The raiders were then to depart by sea. There were no heavy bombers to soften up the defences, and the Royal Navy declined to assign battleships to support the assault — the English Channel was too risky for that with the Luftwaffe nearby.
The German defences at Dieppe were in the hands of the nd Infantry Division, and ample reserves were close by. The raiders boarded their landing craft on August 18 and set sail that night.
Very quickly, everything unravelled, starting with the flotilla running into a German coastal convoy. The firing alerted the coastal defences, removing the element of surprise on which the entire plan depended. Attackers from the Royal Regiment of Canada were cut to pieces by German machine guns and mortars, and only a few made it to the top of the cliff.
Those still alive on the beach surrendered at about a. Only sixty-five Royals out of almost six hundred made it back to England. The South Saskatchewan Regiment landed on time in darkness and achieved an element of surprise, but the Royal Navy landed part of the unit in the wrong place. One company, properly landed, took its objective. The rest, trying to cross the River Scie on a bridge, faced withering fire from the Germans perched on the cliffs on both sides of the landing beach.
Merritt then led attacks up the hill with his troops, joined by part of the Cameron Highlanders who had landed with their pipers playing. The remainder of the Camerons moved inland some two thousand metres until they encountered very heavy opposition and withdrew to the beach. The landing craft to pick them up were there, as planned, but very few of the survivors could reach them through the hail of machine-gun fire the Germans laid down. Merritt stayed to organize the defences that let those who made it get away.
He was taken prisoner and soon received the Victoria Cross. The real disaster was in front of Dieppe on the Red and White Beaches.
The enemy heard the firing from Puys and Pourville and was at the alert, so there was no surprise, and without surprise there was no chance of good luck. The only advantage had by the attackers was the air attack on the cliffs to the east of the beaches and the strafing of the beach defences by British Hurricane fighter planes. Without immediate fire support, the infantry took heavy casualties from the defenders perched on the cliffs that overlooked the beach and from the fortified casino at the west end of the beach.
Like most of the RHLI, the Essex Scottish, raked by fire from the east and west headlands, died or fell wounded where they had landed. The carnage was compounded when garbled messages that suggested success led General Roberts to send in his reserve battalion.
Allied soldiers taken prisoner at Dieppe. Library and Archives Canada By the time it was over, Canadian soldiers had died on the beach, had suffered wounds, and 1, had fallen into German hands.
British Commandos and Royal Marines had forty-five killed and wounded or captured. The Royal Navy lost twenty-eight percent of the vessels used in the raid and officers and ratings. What had gone wrong? Everything is the proper answer, but some points should be stressed. Raiding France was a useful tool for the Allies to force the enemy to keep troops in the West rather than Russia, and yes, it was correct to test invasion theories.
But it was a mistake to remount a once-cancelled operation, even if the Germans did not learn that Jubilee was a repeat of Rutter.
It was an error not to have heavy bombing precede the assault and a huge blunder to fail to have big naval guns firing offshore. The operational plan was unrealistic in the extreme — every problem was wished away for fear the raid might be cancelled and the Canadians not get their chance.
It made no sense, for example, to expect the Cameron Highlanders to go eight kilometres inland, presumably in contact with the Germans the whole way, and then to return to the coast for embarkation, all in a few hours. It was foolish to depend on surprise above all, and extremely foolish to go on with the attack once surprise was lost. By the summer of , the Second World War had been raging for almost three years and things looked grim; Nazi Germany had pushed east deep into the Soviet Union, enemy forces were advancing in North Africa and u-boats were making the Atlantic a deadly place for Allied shipping.
The British Isles were the only Allied holdout after the Germans had invaded and occupied much of Western Europe in Many factors contributed to the decision to mount a large raid into occupied Europe in The Allies, however, needed more time to build up their military resources before undertaking such a massive effort. They felt that a large raid on the coast of France, however, could force the Germans to divert more of their military resources away from the Soviet Union and also help in the planning for the full-scale Allied assault that would eventually have to take place.
Canadian soldiers had been training since the outset of the war in and, except for the Battle of Hong Kong, had yet to see significant action. There was political pressure at home to finally get the Canadians into battle, as well as impatience within the army itself.
Dieppe is a resort town situated at a break in the cliffs along the northwest coast of France and was selected as the main target of the raid partially because it was within range of fighter planes from Britain. Recent research has suggested that the desire to capture a top secret Enigma code machine and accompanying codebooks was also an important factor in mounting the raid.
Four of the attacks were to take place just before dawn on 19 August at points east and west of Dieppe, while the main attack on the town itself would take place half an hour later. The raiding force was made up of almost 5, Canadians, approximately 1, British commandos and 50 American Army Rangers. Things immediately went wrong for the landing force on the eastern flank. They encountered a small German convoy and the ensuing firefight alerted the enemy. The soldiers that came ashore at Berneval and Puys consequently were met with overwhelming fire and some of the heaviest Allied losses took place there.
Some objectives on the western flank were achieved and the enemy gun batteries at Varengeville were destroyed. The mounting German resistance, however, would force them to withdraw with heavy losses. Running behind schedule, the main force going ashore at Dieppe landed as daylight was breaking. The German troops, now alerted to the raid, cut down many Canadians as they waded in the surf. Led by Major-General J.
The purpose was to make a successful raid on German-occupied Europe over water, and then to hold Dieppe briefly. The results were disastrous.
The German defences were on the alert. The main Canadian landing on the Dieppe beach and flanking attacks at Puys and Pourville failed to reach any of their objectives. Only the commandos enjoyed any success. After nine hours fighting ashore, the force withdrew. Over one thousand were dead and two thousand prisoners were in German hands, more prisoners than the whole Canadian Army lost in either the North West Europe or Italian campaigns.
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