Tragedy at Dieppe Read online

  Although McNaughton had led the first Canadian contingent overseas in the fall of 1939, by 1942 he showed signs of having “grown increasingly distant from his army, which scarcely saw him.” McNaughton’s right-hand man, Brigadier Guy Simonds, viewed with dismay how the commander surrounded himself with a coterie of officers who were friends and allies but possessed only a modicum of ability. When such favourites failed to live up to the demands of their positions, McNaughton generally promoted them in rank and to jobs distant from operational command. Simonds considered this a “vicious practice” that diluted the army’s efficiency.

  McNaughton also increasingly seemed uninterested in the divisions being trained for battle. He “would not focus his mind on training and operational problems, and for a long time we were adrift,” Simonds observed.9

  Even while still serving as Canada’s Military Chief of Staff in Ottawa, Crerar had headed a cabal of officers that believed the army overseas needed some immediate limited combat experience to bolster its morale. McNaughton dismissed the idea that there was any problem or that sending some troops into combat would bolster overall morale.

  During a March 1942 visit to Washington, McNaughton met President Franklin Roosevelt, who alluded to hearing rumours that the Canadians were experiencing morale issues due to “their long period of static employment.” “I told him,” McNaughton wrote, “that I had no particular anxiety on this score at the moment nor would I have for some months to come. I told him that this was because the force was rapidly growing, there were ample outlets for promotion, that we had been working the men very hard, that we were constantly changing the scene of our activities, that we had paid attention to education, etc., and most importantly that I thought our soldiers were a highly intelligent body of men, who recognized that they were only there for the purpose of making a definite contribution to the defeat of the Axis. They were just as well aware as I was of the wisdom of deferring action until a proper opportunity developed for their use, because what we wished to do was not to fight for the sake of fighting, but to bring the maximum possible continuing effect against the enemy.”

  McNaughton’s overriding concern was to keep the army unified to fulfill this destiny. He explained to Roosevelt that the Canadian duty was to provide the Allied “foothold for an eventual attack on the Continent of Europe... There could be no question but that war could only be ended by the defeat of Hitler and the only way of doing so was to attack him from the West.” McNaughton “never lost sight of this object and... had always been convinced that an offensive would sooner or later have to be launched from the United Kingdom across the narrow seas.” His position precisely mirrored that of Prime Minister Mackenzie King and his cabinet.10

  The invasion would be a massive combined operation on a scale never seen before. So McNaughton saw value in Canadian troops being trained to work alongside naval and air personnel in developing amphibious landing techniques and tactics for executing advances inland from a beachhead. But such training need not lead to participation in small raids.

  McNaughton might well have fended off calls for Canadians to be committed to raiding had he not fallen ill due to fatigue and been forced to take sick leave on November 14, 1941.11 When he returned to Canada for convalescence at the end of the year, Crerar was sent to take over I Canadian Corps in his absence. McNaughton would not return until the end of March 1942, and by that time Crerar was well advanced in undermining his superior’s authority.12

  The fifty-three-year-old Crerar had also served in the Great War as an artillery officer. Along the way he had developed a close friendship with then lieutenant colonel Alan Brooke, a Royal Artillery staff officer. He and Brooke “used to tramp the front line of battery positions together,” often doing so under enemy fire. At war’s end, Crerar was a lieutenant colonel, held a DSO, and had been Mentioned in Despatches. Continuing a career within the Permanent Forces after the war, Crerar had held a succession of senior staff appointments.13

  These postings connected him well politically, but they also further developed Crerar’s inherent aloofness, which masked a tendency towards shyness. He did not mix comfortably with the common soldier or his fellow officers, whether senior or subordinate. His insistence on strict discipline, proper dress, and adherence to military protocol helped little. His staff background gave him a near obsessive compulsion to generate detailed plans, background reports, and other documentation for the simplest operation. There was also the plain fact that Crerar did not have the dashing army officer look. As one observer noted, Crerar “cut an unwarlike figure; battledress was not kind to the middle-aged, especially those not blessed with trim figures.”14

  Crerar cared little for preserving the army for an eventual starring role in a decisive cross-channel invasion. He had been a key figure in encouraging the British request that Canada send troops to Hong Kong in the fall of 1941 and had personally selected the Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles of Canada for the doomed venture.15

  That disaster did nothing to dampen Crerar’s determination to get the army fighting as soon as possible. That this intent was at odds with that of Prime Minister King was no deterrent. King’s concern was to avoid high casualty rates that might force implementation of conscription for overseas service, rather than sending only volunteers. Although the National Mobilization Recruitment Act had been enacted in June 1940, those called up had to volunteer for overseas posting. Otherwise, they were assigned to defence duties in Canada. There was no appetite in Quebec for sending conscripts to fight against their will, but the English-speaking majority elsewhere generally favoured such deployment. King knew that committing conscripts to combat would fracture the nation’s tenuous unity in the war effort. The longer the army was kept out of battle, the longer a manpower crisis could be averted. By late 1941, however, newspapers across the country were pressing for the army to get into the fight. The Second Front movement was also active, with massive rallies held in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens and even the Montreal Forum, the crowds demanding action to relieve the pressure on the Soviet Union. Newspaper editorials and the clamouring of opposition MPs fuelled the fire. “It seems an awful thing to say,” mused a senior officer at Canadian Military Headquarters, “but the people of Canada are calling for blood.”16

  It was against this backdrop that Crerar took up corps command in England. It was a lofty responsibility for a man with no experience of divisional or even brigade command. To Crerar’s credit, his inexperience was something he himself worried about.

