Disaster at Dieppe

1 Narayan Sengupta

Disaster at Dieppe

2 Narayan Sengupta

Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................... 3

A Disaster to Remember ........................................................................................................................... 4

A Serendipitous Meeting with Sgt. Elly Raskin ......................................................................................... 8

Canada – Organization, Mobilization and Training ................................................................................... 9

On to England.......................................................................................................................................... 12

Mock Invasions at the Isle of Wight ........................................................................................................ 15

The View from the Infantry ..................................................................................................................... 18

Operation Rutter ..................................................................................................................................... 20

Across the Channel to Dieppe ................................................................................................................. 21

Attack! ..................................................................................................................................................... 25

Unraveling a Disaster .............................................................................................................................. 31

Prisoners in the Hands of the Germans .................................................................................................. 45

Shermans and Tigers in Sicily and Italy ................................................................................................... 54

D-Day, Dieppe and Liberation ................................................................................................................. 57

Aftermath .................................................................................................................................................... 59

Appendix A: Order of Battle of Calgary Tanks ............................................................................................ 63

Appendix B: Tables of Equipment ............................................................................................................... 65

Table of Equipment for the Calgary Regiment (14th Armoured Regiment) at the time of Dieppe ......... 65

Table of Equipment for a 1944 Canadian Armored Regiment ................................................................ 65

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 67

Index............................................................................................................................................................ 69

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Sgt. Elly Raskin, Olive Ponting, John Wright, Donna Zambory, Richard Roach (all three

from The Military Museums Library and Archives), Rick Francis and The Library and Archives of Canada.

Special thanks also to the rest of the staff of Calgary’s “The Military Museums” and to both Tom Cole

and Jeffrey Tucker for proofreading and for numerous suggestions. Thanks also to Captain Colin Stevens

for great photos, making the formerly secret Notes from Theatres of War No. 11: Destruction of a

Germany Battery by No. 4 Commando During the Dieppe Raid available and for other helpful

information.

The photos are courtesy of and with the permission of Sgt. Elly Raskin, Olive Ponting and The Library and

Archives of Canada. The maps are based on Google’s maps and recent satellite imagery. All maps are

oriented north unless otherwise specified.

Dedicated above all to Sgt. Elly Raskin. Also dedicated to George Ponting, Jack Poolton and all of the

Canadians who took part in the raid on Dieppe “Operation Jubilee” and who invaded France a second

time to liberate it in 1944.

Banner art created by Narayan Sengupta.

This book created as a .pdf file.

Copyright 2009 Narayan Sengupta.

All materials contained in this book, including text, photographs, charts, tables, graphics and other

images are the property of Narayan Sengupta or the sources credited and are protected by United

States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content in this book is the exclusive

property of Narayan Sengupta. You may not reproduce, modify, distribute, e-mail or republish materials

contained in this book in any form without our prior written permission. You may not alter or remove

any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of content. No image in this book may be

reproduced without the explicit consent of the source credited.

Please feel free to contact the author at info@usaww1.com.

June, 2009.

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4 Narayan Sengupta

A Disaster to Remember

August 19 is the annual anniversary of the 1942 Dieppe Raid,

an operation optimistically and officially known as Operation

Jubilee.

Jubilee was to be the first naval invasion or, depending on

one’s definition, large scale raid, of World War II.

Approximately 6,000 troops were roped into the attack: they

included 5,000 Canadians, 1,000 British, 50 American Rangers

and 24 French light infantry. The 50 Americans would be the

first American troops to see combat in Europe in World War II

and three of them1 would be the first to die there.

It seemed so easy on paper: with the RAF and Royal Navy, they

were to execute a combined arms attack to land at and

around the French port town of Dieppe, hold it for the day and

then return to England.

In spite of the Operation Jubilee moniker, the results were

anything but celebratory other than perhaps for the Germans.

Indeed, between poor planning and Murphy’s Law, the

Canadians sustained an astounding casualty rate approaching

65%. It was a rate far, far worse than the 10% suffered by the

US Marines at Tarawa in late 1943 or the 15% that would be sustained by the Americans on Omaha

Beach on June 6, 1944. These casualty rates invite questions such as was such an attack necessary?

Could the casualties have been avoided?

Noted British historian John Keegan writes that “Dieppe, in retrospect, looks so recklessly hare-brained

an enterprise that it is difficult to reconstruct the official state of mind which gave it birth and drove it

forward.”2

Yet in spite of Keegan’s emphatic condemnation, there were logical reasons to ship out from southern

British ports to carry out an attack on the French coast. Various theories were being floated back and

forth about what was the right way to execute an invasion. A practice invasion would provide the

opportunity to test out various ideas about landing craft, aerial bombardments, commando attacks and

various other technologies and doctrines. There were many theories, but none had been sorted out.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rationalized that unless a smaller operation was attempted,

there wouldn’t be any generals who would be willing to step up to take responsibility for a much larger

one. Churchill is one of history’s most fascinating characters. It was his audacity and the freshness of

