Dieppe, 64 years ago.

[Harry Ree]

Originally Posted by Erik

Rationale

The 1942 raid on the French port of Dieppe, code-named Operation Jubilee, was spearheaded by Churchill's new Chief of Combined Operations, Louis Mountbatten, who chose the Canadian 2nd Division to lead the attack. The aim was to seize and hold a major Channel port, test new amphibious equipment, gather intelligence from prisoners [and possibly Enigma-encoded German radio traffic] and gauge how the Germans responded to an invading force. A primary goal was also to boost Allied morale, devastated by losses in North Africa and Russia.

Churchill hoped the use of Canadian troops would satisfy the Canadian commanders following the long inactivity of Canadian forces in England. General Andrew McNaughton, who commanded the First Canadian Army and General H.D.G. Crerar, commander of I Canadian Corps eagerly accepted this chance for Canadian soldiers to get some combat experience. They had been stationed in Great Britain for two years without having ever engaged the enemy in a major operation. Canadian public opinion was starting to question this inactivity, and Canadian soldiers were raring to go.

Churchill also wanted some good news to counter the defeats in Africa that Spring. The British press were clamoring for action, the Soviets were pushing Roosevelt to open a second front in Europe, and the overconfident Americans in turn were pressuring Churchill to mount some kind of operation. The British Prime Minister, who felt that one Gallipoli in a lifetime was enough, balked at a full-scale assault with litle chance of success. But he gave the green light to Mountbatten.

Some regard the operation as Mountbatten's folly.Certainly there was pressure from Stalin,urging the Allies to open up the second front.

What good came out of it was that the assault on Dieppe proved that the Allies could not re-enter Europe via a port such as Cherbourg and many others,without running the risk of being forced back into the sea.

The result was the lateral thinking of the D Day planners,some say from an idea floated by Churchill,to take their own "port", ie the Mulberry harbour concept.

This strategy of ignoring the otherwise choice,but heavily defended ports tied up an abundance of German manpower but reduced Allied losses in taking them.Some ports in Western France were left boxed up to surrender as late as May 1945.The decision to cut across the Cotentin Peninsula resulted in the isolation and the ultimate fall of the stragetic port of Cherbourg which by late August 1944 was up and running and was quickly adapted as the continental terminal of Pluto.

The recovery of the port facilities of Cherbourg was an amazing feat carried out by the Allied engineering units as the Germans had virtually destroyed almost all of the port.

The failure at Dieppe was not,in the end in vain.Valuble lessons were drawn from the operation which were addressed for the execution of Overlord.