Prelude to D-Day, Dieppe 1942

The bloodiest nine hours of Canadian military history occurred on the pebble beaches of a small resort town on the northern French coast. Fifty years have come and gone since the men of Maj. Gen. 'Ham' Roberts' 2nd Canadian Division stormed ashore into a cauldron of fire at Dieppe on 19 August 1942, but the battle, like Pearl Harbor for Americans or Dunkirk for the British, is forever etched on the Canadian collective psyche.

Not since the Somme in 1916 had a Canadian division suffered such shattering losses: almost 1,000 men killed, 2,000 captured and as many wounded in nine hours. Over 24 volumes have been written on a raid that was, and still is, a highly controversial affair. Although a tactical failure, it has been hailed by some as a bitter strategic victory.

'If I had the same decision to make again, I would do as I did before,' said Lord Mountbatten after the war, 'it gave the Allies the priceless secret of victory.' That unlocked secret was that any invasion force contemplating a frontal surprise attack on the coast of France would need heavy fire support from the sea and air, and specialised naval forces designed for beach assaults, and artificial harbours (then under serious study).

Visually, Dieppe is a collection of photographs of beaches littered with a grim harvest of death; German newsreels of shell-shocked, shackled survivors marching into captivity; paintings showing tanks and men frozen in a somewhat unreal ochre, pristine tableau. To some, it remains an example of over-rigid planning and poor generalship; to others, sheer bad luck and boyish over-enthusiasm. To a returning soldier, 'it was a massacre, a bloody mess'.
 
C. P. Stacey, the official Canadian War Historian, acknowledged 'a fair amount of sensational nonsense has been written [about Dieppe]'. Lt. Col. Cecil Merritt of the South Saskatchewan Regiment, one of Canada's two surviving VC winners, concurs: 'We were glad to go, we were delighted. We were up against a very difficult situation and we didn't win. But to hell with this business of saying the generals did us dirt!'

The urge for Canadians to concentrate on the negative is a natural one and has given rise to the myth (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary) that the Germans were tipped off. 'This is probably the major misconception about Dieppe,' says Stacey, 'and I don't think you will ever eliminate it from most people's minds. They'll go on believing that the Germans were waiting for us. And the basic reason is, of course, the fact that we lost the battle.'

The basic ideas behind the Dieppe Raid were to demonstrate to Russia (and to Germany) that Allied intentions and abilities to launch cross-Channel operations were credible. In early 1942, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee had issued a directive to Lord Mountbatten, 41-year-old Chief of Combined Operations, urging that 'raids in force designed to obtain information and experience in the enemy's defence system are to be pressed forward as opportunities arise.' Capt. John Hughes-Hallett of the Royal Navy, Mountbatten's chief of staff, drew up initial plans for the operation, selecting Dieppe, the old peacetime terminus for cross-Channel ferries from Newhaven, as a suitable objective. Dieppe satisfied RAF requirements that the target be well within their air umbrella and the sea routes were short enough so that the troops could be landed without getting too seasick. Hughes-Hallett wrote: 'Given a little darkness and a lot of surprise we can visit this poor man's Monte Carlo for at least a day!'
 
H-hour for the raid (after many stops and starts) was set for 4.50 am on 19 August 1942, though due to lack of sea room and trained landing craft crews the four flank attacks across at YELLOW, BLUE, GREEN and ORANGE beaches were to be launched half an hour ahead of the main attack (see map). The Canadian Deputy Commander of the raid, Brig. Churchill Mann, explains how things were supposed to unfold:

'On the far left (YELLOW) British commandos were to destroy the gun battery at Berneval. Landing at Puys (BLUE), the Royal Regiment and a company of the Black Watch were to destroy guns on the Eastern Headland overlooking Dieppe harbour.
'On the extreme right (ORANGE) commandos were to destroy the Varengeville battery. At Pourville (GREEN) the South Saskatchewan Regiment was to land astride the River Scie. Thirty minutes later the Cameron Highlanders would advance through the Saskatchewan's beachhead, move inland, join tanks from Dieppe and assault an airdrome and a German Divisional headquarters believed to be at Arques.
'There were to be two other attacks at H-Hour plus 30 minutes. On the left half of the beach at Dieppe (RED), the Essex Scottish and the Calgary Regiment were to land simultaneously and advance rapidly into the town to secure the harbour area for engineer demolitions. On the right half of Dieppe beach (WHITE), the RHLI would land with other Calgary tanks and move through the town to secure exits for other tanks to proceed inland where they could join the Camerons.
'Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal were to land later, occupying the perimeter of the town after the Essex and Royal Hamilton Light Infantry had seized it. All Canadian units were to withdraw across the main Dieppe beaches, with the Fusiliers Mont-Royal serving as rearguard.'

Well has it been stated by von Moltke that 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'. The Royal Regiment of Canada's landing at BLUE beach, a self-contained flank attack and the most crucial to the success of the main Dieppe attack, was a bloody débâcle. It had been drummed into The Royals that theirs was the most vital landing of all, that failure would result in untold losses on the main beaches and disaster for the operation. They had also been assured that everything would be done to help them. Given a proper touch-down they could be over the beach, up through the gorge, and on to the Eastern Headland before the Germans could react. That fickle mistress of war — surprise — with the addition of smoke-laying aircraft and the cover of darkness would give them the edge. The Royals had accepted this heavy responsibility on the basis of what all good troops require: a fair fighting chance.
 
The chance, however, never came. The first wave of the Royals landed 20 minutes later than planned when the effects of the smoke screens and darkness had been entirely lost. Worse still, the German defenders, comprising only two platoons and some technicians, were fully alert. The local commander had countermanded the customary 'stand-down' at dawn after hearing a firefight offshore between a German coastal convoy encountering the Royals' landing craft and causing their 20-minute delay. Nowhere was the fire more intense than at BLUE beach. A Royals private wrote, 'I was right up at the front when our ramp went down. I leapt into the water and sank up to my chest. Holy Jesus that water was cold! I waded ashore, holding my rifle clear, and ran for the shelter of the wall. I didn't have time to look around, I just wanted to get out of there as quick as I could. About ten feet from the wall I got hit by shrapnel, on my chin and right between my eyes, but I kept on going. We couldn't do nothing. I never even had a chance to use my rifle!'

Ross Munro, a Canadian war correspondent, was in the stern of one of the Royals' landing craft and, 'looking out the open bow, I saw 60 or 70 bodies, men cut down before they could fire a shot. A dozen Canadians were running along the beach toward the twelve-foot-high sea wall, 100 yards along. Some fired as they ran. Some had no helmets. Some were wounded, their uniforms torn and bloody. One by one they were hit and rolled down the slope to the sea.'

Thus a German garrison of 60 men was able to bloodily repulse a Canadian battalion with relative ease. The collapse of the BLUE beach assault resulted in the German guns on the Eastern Headland remaining intact, watching and waiting intently as the main flotillas came in like lambs to the slaughter at RED and WHITE beaches.
 
Canadian soldiers' visions of Dieppe were blinkered. Their final approach to the beaches was inside a crowded landing craft smelling of cordite and diesel. With the exception of the commander and helmsman, soldiers could only visualise what awaited them outside by using their sense of hearing. One soldier recalled, 'We knew we were going to get hell. There were a lot of guns going, and at first you could pick out the sounds. The heavy dull thunder of artillery behind Dieppe. The ripping clatter of the machine guns. The boom of the mortars. The whine of the sniper's rifle. Then as we moved in closer, all these sounds began to merge into one continuous roar that pressed hard on your eardrums.'