1 The 50 Rangers were from the 1

st Ranger Battalion and the three dead were 2

nd Lieutenant Edward V. Loustalot,

2nd

Lieutenant Joseph H. Randall and Howard M. Henry. 2 (Keegan, 1983, pp. 120-121)

1942 "Come on Canada" recruiting poster

by Hubert Rogers showing Canadian

infantryman with Thompson machine gun

Disaster at Dieppe

5 Narayan Sengupta

his ideas which so often led to results where others had failed. Churchill had been one of the great

sponsors of the birth and first use of tanks during World War I. It was Churchill’s leadership which had

seen the tenacious British people, and indeed the entire British Empire, through the dark days of 1940

during the retreat from Norway, the Fall of France and the agony and ultimate triumph of the Battle of

Britain. But Churchill had been responsible for mistakes too. Of those, the ghosts of the botched and

bloody 1915 Gallipoli invasion and his personal culpability in advocating that fiasco must still have been

fresh in his mind.

Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the Germans were pushing further and further into the USSR, and had

driven deep into the Caucuses in the direction of Stalingrad. The Germans had been stabbing deep into

Soviet territory for about a year now, killing or capturing millions of Soviet citizens and destroying much

of what they encountered. Soviet Field Marshall Georgy Zhukov made sure that they were counter-

attacked at Moscow at the end of 1941. It was a preview of the massive offensives which the Soviets

would launch in the coming years to halt, wear down and eventually crush the vaunted German army.

But for now, the Moscow offensive had merely bought the Soviets some breathing room at a formidable

price of more than 1,000,000 casualties. But then the Germans had resumed the offensive in 1942.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was continuously pressing for relief, any relief, from his Western Allies. The

Americans were still ramping up their war machine. So the pressure was on the British to do something.

The British High Command reasoned that an invasion, or even a raid as they would come to call it, would

demonstrate British sincerity to the Soviets and force Hitler to keep more men on reserve in France,

easing the pressure against the Soviets on the Eastern Front.

It is worth noting that the term used to describe Operation Jubilee usually is “raid” rather than

“invasion”. Most histories point out that the difference between a raid and an invasion was that a raid

was to hit a target, accomplish a mission and then leave it with as many men as possible. An invasion,

on the other hand, was destined to take the target and then penetrate inland with the intent of staying.

However, raids up to this time had been Commando unit in size – meaning several hundred men, but

not several thousand as would be used at Dieppe. Furthermore, the attack on Dieppe was relatively

large scale and it would use many, if not most of the techniques that would be used in future Allied

invasions in Europe, the Pacific and elsewhere. With these differences in mind, the term “raid” seems

a bit misplaced and belittles the magnitude of what was attempted.

A recent example of a “raid” and something that had gone well was Operation Chariot – the March 28,

1942 Commando raid on St. Nazaire involving the former American lend-lease destroyer HMS

Campbeltown. St. Nazaire was targeted for destruction to prevent the German battleship Tirpitz from

using its Normandie dry dock, which was then the world’s largest. It was not just a coincidence that it

was the world’s largest. In fact, the dry dock had been built to allow the building of the world’s largest

ship, the great French passenger liner SS Normandie. Ironically, the ill fated SS Normandie had met her

end at New York just the previous month.

The Tirpitz had been elevated to near mythical status by virtue of being the sister ship of the Bismarck.

It was also the heaviest battleship in European waters, so the status accorded to it was not misplaced.

German gunners were feared for their prowess, and the Tirpitz packed 8x15” guns paired in four turrets.

Hitler had become disenchanted with his surface fleet after the sinking of the Bismarck on her maiden

voyage. And thus the remaining large warships were brought back to relative safety in friendly ports

typically guarded by excellent flak and frequently Luftwaffe fighter units. Thus currently the Tirpitz was

semi-hidden in a Norwegian fjord guarded by flak and torpedo nets, but remaining a powerful threat

just by her mere existence. An unfounded rumor that she had sortied sent the convoy PQ-17 scattering,

Disaster at Dieppe

6 Narayan Sengupta

every ship for itself. This enabled its unescorted merchant ships to be picked off easily, with 24 out of

33 of its vessels ending up on the bottom of the Barents Sea between Spitsbergen and the Kola

Peninsula.

There was a reasonable concern that the Tirpitz would be deployed to St. Nazaire and that it might

operate from there. So the HMS Campbeltown was packed with explosives, driven around the western

tip of France, then southeast to St. Nazaire, pointed north and rammed into the massive doors of the

dry dock at approximately 1:30 am. Campbeltown had been escorted by two Hunt class destroyer

escorts and a small flotilla of motor boats carrying slightly more than 600 Commandos.

The Commandos landed and shot up auxiliary structures on the docks and killed approximately 400

Germans. Many of the Commandos were killed in the raid or taken prisoner resulting in 380 total

casualties.

The Campbeltown blew up at 10:35 am, ensuring the dry dock would remain unusable for the duration

of the war and thus keeping the Tirpitz from deploying from France.

