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• SomeGuy
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• 1983-08-05
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Male
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• Vancouver, BC
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• 2003-08-02
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• Writer; Part-Time Hero
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• James
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• Visiting eight different myO friends in person thus far
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• Winter 2001
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• Neon Genesis Evangelion, .hack//SIGN, Naruto, Bleach, Beck, Peacemaker Kurogane, Ranma 1/2 (the guilty pleasure)
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• Visit the myO friends I've missed thus far; complete a cosplay from 300
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• Writing, Gaming, Kung Fu, Movies, Acting somewhat strange in general
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• Can recognise most quotes from almost any movie/show on first listen; Can recite the entire 12 days of Christmas by memory
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Monday, November 8, 2004
August 19, 1942: The Raid on Dieppe
Hey everyone. Leading up to Remembrance/Veteran's Day, I'm going to be posting stories and incidents from the wars which have a sort of significance with me. In some cases they're large, in others, somewhat small and often unmentioned. For a few they tell of the incredible resolve of human beings to survive the harshest ordeals; for others, they tell of loss of life and pains that perhaps never should have occured.
Anyway, I'm going to start with the Canadian assault on the German-held French port of Dieppe in 1942 . . .
* * * * *
In the Spring of 1942, the Soviets are being pressed hard in the east, the British are getting pushed out of Africa in the south, and meanwhile tensions remain harsh across the English Channel. It was a bad time for the Allies.
Stalin was demanding that Britain hurry up and ease some of the pressure off of the Soviet army. Britain had its own problems, however, and wasn't ready to send troops - the troops would have to land on a heavily defended continent, after all. But, the Russians were still hurting and demanding "a second front now!", and the west needed to prove that they were helping as best they could. Thus, the plan to attack and briefly hold a French port was conceived. It would only be a short action designed to test the German defenses and instill concern in the western front. Dieppe, a small port town considered to be lightly defended, was chosen.
It was easy, then, to consider the job for the Canadian soldiers in England. They still had yet to really get into any sort of real fighting in Europe and were itching for action. It was then no surprise that the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division was called up to begin training in amphibious tactics as the main force of the raid.
In July, weather was bad and the operation was almost called off, but the need to show that the western allies were trying to help revived the plan in August. Thus, on the morning of August 19, a group of 6100 troops - about 5000 Canadian Infantry, about 1000 British Commandos, and 50 US Rangers - took to the sea with 8 destroyers and 74 air squadrons to support them. There was going to be a pre-dawn flank attack followed shortly by a frontal assault just after dawn, where they would capture the town itself. As Canadian Major-General "Ham" Roberts described it, it was going to be "a piece of cake!"
Before the first landing crafts hit the beach, the ships ran into a German ship group and a quick sea battle ensued. With that, the main sense of surprise was lost. Nevertheless, the operation had to proceed . . .
Once the Allied forces did reach the beach, they were given a bitter reception: the entire beach was effectively guarded by a wall of machine guns, mortars, and heavy guns. The high cliffs allowed the Germans complete room to rain fire down on the soldiers, and many were cut down before they could leave their boats. The tanks that came with the group were left completely ill-suited to the rocky beach and were destroyed quickly. All Canadian troops attempting to breach the seawall were repelled and cut down.
For eight hours the allied soldiers suffered the carnage before most of the ships were able to retreat, albeit with heavy losses in the process.
In the end, of the 4,963 Canadian soldiers who participated in the raid, 907 of them died, and 1,946 were taken prisoner. In all, there were 3,367 Canadian casualties in that brief period. The raid on Dieppe was a complete disaster.
There were an unreal number of factors leading to the failure of the raid: objectives had to be met with zero margin for error timing-wise; there was simply not enough air and sea cover; Allied intelligence was horribly outdated; the operation itself was perhaps not given as much weight as it should have been given.
Through the sacrifices at Dieppe, many lessons were definitely learned for the Normandy invasion two years later. New tactics were developed, along with new machinery and techniques; intelligence gathering became an important priority; essentially, every lesson for what not to do was learned. Perhaps the hundreds of lives lost that day helped to save thousands more on June 6th, 1944. Even so, I still remain impressed that such a horrendous means had to be made for the final end . . .
(The aftermath of Dieppe, August 19th, 1942)
(Canadian prisoners paraded for German media)
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