On 19 August 1942 an Allied force of more than 6,000 men, 4,963 of them from the 2nd Canadian Division, raided the German-held French port of Dieppe in Operation Jubilee. The landings at Puys and in front of the town ran into machine guns and artillery on the cliffs, the tanks bogged down on the shingle, and the withdrawal was ordered before noon. Parks Canada counts 807 Canadians killed in combat and 1,946 taken prisoner. The raid was a disaster, but its lessons shaped the Allied landings that followed, including Normandy in 1944.
Why Dieppe
In the summer of 1942 the Soviet Union, fighting the German invasion, was pressing its allies to open a front in western Europe. The Allies were not ready for an invasion, so Britain's Combined Operations Headquarters, under Lord Louis Mountbatten, planned large raids instead. Dieppe was chosen to probe the German coastal defenses and test whether a port could be seized from the sea. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes the plan as taking the town, holding a perimeter, wrecking the harbor and withdrawing by sea.1
Canadian commanders offered their troops, who had been in Britain for years without seeing action. Parks Canada and the Canadian Encyclopedia both give 4,963 Canadian soldiers; the encyclopedia adds 1,075 British troops, 15 French and hundreds of airmen and sailors from Canada, Britain and the United States. Major General J. H. Roberts of the 2nd Canadian Division commanded the troops ashore.2
The landings
At Puys, east of Dieppe, the Royal Regiment of Canada arrived late, after daylight had come and the smoke screen had lifted. The men were pinned against the seawall under fire from the cliffs, and the survivors had to surrender. The Juno Beach Centre records that of the 556 Royals who sailed, more than 200 were killed and 264 captured. At Pourville, to the west, the South Saskatchewan Regiment landed on the wrong side of the River Scie and had to fight for the only bridge; its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Cecil Merritt, led his men across it under fire and later received the Victoria Cross.3
On the main beaches in front of the town, the Essex Scottish and the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry went in without the tanks that were meant to land with them. When the Churchill tanks of the Calgary Regiment arrived, many could not get off the beach shingle or past the concrete obstacles, though they kept firing to cover the infantry to the end. Misled by an unclear message suggesting the Essex Scottish had broken into the town, Roberts sent in his reserve, the Fusiliers Mont-Royal, who were cut down on the beach. Only the British commandos on the flanks had real success; No. 4 Commando destroyed a battery near Varengeville.4
Nine hours
Around 9 a.m. the commanders accepted that the Germans still held the heights, and the evacuation was ordered for 11. It was carried out in confusion, and by early afternoon no more boats could reach the beaches. The figures vary with the source. Parks Canada counts 807 Canadians killed in combat, 1,946 taken prisoner and only 2,210 who returned to England. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives 907 killed, 2,460 wounded and 1,946 captured, and the Juno Beach Centre says some 3,367 men, 2,752 of them Canadians, were left on the shore, dead or soon to be prisoners.5
Honorary Captain John Weir Foote, a chaplain with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, also received the Victoria Cross; according to the Canadian Encyclopedia he cared for wounded men under fire, and like Merritt, who commanded the rearguard, he was taken prisoner.6
What Dieppe taught
The Juno Beach Centre calls the raid a pathetic failure, but one that gave the Allies knowledge they lacked in 1942. After Dieppe the idea of opening an invasion by capturing a defended port was dropped, and the planners took away the need for heavy bombardment before a landing, for fire support from ships and landing craft, for better ways to clear obstacles and for far better communications. The Canadian Encyclopedia notes that these lessons were applied in the landings in North Africa, Italy and Normandy. How they played out in 1944 is told in our article on the Battle of Normandy.7
Also on this day
- 1691: Battle of Slankamen. Near Slankamen, where the Tisza meets the Danube, Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden's imperial army faced a larger Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Mustafa Köprülü in the Great Turkish War.