So Operation Chariot had gone well. But it was one small success story. So perhaps a key motivational

factor for going through with Operation Jubilee was that the British still simply needed a good victory.

Psychologically speaking, a victory at Dieppe would have provided a badly needed shot of adrenaline to

British morale. In spite of frequent positive results against the Italians, encounters with the Germans

and the Japanese had generally had desultory results for the British thus far. Even much exulted

victories were often strategic victories rather than victories were the British really beat the odds. The

sinking of the KM Bismarck in May, 1941 was one such victory. Yet while the battle was on equal terms,

the Bismarck (or its escort the KM Prinz Eugen) sank the pride of the Royal Navy, the battlecruiser HMS

Hood. It took incredibly lopsided odds involving two battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers and

destroyers in favor of the British to finally sink the great German battleship. Another victory was the

Battle of Britain in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) beat back and triumphed against the German

Luftwaffe. Yet a post-war analysis shows that the British had lost approximately the same number of

aircraft as the Germans. In North Africa, the British had held the line at the First Battle of El Alamein,

but by this point they were against the ropes only 90 miles away from Alexandria. The Battle of the

Atlantic was not going so well either, though by the middle of 1942, the situation was starting to turn

around as the US Navy made its presence felt and as the Western Allies instituted a convoy system.

As far as outright losses go, there were many. The British had been driven out of Dunkirk by June 2,

1940. The Anglo-French force had been compelled to withdraw from Norway just days later on June 8,

1940. The British withdrew from Greece on April 30, 1941 and then lost Crete the following month. The

British were trounced at Singapore in early 1942 with nearly 80,000 laying down their arms to the

Japanese. It was the largest surrender in the history of the British Empire. And to add insult to injury,

the British had already lost two esteemed capital ships in the vicinity of Singapore: the HMS Prince of

Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse in December, 1941.

Perhaps a good military analyst could have foreseen that a loss at Dieppe may have been inevitable. The

Germans had better equipment, had the advantage of being on the defensive, were entrenched and

were on the receiving end of a sea-assault. The better equipment was not the fault of the British, per

se. After all, all of the major combatants of the European theater – France, the Soviet Union, the US had

all been caught in procurement cycles that were either ramping up or that were mass producing

technology that was behind what the Germans were producing at the same time.

Disaster at Dieppe

7 Narayan Sengupta

It was critical to practice attacking and capturing a port since a port’s unloading facilities and

infrastructure would be necessary to supply the fuel, ammunition, food, replacement parts and so on of

any armies moving inland. Gazing at a map, Calais appeared to be the logical choice as it was the French

port at the shortest crossing of the Channel. But Calais was armed to the teeth. The approach to Calais

was guarded by guns at Calais as well as others at Cap Blanc Nez, Cap Gris Nez and Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Along this fifteen mile menacing stretch of coastline were guns ranging from 21 centimeters (8.25

inches) to 40.6 centimeters (15.75 inches) in calibre. These guns were mounted in thick concrete

bunkers and considered more or less impregnable by anything that might reasonably operate either in

the Channel or above it. And as such, those German guns would probably rip apart unarmed naval

transports with tragic ease. Dieppe was fortified, but far more lightly. Like Calais, Dieppe was also

relatively close to England and well within the range of British RAF air cover. Its deep water port would

provide an excellent harbor. Best of all, the German troops of the battalion holding Dieppe were,

according to Winston Churchill, second string “making no more than 1,400 men in all”.3 In sum, no one

anticipated an insurmountable defense by the Germans in Dieppe and thus making a head-on assault

was not as crazy of an idea as it appears in retrospect.

Hitting Dieppe was to be a practice exercise for the much bigger invasion of Europe that would come at

some undetermined point in the next year or two. So the location was fixed. Who would actually do

the work? With the bloodbath of Gallipoli on Churchill’s mind, using the tough Australian or New

Zealander troops was probably out of the question. In any case, they were already either in North

Africa or back in Australia and New Zealand in case of a Japanese attack there. All sizeable British forces

were in North Africa.

On the other hand, Canadian troops had started coming over to Great Britain after the Fall of France

when it appeared that Great Britain might be invaded across the Channel by the Germans. The Germans

never invaded and, in fact, it seemed that the threat of invasion had been permanently dispelled by

British victory in the Battle of Britain. Nonetheless, the Canadians were kept in Great Britain rather than

being redeployed to other hotspots such as North Africa.

So in the end, it was the Canadians who were selected. They were available. And they had acquired a

reputation for being tough: a generation earlier, it was they who had bludgeoned a hole through the

German Hindenburg Line in 19184 helping to kill Germany’s hopes for ultimate victory. They were fresh. But they were also green: the enlisted men were inexperienced and so were there officers.

Regardless, the strategic vision was set. It was up to men like Elly Raskin, Jack Poolton and George

Ponting who would now find themselves actually smelling the acrid smoke of the battlefield, seeing the

wounded, the dead , the knocked out tanks and living with the memories of Operation Jubilee for

decades to come...

