On August 19, 1942, some 6,100 Canadian, about 1,000 British, and several hundred American troops made a massive raid on the French coast near Dieppe. Resistance proved fierce, and by midday the attackers were forced to withdraw after suffering tremendous casualties, nearly1,200 men being killed and 2,200 taken prisoner, while nearly35 landing craft, 110 airplanes, and 30 tanks were lost, along with extensive damage to other vessels and aircraft. German losses were about 300 dead and 300 wounded, plus about 100 aircraft destroyed. Efforts have been made to depict the failure at Dieppe as a deliberate attempt by the British High Command to demonstrate the futility of a cross Channel attack to the American high command, which was pressing for an early assault on German-occupied Europe. No evidence for such a cover-up can be found. Other theories put forth (especially in Canada, for obvious reasons) are that the raid was simply a publicity stunt by the British leadership and that it was a morale-building exercise for the hard-pressed Russians (who were constantly asking for a “second front” in the West). The raid continues to be a sore point with many Canadians, who feel that the British were being rather callous with the lives of “colonials.” The failure of the Dieppe raid was due to a combination of inadequate preparations and prompt intervention by the Luftwaffe (fortunately noticeably absent on D-Day two years later), complicated by an unfortunate predawn encounter between one of the approaching convoys and some German coastal shipping, which alerted the defenders.