When the ramps went down, some men had a brief glimpse of the French shoreline before they were killed. Of course there was no hope of surprising the German defenders covering RED and WHITE beaches. The planners accordingly had detailed nine Churchill tanks of the Calgary Regiment to land simultaneously with the infantry and give intimate fire support. Due to a navigational error, however, the tanks were 15 minutes late in landing and, in the interim, the German defenders had recovered quickly from ineffectual naval and air bombardments and swept the beaches with a murderous fire. The official Canadian Army History underlines the significance of this lapse of momentum, stating that 'in any opposed landing, the first minute or two after the craft touch down are of crucial importance; and it may be said that during that minute or two, the Dieppe battle, on the main beaches, was lost. The impetus of the attack ebbed quickly away and by the time the tanks arrived the psychological moment was past.'

The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (RHLI) landed on WHITE beach in a devastating fire, their task being to capture the prominent Casino on the waterfront and to advance inland and destroy anti-aircraft and machine-gun emplacements on the Western Headland. A platoon of 'D' Company was reduced to two men in the space of three minutes. A Bren gunner reported: 'We landed on the beach but could go no further because the mortar fire and machine-gun fire was so intense and accurate. We could see the enemy on the cliff in front of us but could not seem to touch him.' This feeling of helplessness and frustration occurs with great frequency in most survivors' recollections.
 
'It was really terrible,' recalled Pte Frank Boucher of the RHLI. 'We were being mown down like flies.' Pte Jim Holland said, 'I must have made a burrow in the ground where I crawled. I never knew I could get so close to the ground and still be on top of it.' Gordon Ryall, a naval telegraphist attached to the RHLI whose job was to direct the naval gunfire from HMS Berkely, remembered, 'As I crawled up the beach the mortar fire was so heavy that stones were being thrown up over my head, legs and back. I remember very distinctly a sailor being blown up into the air and his bell bottom trousers floating, waving in the air, as he cartwheeled down.'

Lt. Col. R. R. Labatt, the RHLI CO, could see his battalion was 'in one hell of a mess' and ordered his men to 'keep firing at German positions on their right to keep Jerries from coming down from the cliffs'. The RHLI converged on the Casino as it was the only cover on the open beach. It took them almost an hour to clear it in vicious hand-to-hand fighting. Once cleared, it became their sanctuary.

Meanwhile, on RED beach the Essex Scottish had landed with little difficulty but they were not blessed with a building within which to shelter. When the Essex got to the second double apron wire barrier, all hell broke loose. Machine-guns and anti-tank guns firing on fixed lines opened up and mortar concentrations started to rain down on them. Pte. Eugene Cousineau remembered 'the first blast of heavy fire stunned us for a moment but we soon recovered and when we reached the protection of the sea wall, most of our section were present. We couldn't see the Germans, who were hidden in the buildings along the waterfront, but their machine-gun and mortar fire was intense. Early on, the morale was high despite the casualties and the men were all smoking and laughing.'
 
Behind the sea wall, most of the battalion seemed content to sit, their will for further combat ebbing away as casualties mounted. 'Every time you showed your head over the wall the snipers went at you,' recalled another private. In truth, the only Canadian soldiers on the beach that saw most of the action from relative safety were the tankers inside their virtually invulnerable Churchills. According to reports, not one of the tanks was pierced by shell or bullet during the action, nor any of the crews hit while inside their tank. Of the 29 Churchills that landed, two were 'drowned' while many others bogged down in the sand and fist-sized boulders. Some got round the lower ends of the sea wall and on to the town esplanade, but none could get past the concrete obstacles the Germans had erected to bar the way into the streets of Dieppe. Most returned to the beach and continued to fire on German positions until their ammo ran out. In effect, they became pillboxes and strongpoints supporting the infantry. Survivors to this day speak in the warmest terms of the manner in which the tanks fought. Tank fire certainly contributed to the safe evacuation of many men off the main beaches. The fact that only one trooper of the tanks that went ashore returned to England after the raid is stark testimony of the Calgary Regiment's dedication in providing fire support until the last moment.