3 (Churchill W. S., 1950, p. 509)

4 (Keegan, 1983, p. 121)

Disaster at Dieppe

8 Narayan Sengupta

A Serendipitous Meeting with Sgt. Elly Raskin

I had always wondered about the

details of the assault on Dieppe

and knew little about it other than

it was a botched, mostly Canadian

manned raid on the French coast.

Over the years, I had seen the

dramatic photos of wrecked tanks

on the beach and read brief

summaries of what happened, but

still wanted to learn more.

Serendipity has a nice way of

intervening when least expected…

In August, 2008, while visiting from

Atlanta, I walked into the Calgary

Military Museums. The name is

deliberately plural since each of

the main branches of the Canadian

military shares a part of the

building and thus all are united

under one roof.

It was there that I interviewed

veteran tanker Sgt. Elly Raskin.5

Sgt. Raskin is a soft-spoken 88 year

old man who volunteers at the

museum. He was a veteran of the

raid on Dieppe and was kind

enough to tell me about it. He is a

tall, strong man with sharp,

penetrating eyes framed by eyeglasses, and silver hair, parted to one side. His physical presence

immediately commands respect. And within moments, it was obvious to me that he had seen more and

accomplished more than most of us ever will in our lifetimes.

Raskin was born in Calgary on December 12, 1919, but raised in Rumsey, Alberta, almost perfectly

northeast of Calgary about eighty miles away as the crow flies. He was one of five siblings. His mother

and father were Russian Jews born in Kiev and somewhere else in what is now the Ukraine. They had

settled west of Rumsey as homesteaders in 1905. Given their background, he grew up speaking some

Russian at home. He explained as follows:

5 (Raskin, 2008)

Elly Raskin during World War II (Elly Raskin Collection)

Disaster at Dieppe

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“My Mother came from Kiev. And her parents built railways. And my Dad came from

somewhere else in the Ukraine. But he came to Canada first. He was in the Russian army.

Somehow he bought himself out, came to Canada worked on the railways in Calgary and then

he homesteaded in Rumsey. He got a quarter section – 160 acres - of land for $10. And then

he bought another quarter of a section next to it which gave him half a section and then later

he bought another quarter of a section for three quarters. So now he had a total of 480 acres.

I was born in Calgary at the General Hospital, but raised on the farm in Rumsey. I had two

brothers – one was in the American army and married an American girl. He was a school

teacher. He and his wife moved back to Rumsey. My parents left the farm in 1928 and opened

a general store in Rumsey. My other brother farmed. He took the farm over from my aunt and

uncle. My uncle took the farm over from my father. They stayed there until 1932. And they

moved to Calgary.”

Raskin attended school through 11th Grade, and then farmed and still later started a trucking business

with his brother Sam.6

“We had a trucking business trucking oil, gas and goods from Rumsey to Calgary. Haul out a

load of cattle and bring back gas barrels.”7

Raskin joined the King’s Own Calgary Regiment (RCAC) after bumping into a friend who had already

joined it:

“I was on the farm on Rumsey. It was 40 below weather. I was going to the Rocky Mountain

House and ran to Big Valley (just north of Rumsey), ran into a friend of mine in uniform who

had just joined the CTR. He was telling me about how good it was and so I joined up. So I told

my mother and she cried all night. My father he was very upset. I had just turned 21.”8

During World War II the name changed to the 14th Canadian Armored Regiment, which was often

referred to as simply “Calgary Tanks” or “Calgary Tanks Regiment” and sometimes even simply “CTR”.

Sgt. Raskin explained: “It was the 14th Canadian Armored Regiment. We were (part of) the 1st Canadian

Armored Brigade. There was Calgary Tanks, Ontario Regiment, and Three Rivers Regiment. Now (of the

three) the Calgary Tanks was the regiment that went into Dieppe. And that day, there were slightly

more than 900 Canadians killed out of 5,000. Close to 2,000 were taken prisoner. In our squadron,

that’s tank squadron, there were 110 of us. And there was only 20 of us got back. The rest were either

taken prisoner or killed.” With that as a start, we talked for about half an hour. And our conversation

led me to the learn more about his story and that of others involved in the raid on Dieppe.

Canada – Organization, Mobilization and Training

6 (Karshenbaum, 2006)

7 (Raskin, 2009)

8 (Raskin, 2009)

Disaster at Dieppe

10 Narayan Sengupta

The root of the Calgary Armored Regiment went back to events of 1938. It was at that time that the

Canadian Armoured Corps was led by Colonel Frederic Franklin Worthington – whose nickname was

“Fighting Frank Worthy”. Born in Scotland in 1890 and orphaned several years thereafter, he was an

adventurer who had commanded the miniscule Nicaraguan Navy in 1907 and had fought in World War I

several years later. He is considered the father of Canadian armor. It was Worthington who first

managed to get tanks procured for the Canadian Army. Initially he procured two British Vickers Mark VI

light tanks in 1938 and then ten more the next year.

