Outline of Operation Jubilee: The Raid on Dieppe, 19 August 1942

I recalled most from Neillands' Dieppe book. I don't know what people think of him but in 2005 I put down these points:

Some bombing took place beforehand but this only warned the Germans that something might happen.

Once the Hurricanes (?) Had attacked the defensive positions there was no actual protection from the sky.

The ships giving naval artillery protection were too lightly armed and could not put out the bunkers and could not help the troops with their fire power.

The planning was not good in case something went wrong. The only time the operation could be cancelled was 3 am, and after that it was go-go-go.

Most losses took place during retreat.

Neillands thinks Mountbatten was not qualified for the job. After realizing he had not enough protection for the troops he should have cancelled it or demanded more.

About those tanks...29 got ashore of which 15 got onto the promenade. They could not get past the anti-tank obstacles and by then the engineers who should have taken care of these, most of them had been killed.

 

Btw, was this one of the first times for Fw-190, and the RAF, although fought hard, had big losses as well had hands full in the air??

 

Great link on the Churchill tanks at Dieppe.
Dieppe France 1942

 

Also from Neilland´s book:

"One of the great mysteries of the entire Dieppe raid is that the bulk of information reaching the Force Commanders implied that all was going reasonably well when the exact opposition was usually the case..."

 

Very true. The most powerful ships in the operation were eight Hunt class destroyers with 4 or 6 4"guns, total about 40. These were intended to provide surface escort, air defense, and shore bombardment.

 

Panzer Lehr officer memoirs ( Helmut Ritgen ):

" The enemy engineers could not blow the defences at any one location because of the German fire. If they had succeeded, the situation would have become critical, because the 302nd Infantry division had no anti-tank weapons that could take on the "Churchills".

 

The success of the raid depended on complete surprise, but the landing was dogged by bad luck. "Directive Nr 40", which was issued in March because of a successful English commando attack on a "Würzburg" radar site, ensured that the coastal forces would be particularly watchful and at constant defensive readiness. At 0332 hours on 19 August the Freya radar near Puys located and reported "very many targets" approaching at a distance of 35 kilometers. Then a German convoy ran into the boats of the English commandos. The ensuing fire-fight at sea brought the 302nd Infantry division to full defensive readiness at 0500 hours. So much for surprise.

From memoirs of a Panzer Lehr Officer by Helmut Ritgen

 

Various units formed out of Quebec were by and large unilingual French, many had some English - probably more by the war's end. The Fusiliers Mont-Royal were at Red & White Beach; the Black Watch (most likely bilinual or English) out of Montreal were at Blue Beach along with the Royal Regiment of Canada and my Dad's unit the 16th Battery, 3LAA.

I recommend you follow David Keith on Facebook and see his book "One Day in August".

 

Kai, I have been at the beach at Dieppe and it really would have been horrendous for tanks and for any men coming ashore as the rocks that they call "shingle" are very rounded from the wave action. Many of the tanks threw their tracks. Also, just like D-Day, it was daunting to those operating landing craft to come in under withering defensive fire. I suspect that some tanks were dropped too far from shore and sank.

 

I would be keen to know more about the UK Commando involvement.

I have read much about the landings on Yellow 1 and 2. Less than 20 made it to the beaches.

I also read from a Canadian historian review ( Operation Flodden:  The sea Fight Off Berneval and the Suppression of the Goebbels Battery ), that a large amount of the force was attacked before it made shore....... 'Several vessels in front of them fired star-shells, which lit up the Group 5 vessels carrying 3 Commando. At 03.47hrs, the opposing escort forces opened fire and during the battle the other vessels from both sides scattered, during which LCP(L)s 081 and 157 were lost and SGB 308 was immobilised and guns disabled. 40% of the crew were wounded.'

I am really looking for a list of those from 3 Commando who took part and didn't make it to shore. My late Father (3 Commando from it's inception in 1940) mentioned Dieppe in his war diary, but it is not clear if he took part, or was just referencing where his comrades had gone. He was wounded on the St Nazaire raid in March of 1942, so I am not sure if he was fit by the time of Op Flodden / Jubilee.

Any pointers to a roll of honor for Flodden / Jubilee would be really useful.

 

Hi MahrossAce
I’m new to posting on this Forum (even though I signed up in 2010!)

Spent 14 years on the old Armchair General (ACG) Forum, and it’s fascinating to see some of the topics I posted about there being covered here with a sometimes similar and sometimes very different take.

Firstly, congrats on your extensive set of references and resources.

As a former archivist in Australia’s national archival body, I really appreciate a good, solid list of properly cited references.

Always been interested in the Dieppe operation and did a major post on it on the ACG forum several years ago.

An excellent article by Charles Berges on the operation in the Spring 1992 (Vol 4. No.3) edition of The Quarterly Journal of Military History (Publisher Byron Hollinshead)
It presents an excellent overview and insightful observations of the tragedy that befell the 2nd Canadian Division.
Some points from it and some other material inspired me to present my post on ACG

An edited version is here:

‘My old post from ACG

“I guess the most obvious lesson to come out of Dieppe is ….. ‘Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it!’