By a cruel twist of fate and a garbled radio message, Maj. Gen. Roberts monitoring the battle offshore in the destroyer HMS Calpe, sent in the untouched reserves to land on Dieppe's death-strewn beaches. The Canadian soldiers' will to combat on that fateful day has never been more aptly or vividly described than by Lt. Col. Dollard Menard, commander of the reserve, which consisted of his French-Canadian unit, the Fusiliers Mont-Royal (Fus MR) and some Royal Marine commandos (who did not land). When asked after the war the reason why the Canadians went bravely in, despite the odds, Lt. Col. Menard broke the bravery of his soldiers down into four elements. 'The first you would call optimism, egotism, or plain thoughtlessness,' he said. 'The second was discipline — the training. Third, blind anger — a desire for revenge. The closest I can come to the fourth is a deep-seated feeling of “What the hell?”'

On the final run into RED and WHITE beaches, Menard admitted that his men knew they 'were going to get killed or hurt. But I didn't think that I was going to get killed and don't believe a single man thought he was either. That's why I [call] the first element … a sort of optimism or egotism. It brings you up to the action itself — sort of pays your busfare to the battlefield.'

The next essential element for bravery according to Menard was discipline and training, for without this 'the natural instinct of any untrained man at Dieppe would have been to dig a hole, crawl in and stay there with his eyes shut'. Indeed this is exactly what a number of men of various regiments did despite their training. A soldier of the Royal Regiment at BLUE beach stated: 'I just threw myself to the ground and kept my head down. All I was thinking about was keeping safe!' But there were other Royals who had the right stuff at BLUE beach. War correspondent Ross Munro told the story of a highly motivated private aboard his landing craft:

'One lad crouched six feet from me. He had made several attempts to rush down the ramp but each time a hail of fire had driven him back. He had been wounded in the arm but was determined to try again. He lunged forward and a streak of tracer slashed through his stomach. I'll never forget his anguished cry as he collapsed on the bloody deck: “Christ, we gotta beat'em, we gotta beat'em!” He was dead in minutes.'

It was only when the Royal's CO, Lt. Col. Douglas Catto, got ashore at Puys beach with the second wave that command and discipline were reasserted over the survivors and the slaughter diminished for the first time. Then the regiment started to fight back as much as circumstances would permit.
 
Capt. D. F. MacRae, the only regimental officer of the Essex Scottish who returned to England after the raid, reported that their troops 'had rushed out of the assault craft in perfect drill order and up to the first wire obstacle. So far as I know only one man was lost in the crossing.' However, only one party of the Essex got across the esplanade and into Dieppe. This party, led by CSM Cornelius Stapleton, used a Bangalore torpedo to breach the barbed wire festooning the top of the sea wall and then sprinted into the streets of the town firing their Brens and lobbing grenades. This small group inflicted maximum casualties on the Germans, then, out of ammo and aware that no one else was coming to support them, they returned to their battalion, which was still pinned down behind the sea wall. For his determined action, CSM Stapleton received a Distinguished Service Medal.

On GREEN beach, the Saskatchewans and the Cameron Highlanders had penetrated inland at Pourville, but the bridge over the River Scie was swept with German fire on the high ground to the east. Here the attack bogged down and Lt. Col. Merritt came forward to see what was holding up his two forward companies. Taking charge, he walked calmly into the storm of fire on the bridge, waving his helmet and calling 'Come on over — there's nothing to it!' Inspired by their CO's example, the Saskatchewans got up and crossed in a series of rushes. Lt. Col. Merritt then personally led several fierce uphill attacks to clean out a number of the concrete emplacements overlooking the bridge, but this was to be the furthest extent of his regiment's advance. Lt. Col. Merritt was awarded the first Victoria Cross won by a Canadian in the Second World War.

Lt. Col. Menard of the Fusiliers was wounded almost as soon as he got ashore with his battalion, 'but discipline and training proved strong enough to keep me going. I saw a German pillbox still holding out and I began flanking it with a group of my men.' At this point Lt. Col. Menard was hit a second time but he 'crouched low and kept moving. We had covered about 25 yards when a man crumpled up in front of me.' It was one of Menard's company commanders and his best friend, mortally wounded.