Restored Vickers Mark VI light tank in 1942 British North Africa livery. (Narayan Sengupta)

It was a start. Worthington would need more than 12 tanks. He cast his eye south, to the United States

to the FT-17s and Mark VIIIs left over in surplus.

The FT-17 was nothing like the main battle tanks of World War II. It was a small two-man affair with thin

armor that the Germans were often able to punch through with special armor penetrating bullets even

during World War I.

The Renault FT-17 was one of three well-known French World War I tanks. The other two – the large

Saint Chamond and Schneider assault tanks were perhaps most famous for their ability to break down

on their way to the battlefield, an attribute made all too evident from their first attack at the Chemin

des Dames. The French realized that the Saint Chamond and Schneider tanks would not be effective for

breaking through the German lines and came up with the more mobile FT-17.

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11 Narayan Sengupta

The FT-17s were un-imposingly small, and even with auxiliary tail skids had problems crossing the wider

trenches the Germans had been building lately. However, compared to the Saint Chamond and

Schneiders, the FT-17s were a bit faster, a bit more reliable, and having far fewer parts, easier to repair.

Furthermore, they were better armored and presented a smaller target. They were equipped with large

doors at the front and back allowing for excellent ventilation and easier escape when needed for the

two man crew. They were also absolutely revolutionary in that they were the first tank to go into battle

with a turret. The turret gave them the ability to fire in any direction without having to bring the entire

vehicle to bear, something which the two other French models and the various British models could not.

So in spite of their weaknesses, they were effective and thousands were built. Ultimately, the FT-17s

can be said to be direct ancestors of almost all MBTs that followed in the subsequent 90 years.

The Canadian FT-17s were technically Ford 6 Ton tanks – an American made version of the FT-17. The

Ford 6 Ton tank was an FT-17 with numerous minor improvements such as improved running gear,

metal wheels instead of just metal rim wheels and a bulkhead between the crew compartment and the

engine. Like their French counterparts, these American FT-17s were produced toward the end of World

War I.

Elly Raskin with his FT-17 at Camp Borden, Ontario (Elly Raskin Collection)

Worthington found out that there were American 6 Ton tanks packed in grease at the Rock Island

Arsenal in Illinois. He was friends with the American General Adna Chaffee, Jr. who was more or less in

charge of the American tank program and thus Worthington’s counterpart. It was a great connection

for Worthington. However, the US was neutral and thus, technically speaking, not allowed to sell

weapons to any of the combatants embroiled in World War II. Yet Chaffee was only too happy to find a

loophole to exploit. So the two men conspired to get the 265 tanks sold to the Canadian government

not as tanks, but as scrap metal for $20 per ton. Despite the “6 Ton” name, the American FT-17s

Disaster at Dieppe

12 Narayan Sengupta

actually weighed in at about seven and ½ tons. Thus the unit price was approximately $150 each – quite

a bargain even by 1940 standards.

By similar means, the Canadians had also gotten 90 almost equally elderly lozenge-shaped Mark VIII

Liberty tanks from the US. But the British Vickers tanks and the FT-17s and Mark VIII tanks from the US

were all the Canadians had to train with in the beginning. The collection of FT-17s and Mark VIIIs might

have been obsolete, but it was enough to start training. With these vehicles, Worthington had found an

inexpensive and expedient way to get his men working on operating the tanks, maneuvering in

formation and making repairs. It would give his men real world experience and for higher ups in the

Canadian army the information they needed to start thinking about the logistics necessary to support

armored warfare.

The Calgary Armored Regiment was mobilized on February 11, 1941, and left Calgary on March 7 to go

to Camp Borden. Borden was the largest training camp in Canada, located about 40 miles north of

Toronto. And so, thanks to Worthington, “[the FT-17] was the first tank we had in Camp Borden in

Ontario,” Raskin explained as he leafed through his book. “That’s where we first trained on a tank.”

On to England

After training at Camp Borden in Ontario, the men of the Calgary Tanks left for the UK on various

passenger liners9. It was an eight day trip. Raskin recalled that they made their voyage “on the bottom

deck with hammocks. We ate on the bottom deck and everything. It was a wreck on the way over. I

forget the name of the ship. It was a good ship but it took us a good while to get over to Greenock,

Scotland (near Glasgow) where we landed on July 1st, 1941.”10

From there they voyaged south overland to the great training ground of Salisbury Plain north of

Portsmouth. Here they were issued British Matilda II tanks. Linney Head, a gunnery range in southwest

Wales was next on their itinerary. They traveled there by rail and arrived in August and practiced

operating their tanks as well as gunnery.

For the tankers of the Calgary Tank Regiment, there was more moving around. Their next stop was the

town of Headley, near Salisbury Plain. In September 1941, they were at Farnham and it was here that

Lieutenant-Colonel J. G. Andrews took over command of the regiment. Again, they practiced

maneuvers together and gun control. On November 19, 1941, while in Headley, England, Sgt. Raskin

and his Calgary Tanks men were issued the first of their Churchill I tanks.