  Pearkes, who had been managing the corps in McNaughton’s absence, was furious that Crerar got the posting instead of him. Soon asked to have a 1st Division battalion commander brief Crerar on a forthcoming exercise, Pearkes told the man to “make it simple. Imagine you are explaining to a man who has never commanded anything.”17

  Crerar recognized that there was much resentment of his posting among the Canadian headquarters staff. Many felt his promotion over them was unfair and unwarranted. Crerar was going to have to prove himself.

  He found an unlikely ally in Montgomery. Polar opposites in personality and command approach, both men considered themselves consummate professionals in the art of soldiering. When the Canadians came under South-Eastern Command, Montgomery said he expected an “offensive” spirit and was going to impose a standardized training doctrine. McNaughton’s loose, often unfocused training approach did not cut it. During his short tenure as corps commander, Pearkes had been irritated by Montgomery’s direct interference in the Canadian training—particularly as it was accompanied by a patronizing and judgemental manner.

  When Crerar asked someone on his new staff to describe Montgomery, the officer allowed that he was “an efficient little shit.” Crerar would never use such language, but he did later admit that Montgomery’s idea of “an army with good morale was an army commanded by Monty.” However, Crerar recognized Montgomery’s professionalism and experience. D
uring the early months of 1942, he was willing to allow Montgomery the lead in training the corps.18

  The training to that point had lacked a sense of urgency or reality, and the troops had become increasingly “bored with make-believe exercises.” Simonds had not hesitated to broach his concerns about the poor state of the Canadians’ training as soon as they came under Montgomery’s command. There was a rot running through the entire officer ranks, he confided to one of Montgomery’s staff officers, that left serious weaknesses at the battalion and brigade command levels. He thought that few battalion commanders could effectively lead their men into battle, and only “four out of nine brigadiers could train their battalion commanders.”

  Crerar soon agreed, allowing that “McNaughton had sadly neglected training” and the corps was “in a ‘hell of a state.’ ”19 Montgomery immediately imposed his vision of how things should be done. A battle-training area sufficient for a brigade to operate within—a first for the Canadians—was set aside on the South Downs in Sussex. Realism was emphasized to replicate the intensity of battle. Montgomery also trained the troops from the bottom up—working them first through platoon-level tactics, then company tactics, and on upward until the time was deemed right for a divisional exercise. Montgomery issued one training instruction after another, all intended to forge the Canadians into a cohesive and effective fighting unit. He personally assessed the officers, letting Crerar know his opinion in no uncertain terms.20 Some should be sacked, others demoted, a precious few retained or promoted.

  Crerar accepted this and built upon it. He agreed—as did Simonds—to a broad-broom housecleaning of officers who were too old, too set in their ways, or incompetent. There was plenty of new, young blood at the lower levels of command or waiting in Canada for promotion.

  Shortly after his arrival in England, Crerar began sending an “avalanche of letters” to Brooke, Paget, and Montgomery, advocating the commitment of Canadian troops to combined operations raiding.21 On February 5, he wrote Montgomery that the corps would receive a “great stimulus... if, in the near future, it succeeded in making a name for itself for its raiding activities.” In early March, Crerar pressed the case personally to Brooke and Mountbatten. The latter agreed to “further combined training for Canadian troops,” including a “large detachment” from 2nd Division in early April.22

  On April 1, Crerar’s effort bore some fruit. Combined Operations, he was informed, was “planning a raid [for] about the middle of April,” and a small party of Canadians was invited. Operation Abercrombie was primarily a No. 4 Commando show under command of the flamboyant and eccentric Major Christopher Joseph Fraser, 17th Lord Lovat. The raid’s target was Hardelot, a fishing village about six miles south of Boulogne. The commandos would land under cover of darkness, reconnoitre military defences on beaches to the north and south of the village, destroy a small searchlight post, capture prisoners, and gather documents and other information. Lovat’s men would land on the northern beach, closest to the searchlight post. Eight Canadian officers and sixty-one other ranks drawn from the Carleton and York Regiment of 1st Division and commanded by Lieutenant Jack Ensor would go ashore on the south beach. Their task was to send fighting patrols to test defences and take prisoners. They were also to check out two large warehouses on the village’s outskirts. If the Germans appeared to be using them for storage, they were to be destroyed.

  After two cancellations due to weather, the operation got under way on the night of April 21–22. Despite perfect sea conditions, Lovat’s men were landed a little off the designated beach. Three patrols sent out failed to reach the searchlight post. Lovat finally fired a recall flare, and the commandos withdrew without having taken any prisoners or achieved any other objectives. The commandos suffered no casualties.