It was then that the third element of the Canadians' bravery at Dieppe — anger — took over. 'Up to that point I'd been more or less brave, let's say because of discipline and training,' said Lt. Col. Menard. 'I hadn't felt any anger because of my own wounds. But now with my friend lying there, I was so blind angry that it seemed to push everything else out of my head. All I wanted to do was kill, get even!' One LCT offloading a troop of tanks gained a respite from heavy gunfire mainly through the mad fury of one young officer. Despite his face being burned, one eye missing, and his tank disabled and helpless, he climbed from the turret while machine-gun bullets rattled off it. He dropped to the beach, blood streaming down his burned face, and crawled to an abandoned tank on the beach. Vanishing inside it, he traversed the turret and fought a single-handed duel with the guns on the harbour moles that were concentrating on the landing craft.
 
Pte. George Gouk, with the Cameron Highlanders as they fought house to house in Pourville, remembers that German snipers and machine-guns combined with mortar fire finally pushed his company over the edge:

'Every corner you turned you seemed to run into mortar fire and they could sure place their shots! Well, there was no stopping the boys then. They were seeing their pals for the first time killed and wounded at their side and the only thought that seemed to be on everyone's mind was to have revenge. It was great to see the boys with blood all over their faces and running from wounds in their arms and legs, and not worrying about getting first aid but carrying on in a systematic manner, clearing out the Nazis from the houses just as they learned to do on the Isle of Wight!'

Lt. Col. Menard explained that his rage 'seemed to clear my head, to make me think harder and faster. It also seemed to act as a sort of general anaesthetic.' Seriously wounded a third time, the Fusilier CO was finally carried down to the beach and put on a boat by his men. Here the fourth element of the Canadians' willingness to carry on fighting set in, a certain kind of euphoric fatalism. 'I was lying on a case of explosives,' recalled Lt. Col. Menard. 'One bullet would blow the whole works sky-high but, by then, I didn't give a damn. I thought, “What the hell, if they haven't got me by this time they're never going to get me!”'

Most soldiers in World War II did not expect to be left to die of their wounds on the battlefield, but this is exactly what happened to many on the beaches of Dieppe. Organised casualty evacuation was next to impossible. Those wounded while still aboard their landing craft were the lucky ones. Their comrades wounded ashore usually lay where they were hit if immobilised, and were likely to be hit several times again or killed unless pulled to cover.

Conspicuous among the many who risked life and limb to save their fellow Canadians was the Reverend John Foote, the RHLI padre. The regimental chaplain saved at least 30 lives, lifting wounded men on his back in a welter of fire, walking calmly out into the water bobbing with khaki corpses, and putting his charges on the nearest landing craft. Despite desperate crowds of men clustered around the craft, frantic to leave the hell on the beaches at any cost, Foote persuaded them to help him with transferring the wounded on board first. He then waded back to the shore, got another wounded soldier and went back again. And so it went for more than an hour, the incredible Padre Foote leading by example and calling out to all who could hear: 'Every man carry a man!' When the last boat was leaving, two sailors pulled him into it. As it moved full speed astern, Foote suddenly leapt out into the water. Returning to the beach he said later, 'It seemed to me the men ashore would need me far more in captivity than any of those going home.' John Foote, a prisoner until May 1945, was subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross.
 
Lt. Col. Labatt of the RHLI told CBC radio the sad tale of Canadian wounded left along the shoreline on the withdrawal of the last boats:

'Dieppe has a 22-foot tide and now this tide was rolling in and drowning many of the wounded. Chaps were going out from cover to pull these men above the high water mark — but they themselves were sitting ducks … When it became apparent there was nothing further we could do and that we were losing so many men through drowning, we sent some German prisoners out toward the seawall. They waved to their pals, who came up to the edge of the seawall and wire. We ordered the tanks to stop firing and then we marched through the wire to join our comrades. I was allowed to send men to the beach to help rescue the wounded. After dusk we were not allowed to approach the beach again. I'm afraid it is inevitable that some of the wounded were left. There were so many we couldn't rescue them all, but we did what we could.'
It became apparent shortly after noon that further evacuation of troops on BLUE, WHITE, RED and GREEN beaches was impossible. At 1:10 pm, Maj. Gen. Roberts aboard HMS Calpe received a simple message from Brigadier Southam's improvised headquarters on the main beach: 'Our people have surrendered.'