There were three tank squadrons – A, B and C - per regiment. By the time they got to Dieppe, most of

the Churchill Is had been upgraded to Mark IIIs. For the invasion, the three squadrons of the Calgary

9 Author’s note: George Ponting mentioned that he crossed the Atlantic on the RMS Britannica. However, It is

worth noting that the only RMS Britannica I have been able to cross reference is the ill-fated sister ship of the

Titanic – the RMS Britannic. That RMS Britannic sank even more quickly than the Titanic, hitting a German mine

during World War I and sinking approximately 55 minutes later. I have yet to find another RMS Britannica built

later. So it is likely that the men of the Calgary Tank Regiment crossed on vessels of other names. (Ponting, 2003) 10

(Raskin, 2009)

Disaster at Dieppe

13 Narayan Sengupta

Tanks would eventually have Churchill IIIs, several Churchill III Bobbin Carpet Layers, a few Churchill I

OKE Flame Throwers, a few Churchill Is, 10 Daimler Scout cars and perhaps 330 men in total.11

The Churchill design process had started soon after the start of the war. After the evacuation at

Dunkirk, the British had fewer than 100 tanks to defend the UK. So the Churchill was rapidly rushed into

production, ordered right off the drawing board without time to do proper testing or to work out the

kinks. The British didn’t order one prototype, but 500 of them, ran the joke. In spite of this, the British

kept improving the tank and kept it in service throughout the duration of the war.

The Churchill was a visually and mechanically ponderous tank officially known as the A22 and built by

Vauxhall in Luton, England. Vauxhall was a GM subsidiary and had previously manufactured small four

door vehicles such as the Vauxhall 10. But the British army was down to five scores of tanks; desperate

times called for emergency measures. Vauxhall turned off its automobile manufacturing line and used

its expertise to crank out the Churchills. In exchange, the Luftwaffe found the Vauxhall plant an enticing

target and proceeded to bomb Luton on several occasions killing a total of 107 British citizens. Over the

course of the war, the Luton plant would also go on to manufacture a quarter of a million Bedford QL

4x4 trucks and then helped in the development of jet engines.

Churchill Mark VIII – improved model of the Churchills used at Dieppe. In spite of the paint scheme and the name

“Regiment”, neither this particular tank nor even this model was actually at Dieppe. The original “Regiment” was left

behind at Dieppe. (Narayan Sengupta)

The Churchill’s design was built around the philosophy that any upcoming war would require tanks

similar to those of World War I – meaning a wide trench crossing ability, invulnerability to known anti-

tank guns and the ability to cross ground pocked by shells. The tanks were manned by a crew of five.

They were equipped with a 2-pounder gun in the turret, co-axial 7.92 mm machine gun and a 3-inch

11

The three Churchill II OKE flamethrowers were named “Bull”, “Boar” and “Battle”. The vehicle names

corresponded to the squadrons. Hence “Amos” and “Assist” were from A squadron. “Bull”, “Boar” and “Battle”

were from the B squadron. So were the tanks “Brenda”, “Beefy”, “Bert”, “Beetle”, “Bellicose”, “Bob”, “Bloody”,

“Bluebell” and “Buttercup”. C Squadron’s list of tanks included “Cat”, “Calgary”, “Chief” and “Cougar”.

“Regiment”, “Ringer” and “Rounder” were from the Regimental HQ squadron. And “Hunter”, “Helen”, “Harry”,

“Hector”, “Horace” and others were Daimler Mark II Scout Cars. Please see the Appendices for the Order of Battle

of the tanks that landed at Dieppe.

Disaster at Dieppe

14 Narayan Sengupta

howitzer in the front of the hull. They were sheathed in armor ranging from a minimum of 16mm to a

maximum of 102mm – meaning between 2/3s of an inch to a very impressive four inches thick. Such

armor was as good as that of the massive Tiger tank also making its battlefield debut in August, 1942

and the Panther tank which would come later. However, all this contributed to the vehicle’s 40 plus ton

weight. Combined with an anemic 350 horsepower engine, the Churchill was only good for a 15 ½ mile

road speed and a lethargic cross country speed of about eight miles per hour.12

The Churchill was relatively narrow (2.5 meters versus 2.9 meters for the lighter Panzer III, for instance)

which gave it a top heavy gangly appearance, especially from the front elevation. This narrowness was

deliberately done to enable to tank to be more easily transported via British railways. The length to

width ratio also meant a large turning radius compared to other tanks which probably was not a

performance limiting factor in the open country though it would have been in more restricted terrain

such as on narrow city streets. A more significant downside of narrowness was that the turret ring was

correspondingly constrained. Larger turret rings generally give a tank the ability to have larger turrets

and thus mount larger and more powerful guns. This would have been important to be able to upgrade

the tank or build improved versions to keep up with improved enemy tanks as the war progressed. The

small turret ring prevented larger guns from being mounted in the turret later in the war.