  Ensor’s Canadians never reached shore. The morning of the operation, the naval commander of their flotilla of three vessels had fallen ill, and a very inexperienced young officer stepped in. Once the vessels were at sea, their compasses proved defective. Closing on the French coast, the command boat with Ensor aboard became separated from the other two. With the navigators unable to fix their positions either by starlight or by faulty compass, the vessels milled about until Lovat’s recall flare was spotted. The flotilla returned to Dover. Despite some random, searching machine-gun fire from German defensive positions, there were no casualties. Operation Abercrombie, the Canadian Army official historian conceded later, “was pretty much of a fiasco.”23

  So it came as a relief to Crerar when, less than a week later, Montgomery asked if he wanted the Dieppe raid. On the morning of April 30, Montgomery next visited McNaughton. The Canadian general was just adjusting, somewhat uncomfortably, to his new role at the head of First Canadian Army. Expanding the Canadian corps into an army had been General Alan Brooke’s idea and was proposed to McNaughton in January 1942. “I feel that you require a Force or Army Headquarters which will take over the running of all the war services, workshops, base organization, etc., and thus free the Corps Commander’s hands for the job of commanding & training the fighting formations. That in itself is a full-time job.” McNaughton did not want this primarily administrative position, but he could hardly refuse. And, of course, his elevation to First Canadian Army command entrenched Crerar as corps commander and the man who would direct any fighting.24

  Montgomery told McNaughton that “he had been approached by Home Forces [Paget] with a proposal for a raid on Dieppe. Conditions of light and tide would be favourable for such operations during the week commencing” June 21. “The troops required were one infantry division to be selected from the South Eastern Command.” To make McNaughton feel the Canadians were being offered an honour, Montgomery said he had been “pressed to agree to a composite British and Canadian force.” Who was doing the pressing, he never clarified. Montgomery said he had stoutly declared “that it was essential to maintain unity of command and that in his opinion the Canadian troops were those best suited.” Paget and his staff had “accepted this view.” As an afterthought, Montgomery said he had already spoken to Crerar, who “had nominated [2nd Division] for the operation.”

  McNaughton was left with no recourse but to confirm the arrangements already made “subject to the details of the plan being satisfactory and receiving his approval.” Montgomery would advise Major General Roberts “that he might start work on planning.” The division would take part in an exercise code-named Tiger as part of the preparations and then “move to the Isle of Wight for training.”

  A few hours before this meeting, Crerar had issued Training Instruction No. 9, which directed 2nd Division to begin combined operations training. Once 2nd Division’s training was complete, the other divisions would be cycled through. In reality, this instruction was “simply security cover for training for Operation ‘Rutter,’ ” one army report noted.25 Crerar next invited Roberts to Canadian Military Headquarters in London, because “we haven’t had a chance for an undisturbed chat in a long time.”

  The scope of Rutter far surpassed the limits of McNaughton’s authority to commit troops without approval of the War Committee in Ottawa. So McNaughton sent a “Most Secret” cable to Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Ken Stuart, reminding him that his authority was for “minor” operations only. “Plans are now being made which involve operations of a type indicated, but on a scale which cannot be classed as minor. I request therefore that my authority be widened by deletion of the term minor.” Authority was quickly granted.26

  That Rutter had evolved from a highly speculative Combined Operations scheme into an operation gathering a full head of steam worried the Chiefs of Staff. To clarify how future operations and the further development of Rutter would proceed, Paget issued a directive on May 5 regarding raiding. Because he was responsible to the British cabinet for “all raids on the Continent,” Paget wrote, any future proposed raid must be submitted to him in outline form. He and Mountbatten would then dec
ide whether the project warranted further study. Paget would select which command would provide troops and delegate the operation to the army commander concerned. This commander would “be at liberty to decide whether he would retain control himself or delegate not below a Divisional Commander.” Only then would an outline plan be prepared by the Home Forces and COHQ planning staffs, with the participation of a staff officer “nominated by the Army, Corps, or Divisional commander concerned.” Whichever level of commander had been delegated would “attend important meetings” and finalize details of the plan in consultation with Mountbatten. The outline plan would go to the Chiefs of Staff for approval. If given, force commanders would then be appointed, “and these with their staffs would work out the detailed plan in London.”

  Once the detailed plan was approved, any operation targeting France or the Low Countries would require the force involved to move to the Isle of Wight for concentrated training with the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. During this phase, “military training and operational plans... would be under the supervision of the selected military officer, while combined training with other services would be under the CCO [Mountbatten],” represented by a naval officer on his staff.27

  This directive was authored on Paget’s behalf by Chief of the General Staff, British Home Forces Command, Lieutenant General J.G. des R. Swayne. On May 7, Swayne wrote McNaughton confirming use of Canadian troops in Rutter. Swayne said it was “desirable to keep to a minimum the number of officers who know of the details of the operation.” He proposed sending information to McNaughton “from time to time personally, and if he desired any amplification at any time, the Planning Staff at GHQ would be at his disposal.” Was McNaughton agreeable to this approach? Swayne added that “General Montgomery will be responsible for providing the Canadian Corps and the 2nd Canadian Division with such information as they require, since he is the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief selected by the Commander-in-Chief [Paget] to prepare the outline plan.”