Between 350 and 400 men were evacuated from the main beaches and, of the 4,963 Canadians who had embarked for Dieppe, 2,210 were brought back to England. Of these, nearly 1,000 had never landed, so in fact, only 30 per cent of the soldiers who went ashore were successfully evacuated. The official Canadian War History solemnly states, 'so ended the brave and bitter day. Under the shaded dockside lights in the English ports, tired and grimy men drank strong tea and told their tales, and the ambulance trains filled and slowly drew out. Back on the Dieppe beaches the Germans were still collecting the Canadian wounded, and the Canadian dead in their hundreds lay yet where they had fallen.'

On both sides of the Channel staff officers were already beginning to scan the record and assess the lessons of the raid. Beyond the Atlantic, in countless communities across Canada, people waited in painful anxiety for news of friends in the overseas army — an army, which after three years of war had just fought its first battle.
 
The Canadian army did no more fighting in the months that immediately followed. Canada counted and recounted the staggering losses. Official statistics revealed that the Division had suffered 56 officers and 851 other ranks killed in action and 158 officers and 2,302 other ranks wounded. The accusations, rationalisations and excuses started to fly as soon as the Canadians debarked from their ships in the English ports. This exercise in bitterness, anguish and doubt has never abated. In hindsight, it has always been obvious that the Dieppe Raid was poorly planned. The haunting question remains, and will always remain, whether the lessons learned were worth the enormous price.

Combined Operations said at the time that the paramount lesson learned at Dieppe for landings yet to come was 'the need for overwhelming fire support, including close support during the initial stages of the attack' — what the boys from Quebec, Ontario and the Prairies would have called 'a fair fighting chance'.

Many historians have argued that success that day at Dieppe would have deprived the Allies of many valuable lessons and led to failure afterward. In fact, they suggest failure in 1942 was necessary. One Canadian soldier had no problem in agreeing with such a blunt assessment. 'If Dieppe had been a success,' said General Harry Crerar, 1st Canadian Army Commander two years after the raid, 'the Allied invasion would have been launched far too soon, with inadequate preparations, and I think it would have been a disaster. Dieppe saved us from that.'

Crerar was on hand to take the official salute from the soldiers of 2nd Canadian Division when they liberated Dieppe in September 1944, 'probably the most impressive and meaningful Canadian parade of the war' according to a newspaper account. When Crerar belatedly flew back from the ceremony to an important conference at 21st Army Group Headquarters with Gen. Bernard Montgomery, the British general soundly chastised him for his tardiness. Crerar relates that he told his irascible commander in no uncertain terms that 'I had had a definite responsibility to my country that at times might run counter to his wishes.' He had told Monty that, 'there was a powerful reason why I had to be at Dieppe! In fact … hundreds of reasons — the Canadian dead buried there!'

But the final word should go to one of the beachmasters who survived the hell on RED beach and was interviewed many years later. He put the whole Dieppe controversy in its proper perspective: 'It doesn't matter whether Dieppe had any point or whether it was badly planned or whether some of us were cowards or maniacs or brutes. What is important is that a lot of good men believed in something enough to die for it.'

by Ian McCulloch

About the Author
Lieutenant-Colonel Ian McCulloch is a military historian and is currently the Deputy Director of History and Heritage for the Canadian Armed Forces in Ottawa. He has published historical articles in numerous North American journals and magazines and is currently finishing a book on the Seventh Canadian Infantry Brigade in the First World War.