Was the it really necassary to sacrifise 4359 Men (1179 KIA, 2190 POW) and 119 a/c, during the Dieppe Raid ? And what happend to the allied Tanks, which were left behind? Regards, Che.
From what I have gathered from Dieppe it was ment to be a pin prick in the atlantic wall to remind the jerrys that Russia was not alone. They had planned to go ashore hold for a while and withdraw. Was ot nessessary ? Well if it had suceeded I think we would say yes, minid you casualties would have to have been lower. I think all military operations are a gamble. You can have all the inteligece and planning you want but when it comes right down to it its a roll of the dice. I do think that valuable lessons were learned that would be put into practice for the eventual D-Day landings. Things like air supiriority and an arial bombing of the coast is imperative as well a massive ammount of naval gunfire is needed. There was no softening up of the beaches before hand so basically they were meeting a foe who was ready and waiting AND had a beautiful feild of fire. What intrests me more is why our (Canadian) Generals were so impatiant to get into the fight, and sent our boys ashore almost adhoc and willy nilly. I think the blood and tears of many men are on their hands!
Frankly I don't think much was learned at least it wasn't implimented if it was learned. The preinvasion bombardment at Normandy was pretty ineffective though that was partly due to the fact that they didn't want to tip their hand as to where the landings would occur. Partly I'm sure because the Canadians had been training in Britain for 3 years with no action so they were anxious to get in the fight. IMO the Canadian troops deserved better than they got in the area of leadership though.
well, i always see it as a small operation to please the Russians. was it worth it? yes, without it, the landing on normandy would be one catastrophic failure. the allies learned a lot of it. the germans had the feeling: "hell, we baited the at Dieppe, so we can beat them everywere. that atlantik wall is perfect"
The first bit is debatable, since with different objectives, different support and much more extensive preparations Operation Neptune was much more likely to succeed whether or not the lessons of Dieppe had been learned. However, the second bit is completely untrue. Dieppe was a highly defensible port city, with cliffs overlooking the beach; the Germans would have to put in some serious effort to fail defending that. It did not give them any illusions; in August 1942, the preparation of the Atlantik Wall had barely started, and never did the Germans think it was perfect.
Grieg: I see your point here. I agree come Dday you can argue it may have been in effective but the point is that the thought was there and it was attempted where as at Dieppe it was non-existant. Never the less I do see your point on this! Couldnt agree with you more my friend! I think it also had somthing to do with the "inferior colonial" mentality and a desire to impress the Brits and Yanks. So more like an infiriority complex so to speak. Sorry for my spelling.
No. There were no real lessons learned from Dieppe that weren't either a) already known or b) obvious with a very little bit of thought The myth that "every man lost at Dieppe saved 10 on D-Day" grew out the need for the leaders to justify the action and make the losses meanigful for the folks back home.
The british did a lot of "testing" amphibious operations in 1942. The same was said about Operation Ironclad, the british attack agaisnt french held Madagascar a few months before Jubilee.....
