Dieppe Raid, Operation Jubilee

J-M L. Welcome to the Forum. I know that some of the Toronto Scottish never landed. I have a friend who was one of them. Sat with him at the Remembrance Day Service this year for a bit. As I recall, he said that he hung off shore for a while being not in the initial wave before the Naval Taxi driver decided that he wasn't going near the beach and headed for home. What I don't remember is Jack saying anything about a recall order.
So, that's about all I can add to the conversation on this subject.

cheers,
phil

 

Information requested by a new member and taken from Dieppe-Through the Lens.

TLC-8 (No.125) Carrying Regimental HQ. Key No. 2. Tank Name: Regiment. W/D No. T-31923R Churchill II. Turret No. Z1 in a Diamond. Tank Commander: Lt. Col. J G Andrews (CO). Driver: LCpl G A Nelson. Co-Driver: Cpl T L Carnie. Gunner: Tpr P Friesen. Loader/Radio Operator: Sgt C Rienhart. Andrews and Friesen were killed during the landing.

 

Thanks very much for this information. The Nelson story continues with him being incarcerated at stalag VIIIB later renamed 344, in Lamsdorf. In the spring of 1944 he escaped posing as a swedish worker and made it to Sweden in a bombed out swedish freighter towed by germans where he hid for 16 days. The exact dates and escape route is not known by me yet.

 

Hi Thomas,

No problem, I was glad to see there was a picture of his tank, albeit very small.

Regards
Andy

 

The pictures here and the information in relation to each are simply excellent.

 

The "After The Battle" title Andy mentions is particularly good as the wide angke views of the beach highlight the proximity of the various craft and stranded tanks ....... the beach itself was not very large a very tragic event...... apart from the actual landing attempt the air battle and naval actions are worth reading from memory the support fire from the navy was not insufficent - a learning curve for all concerned but at what a cost.

 

Three days to the anniversary of the Dieppe Raid.

If this topic has already been covered at length, perhaps the Mods can direct me to the thread.

I visited Dieppe several years ago. The natural defences ensured that the attack would be doomed from the outset. Canadian and British losses were staggering.

Question to the forum.
Did Operation Jubilee contribute in any way to the success of Operation Overlord? Was the sacrifice of 3645 soldiers ( figure does not include airman or sailors ) either killed, wounded or captured worh it?

Dieppe Raid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Randy -
if anything it taught that Tanks should not be landed on pebble beaches - the whole thing had been cancelled by Monty as being unsecure- then the egotistical Mountbatten took over - and we all know the results - we then left a bunch of Churchill Tanks lying around for further study by the enemy - Monty still got the blame somehow but he had already taken over the 8th Army (12th August) by that time - miles away in the desert !

Cheers

 

dbf,
thanks for posting the previous threads.

Randy

 

Hello Randy - welcome to the Forum.

The effect of Dieppe's chert (not pebble) beach on the Churchil tanks is frequently overstated as, of the twenty-seven that made it ashore, fifteen successfully climbed onto the promenade, only four failing to do so directly due to a build up of chert. It is a matter for conjecture what may have been the outcome had the road blocks at the town entrances been destroyed as planned.

You asked "Did Operation Jubilee contribute in any way to the success of Operation Overlord?" Thankfully Winston Churchill realised that it did.
Dwelling on the lessons to be learned he wrote: ‘It was a costly but not unfruitful reconnaissance in force. Tactically it was a mine of experience. It taught us to build in good time various new types of craft and appliances for later use. Team work was the secret for success. This could only be provided by trained and organized amphibious fomations. All thes lessons were taken to heart.."

The Prime Minister, recalling an article written by Liddell Hart entitled 'We have wasted brains', went into action. It took all of Churchill's persuasive power to get a Lance Corporal in the Chipping Campden Home Guard to agree to return to the regular army. He was successful - Major General Percy Hobart returned to active duity to again take command of 79 Armoured Divisiion!

Cheers, Gerry

 

Just a quick plug:

After the Battle do an excellent little ish book on Dieppe with lots of most excellent pictures that are easy to find via a map provided to do 'Then and Nows'.

 

Gerry,
Thanks for the update. Maybe, the lighter Shermans would have been more successful handing the beach area?