One factor that is often overlooked now days is the Canadian Army in England by the time of Dieppe had been awaiting a call to action for over two years and was in fact lobbying for an operation, any operation.

It has been described by the historian Douglas Bottin in ‘The Second Front’ (Time-life Books 1978) as having “gained a reputation as the most overexercised and underemployed army in the War. The Canadian government knew its men were frustrated and demoralized by inactivity and was pressuring the British government to send them into action at the earliest opportunity. Dieppe provided that opportunity.”

That was written about thirty years ago (sic) and has been reiterated as recently as 2006 (sic) by Gordon Corrigan in ‘Blood, Sweat and Arrogance and the myths of Churchill’s War’ where he states

“… the bulk of the troops to be used would be from 2 Canadian Division ……..this was not, as has been alleged, because the British were quite prepared to risk the lives of colonial troops but not their own, but because the Canadians had demanded it. ……. In the Canadian parliament by 1942, questions were being asked as to why this huge (by Canadian standards) army was doing nothing and in England the CIGS was being badgered by Canadian generals pleading for a task for their troops. The result was Dieppe.”

As usual the Germans proved masters of reacting effectively to allied surprise moves (see also Norway, ‘Crusader’. Tunisia, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy and Market -Garden) and despite incredible bravery the Canadians were destroyed as an effective force by a second-line German Division that had probably been thanking their lucky stars not to be in Russia.

Speaking of which, as well as pressure from Canada, the British were being endlessly harangued by the Soviets to do something, anything, to show they were serious about fighting the Nazis.
Understandably from the Soviet point of view of course, as they were doing all the serious fighting at that time (sorry, but North Africa was a skirmish compared to the apocalyptic struggle in the East).

As for the operation itself it is as always best summed up by AJP Taylor in The Second World War an Illustrated History’

“….there was a splutter of the Second front after all…… This enterprise had a confused background. It began as a first exercise in combined operations. Montgomery, then in command in England, insisted that there must be full air and naval support.

The RAF answered that they had no aircraft to spare; the navy would not risk any of its big ships. The preparations went on of heir own momentum - combined operations with nothing to combine” (nobody could then, or can now turn a phrase like the great AJP still far and away the best historian who worked on histories of either World War).

“Montgomery departed to Egypt, fortunately for his reputation……… Some valuable lessons were said to have been learned, though it is hard to say what they were. The real lesson was a warning against improvisation, whether at Gallipoli, in Norway and Greece, or now at Dieppe. The lesson was learned., and eighteen months of detailed planning preceded the successful landings in France on 6 June 1944.”

When all said and done it’s obvious the Germans got a lot more from Dieppe than the British:

. One of the best pieces on the allied board (2nd Canadian Div) destroyed at relatively small cost. Wonder how the Aussies might have done?

. Capture of examples of latest allied technology (the much-maligned Churchill tank, six SPG’s and some LCM’s for example)

. RAF thoroughly trounced (106 planes lost to 48 for the Lutwaffe)

. Bitter and long-lasting recriminations in the Allied camp (to this day it would seem)

. A strengthening of the ‘culture of caution’ amongst allied planners, and a general, unspoken commitment from then on, to a ‘high odds in our favour / low risk’ approach when fighting the Germans.

. A lengthy delay in launching a ‘Second Front’ with all the allied excuses trotted out by rote.

Speaking of all the allied excuses for not launching a Second Front earlier, the best analysis of just how feeble these excuses are can be found in ‘1943 The Victory That Never Was’ by John Grigg (1980)

He sums up Dieppe thus:

“The practical lessons learned from Dieppe were that it would be unwise to try to seize a harbour on D-Day, prudent to develop a ready made harbour in case no captured harbour could be put in working order for some time after D-Day, preferable to land on open beaches than in a built-up area, necessary to have good intelligence of the area where the landings were to take place, and essential to precede the attack with heavy bombardment. These lessons could have been learned at much less cost, and could have been applied no less effectively in 1943 than in 1944.”

In addition the French civilian population in and around Dieppe benefitted in a strange and little known aspect of the allied failure:
The Germans rewarded the townspeople for not taking part in the battle and not assisting the allies in anyway (there was still great bitterness in France over, from the French point-of-view, Dunkirk ‘desertion’ and again, from the French point-of-view the ‘perfidious’ attack by the Royal Navy on the French fleet in harbour) with a 10 million franc reward and Hitler then released French POW’s ‘from’ Dieppe. A long, fairly arbitrary list was handed to the Germans and as Botting points out “… in a happy epilogue to the tragic raid, hundreds of Frenchmen were allowed to go home - including many who had never set foot in Dieppe.”

Finally, what the Soviets (on whose behalf, don’t forget, the operation was launched) thought of the whole affair can only be imagined.

Generated some debate back then

I’d be interested in any responses here.

One must cross the threshold of greatness. Then and only then can one comprehend the true nature of the one called lodestar - for many the quest to cross that threshold becomes their life’s work.
Regards lodestar