However, during this later period, the British used basic goodness of the Churchill to produce a whole

variety of specialized tanks including the Crocodile Flamethrower, and the AVRE engineering tank, a

bridge layer capable of putting down a 30 foot long bridge for use by other tanks, etc. These special

variations of the Churchill were designed by Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery’s brother in law

General Percy Hobart and were collectively known as “Hobart’s Funnies”. They were created as a result

of the negative experience at Dieppe and would be used at D-Day to great effect.

12

(Ellis, 2000, pp. 66-67)

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15 Narayan Sengupta

Mock Invasions at the Isle of Wight

The Calgary Tanks’ meandering perambulations continued. After Headley, it was off to the Seaford area,

on the southern coast of England. The men were billeted in a former girl’s school which was far better,

warmer and more comfortable in every way than the tents they lived in while on the Salisbury Plain.

While here, they trained on communications – radio operations, Morse code, etc. and staged mock

invasions at Ryde on the northeast part of the Isle of Wight on May 18, 1942. The Isle of Wight is a

twelve by eight mile flattened diamond with beaches that were similar in composition and rise to what

the British anticipated they would encounter at Dieppe.

Infantry executing mock landings in England in preparation for Dieppe. Note the utter lack of urgency as the men debark.

(Library and Archives of Canada)

“We trained on the Isle of Wight,” remembered Sgt. Raskin. “It’s just across from Portsmouth. We

trained there for beach landings. We came off ramps, got on land.” The beach they were hitting was

Osborne Beach on the northeast side of the island, opposite of the great port of Portsmouth and three

Disaster at Dieppe

16 Narayan Sengupta

miles to the west of Ryde.13 “Training was good,” Raskin emphasized. The Canadian tank crews worked

out waterproofing their tanks for about six weeks starting May 20, 1942 going through June and

practiced landings, code named Yukon I and Yukon II. The two landing exercises were executed on

June 11-12 and June 22-23. However, the beaches were of a different composition from what they

would face at Dieppe and also the targeted beaches were devoid of cities.14

Of course, they did this without knowing what they were training for since everything was top secret.

Yet the training failed to include any opposition at all. There was absolutely no one to simulate German

resistance probably leading to rather unrealistic expectations about how easy it would be to make a real

amphibious assault – especially against a well-defended fortified city.

“That’s the first time I ever ate crab” Raskin laughs recalling the training, “because they were crawling

around on the beach. I came from a farm, you know, out here (near Calgary). But I was born in Calgary.

And this guy I saw him pick up a crab, throw it into a fire into a pit of water. And I said ‘what the hell are

ya doin’? He says that’s the way you eat crab,” he laughs again. “So I ate crab and it was good.” He

learned to do just about everything related to his tank and to his regiment:

“I played different roles in the tank. I had different jobs throughout the regiment. I was

transport sergeant, I was crew commander, I was tank driver, and thinks like that. I was crew

commander when we were training. I became a driver at the start. When I was made a

sergeant I was a crew commander.”15

Sgt. Raskin and his regiment used live rounds of ammunition and practiced landings16 there on the LCTs

that the British had invented. LCT stood for “Landing Craft, Tanks”. These 191 foot long ships were

designed at the behest of Winston Churchill who recognized that there had to be a way to move tanks

off (and on) beaches after the evacuation of Dunkirk, in May/June, 1940. The LCTs were smaller than

the Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs) which came later. Thanks to their shallow draft flat bottom hulls, the LCTs

were capable of getting in very close to the beach. Dropping their bow ramps, they could quickly unload

tanks in a mere three and a half feet of water. The LCTs were produced both in the UK and later in the

US, and they can be seen in many photos of British and US invasions that took place after Dunkirk. The

ships were too small to be given names and were always numbered instead. The British designed the

vessel with mass production in mind. Consequently, they produced 864 LCTs of eight models, the US a

further 1,435. The ships were capable of 8 knots in a straight line at top speed. In normal operation,

however, their speed was slower.

Each LCT was capable of transporting three Churchill tanks, pulling up very close to the shore, then

lowering a ramp to disgorge the tanks one after another almost directly onto the beach. The men left

the Isle of Wight near the end of June and headed back to Seaford, England.

13

This speculation is based on a chart at the museum depicting a regimental itinerary which includes “Osborne

Beach S of W”. The line above reads Seaford, which implies that the mock landings were done from Seaford to

Osborne Beach – a distance of about 35 to 40 miles by sea. 14

(Henry, 1993, p. 62) 15

(Raskin E. , 2009) 16

(Messenger, 2004, p. 20). Messenger states that there were “two rehearsals in June”.

Disaster at Dieppe

17 Narayan Sengupta

For Elly, the next step was getting married. He met a lovely lady named Marjorie at a dance. Things

moved quickly from there:

“I met her at a dance hall in London. I met her in October-November19 41 and then we got

married about six months later. [Her father] was a jeweler in London and she was their only

child. [Lieutenant-Colonel Andrews] gave me permission to get married. Andrews was in

charge of the regiment, was a very well liked figure and got along with the troops fantastic.

