.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 106.

  Nigel Hamilton, Monty: The Making of a General, 1887–1942 (London: Coronet, 1984), 517.

  Robertson, 61.

  “Report No. 153, Operation ‘Jubilee’: New Light on Early Planning,” Appendix A, ” CMHQ, DHH, DND, 1.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 151–52.

  TNA:PRO DEFE 2/324, “Operation ‘Jubilee’: Lecture to Staff College, Notes for CCO,” 1.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 154.

  Hamilton, 516.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 152–53.

  Ronald Atkin, Dieppe 1942: The Jubilee Disaster (London: Macmillan London, 1980), 11.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 153.

  Ibid., 153–54.

  Hamilton, 521–22.

  “Report No. 100, The Preliminaries of the Operation,” CMHQ, DHH, DND, 13.

  Mountbatten, 2–3.

  “Report No. 153,” Appendix IV, 1.

  Ibid., Appendix III, 2–3.

  Mountbatten, 3.

  Hughes-Hallett memoir, 154.

  “Report No. 100,” 14.

  TNA:PRO DEFE 2/323, “Operation ‘Jubilee’: Lecture,” 2.

  Atkin, 12.

  TNA:PRO DEFE 2/550, “Inter-Service Topographical Department–18 April, 1952, Appendix 21: Tank Exits at Dieppe,” 1–2.

  Ibid., “Appendix 22: The Rivers Scie, Saane, Arques, Bethune, Varenne, and Eaulne,” 1–2.

  Ibid., “Operation Rutter, Intelligence Reports,” 1–4.

  Combined Operations: The Official Story of the Commandos (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 110.

  “Letter from Mountbatten to Guy Simonds, Feb. 4, 1969, Hughes-Hallett fonds, MG30 E463, LAC, 2.

  3 A Fantastic Conception

  Terence Robertson, Dieppe: The Shame and the Glory (London: Pan Books, 1965), 83–84.

  C.P. Stacey, Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1957), 329.

  Paul Douglas Dickson, A Thoroughly Canadian General: A Biography of General H.D.G. Crerar (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 203.

  Ibid., 193.

  “Report No. 87, Situation of the Canadian Military Forces in the United Kingdom, Autumn, 1942: II, Recent Changes in Commands and Staffs,” CMHQ, DHH, DND, 2.

  Dickson, 192.

  Stacey, Six Years of War, 308.

  J.L. Granatstein, The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War (Toronto: Stoddart, 1993), 55–67.

  Ibid., 70.

  C.P. Stacey, The Canadian Army, 1939–1945: An Official Historical Summary (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1948), 47.

  Stacey, Six Years of War, 96.

  Dickson, 182.

  Granatstein, 86.

  Ibid., 101.

  Ibid., 98.

  Denis Whitaker and Shelagh Whitaker, Dieppe: Tragedy to Triumph, A Firsthand and Revealing Critical Account of the Most Controversial Battle of World War II (Whitby, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1992), 72.

  Dominick Graham, The Price of Command: A Biography of General Guy Simonds (Toronto: Stoddart, 1993), 66.

  Dickson, 185–86.

  Granatstein, 186–87.

  Dickson, 186–88.

  Whitaker and Whitaker, 74.

  Stacey, Six Years of War, 308.

  Ibid., 309–10.

  Granatstein, 71.

  “Report No. 100, Operation ‘Jubilee’: The Preliminaries of the Operation,” CMHQ, DHH, DND, 21–23.

  Robertson, 85.

  “Report No. 100,” 23–24.

  Ibid., 24–26.

  Robertson, 88.

  Stacey, Six War Years, 280–82.

  Whitaker and Whitaker, 95.

  “Dieppe, 1942: Lecture Notes, Combined Services Raid on Dieppe, 19 Aug 42 by Brig. CC Mann, GS, I Cdn Corps,” 222C1.011(D1), vol. 10772, box 201, RG24, LAC, 3.

  Whitaker and Whitaker, 96.

  “Report No. 100,” 27.

  Robertson, 93.

  “Report No. 100,” 27–28.

  4 Of Considerable Difficulty

  “Report No. 100, Operation ‘Jubilee’: The Preliminaries of the Operation,” CMHQ, DHH, DND,
15–16.

  Ibid., 10–12.

  Brereton Greenhous, Dieppe, Dieppe (Montreal: Art Global, 1992), 46.

  Terence Robertson, Dieppe: The Shame and the Glory (London: Pan Books, 1965), 94–95.

  “Report No. 100,” 29–31.

  Robertson, 96.

  Bernard Law, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, K.G. (London: Collins, 1958), 77.

  Robin Neillands, The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition (London: Aurum Press, 2005), 95.

  Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 1939–1943: a study based on the diaries and autobiographical notes of Field Marshal the Viscount Alanbrooke (London: Collins, 1957), 372.

  Robertson, 97.

  “Trafford Leigh-Mallory,” World War II Database, accessed Nov. 2, 2011, ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=125.

  Robertson, 97–98.

  “Report No. 100,” 31.

  C.P. Stacey, Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1957), 244.

  D.J. Goodspeed, Battle Royal: A History of the Royal Regiment of Canada, 1862–1962 (Toronto: Royal Regt. of Canada Assoc., 1962), 384–85.