 

Here's a link to the book I mentioned Randy:

After the Battle - Online Store

I'm pretty sure they have published some magazines to that go into more detail. I believe the company have a Canadian distribution so you don't need to order from the UK.

Have a good look around their website-They are quality books, as I found out to my cost.

 

All failures can be pronounced as having a dimension of success in them by those involved and responsible for the plan and operation but it is hard to extoll the successes for us at Dieppe except that it proved beyond doubt that the Allies could not take a port successfully and use it as a bridgehead for an invasion of Europe.Cherbourg proved this to be right for the port was severely wrecked by the German garrison.It took nearly 3 months to get Cherbourg port repaired to receive Allied shipping and supplies.

From this lesson,the plans were immediately laid down to develop and transport a mobile port facility to the intended bridgeheads.Hence the Mulberry harbour projects.

It was also further thought that the decision not to bomb the town was an error.The reason for this was that it was thought that damaged buildings and rubble would impede the progress of tanks into the town while as it was, the town,undamaged was an advantage to the defenders.

Additionally the task given to the Canadians to get their armour over the bridge at Pourville,throught the tank obstacles at the bottom of the hill,then up the hill into Dieppe would have been impossible on the day.Then the Canadians had the difficult task to force themselves up the narrow ravine at Puys which was well defended at its mouth.

 

All failures can be pronounced as having a dimension of success in them by those involved and responsible for the plan and operation but it is hard to extoll the successes for us at Dieppe except that it proved beyond doubt that the Allies could not take a port successfully and use it as a bridgehead for an invasion of Europe.Cherbourg proved this to be right for the port was severely wrecked by the German garrison.It took nearly 3 months to get Cherbourg port repaired to receive Allied shipping and supplies.

From this lesson,the plans were immediately laid down to develop and transport a mobile port facility to the intended bridgeheads.Hence the Mulberry harbour projects.

It was also further thought that the decision not to bomb the town was an error.The reason for this was that it was thought that damaged buildings and rubble would impede the progress of tanks into the town while as it was, the town,undamaged was an advantage to the defenders.

Additionally the task given to the Canadians to get their armour over the bridge at Pourville,throught the tank obstacles at the bottom of the hill,then up the hill into Dieppe would have been impossible on the day.Then the Canadians had the difficult task to force themselves up the narrow ravine at Puys which was well defended at its mouth.

Well said Harry

While there is no question that some important lessons were learned at Dieppe, Canadian veterans will tell you that much of the so called 'success' claimed for the raid was simply to offer some justification for the debacle. Many of those apparent lessons are so self evident that it stretches credibility to believe that the result could not have been predicted.
Having stood on the beach at Puys it borders on being an act of insanity to have ordered that hopeless assault.

 

Well said Harry

Having stood on the beach at Puys it borders on being an act of insanity to have ordered that hopeless assault.

I'll agree with that statement, the list of errors that even laymen can spot borders on the comic.. but ends in the tragic.

Shall we consider the list of major errors ?

1. Parachute drop, arranged then canceled.
2. No preliminary bombardment.
3. Straight on frontal assault, the WW1 guys would have been proud
I guess no one thought the majority of German troops would be organized there
4. Poor intelligence of the area.
5. No campaign of disinformation to distract the enemy.
6. No control of the air.
7. Badly deployed smoke screens.
8. Bad communications.
9. Bad timing for arrivals, no surprise and no dark.


I don't think I need to continue.


Lessons learned ? Who was the band of idiots so stupid that they
needed this to learn from ?

Any way, we can at least remember the brave men from the different
units who sacrificed themselves at Dieppe:


2nd Infantry Division

Royal Regiment of Canada
Royal Hamilton Light Infantry
Essex Scottish Regiment
Fusiliers Mont-Royal
Queens Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada
South Saskatchewan Regiment
The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada
Calgary Highlanders
Toronto Scottish Regiment (Machine Gun)
14th Armoured Regiment (Calgary Regiment)
Detachment of 3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment
Detachment of 4th Field Regiment
Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers, Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps

And of course, the RAF, RN, 3 and 4 Commando including the Rangers.
Apologies if I forgot anyone.

 

Harry, Martin14, Canuck,

Thanks for adding to this post.