We had to get permission to get married in those days to collect extra pay, etc. or to bring our

war brides back to Canada. The minute you got married [your wife] was a Canadian. We

married one month before Dieppe. “17

The pay was small by today’s standards, and there was no hazard pay or combat pay, but Raskin did not

mind:

“When I joined I was getting paid $1.10 per day. And then I was made a corporal, and I was

getting paid $1.30. I went to school and got a mechanical course and then I was making $1.70

per day. After making sergeant I got 50 cents more which was $2.20 per day which is all I got

for the rest of the war. That was it! I was married so I got $45 extra per month for my wife. I

never even thought about the money. We got clothed and fed, and what the heck. And what

we couldn’t get we would scrounge.”

17

(Raskin E. , 2009)

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18 Narayan Sengupta

The View from the Infantry

Twenty four year old Jack Poolton was born in Toronto, but was raised on his father’s 100 acre farm in

Kapuskasing, Ontario. As an adult, Poolton had headed west to find employment and had worked on

the great plains of Saskatchewan as a wheat harvester. His father Thomas had served in the infantry

during World War I and had raised Poolton on a diet of stories of life in the trenches, of horror and

carnage. Jack was born in January 9, 1918, probably while his father was still serving on the Western

Front. When the war started on September 1, 1939, his father dissuaded him from joining the infantry.

In spite of this Poolton was thinking of signing up. Patriotism as well as a lack of jobs were twin factors

affecting his thinking. The attack of the SS Athenia by the German submarine U-30 on the evening of

September 3, 1939 and its subsequent sinking 14 hours later cemented his decision. He journeyed to

Saskatoon and to Winnipeg and found himself unable to sign up at either. So he returned home to work

at his father’s Ford dealership over the winter. Still anxious to enlist, he left home again in April, 1940.

Again his father worked on his son, advising him against joining the infantry.

He went to Toronto to try to enlist. The only way to get there was by a twelve hour train ride. He

arrived in Toronto to take his medical test, but he had poor eye sight. The usual trick was to memorize

the eye chart, but his memory failed him. The examining doctor asked him if he really wanted to join,

and Poolton said that he did. In spite of his father’s warnings, not only had he joined the military, he

was now in the infantry. His new unit was the Royal Regiment of Canada. Everyone called it simply the

“Royals” for short. It was April 20th. In exchange for putting his life on the line, he would now earn the

princely sum of $1.30 per day.

He drilled for a month, then applied for and took a 48 hour leave to say goodbye to his family. He

parted tearfully from his family, returned to Toronto and then on to Camp Borden for more training.

On June 8th, his unit headed to Halifax, embarked on the SS Empress of Australia, which slipped out of

port on June 11th.

Instead of heading to England, SS Empress of Australia sailed northeast to Reykjavik, Iceland, arrived on

June 16 and unloaded the troops. The Royal Regiment of Canada was now part of Z Force – ordered to

defend Iceland against any possible German invasion. They stayed there for several months, working on

digging tank traps and earning a rum ration and 50 cigarettes a week in addition to their usual $1.30 a

day.

On October 31, SS Empress of Australia, with Poolton’s unit fully embarked, left Reykjavik and sailed for

Gourock, Scotland. Now he was across the Atlantic.

For now, at least, Poolton saw everything thus far as a great adventure.

“It felt really great to be in England, where we had beds, running water, mess halls and parade

grounds. The best parts were the English pubs, canteens, and, of course, the women... We

were always treated royally by the British people. It was a privilege to share the hardships and

perils of war with them… It was a good time to be alive with seven days leave every three

months and a few weekends in London in between. I was always made very welcome… I would

Disaster at Dieppe

19 Narayan Sengupta

tour historical sites such as Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, and

many other places. Canadians would generally spend a lot of time around Trafalgar Square

and Piccadilly.”

At Christmas, a wealthy Englishman named Sir Bernard Eckstein put the men up in a large estate home.

“We had several rooms and the servants were still employed,”18 Poolton commented, probably rather

pleased with his accommodation.

Signalman George Lewis Ponting was a fresh faced blond

haired 20 year-old from Montreal. He had been working at

Fairchild Aircraft until the start of World War II, when he

joined the Signal Corps. It was he who had earlier trained

the tankers on radio operations while they were in Seaford.

He described his new home as follows:

“In the fall of 1941, the brigade was moved north of our

summer billets to more permanent shelters. Our unit

was billeted in the Sally Lunn Cafe in Hindhead. Our unit

was composed of 108 men, wireless operators,

electricians, instrument mechanics, dispatch riders, two

officers, one sergeant-major, sergeants and corporals.

From Hindhead, I and thirteen others, were moved to

the Calgary Tank Regiment area and attached to their

headquarters to carry out communication duties. We

carried out training schemes from this location.”

18

(Poolton & Poolton-Turvey, pp. 20-26)

George Lewis Ponting (Olive Ponting

Collection)

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20 Narayan Sengupta

Operation Rutter

The initial operation planned against Dieppe was named Operation Rutter and was scheduled for July 4,

1942. It would have a sea-based assault on Dieppe accompanied by an aerial bombardment by RAF

Bomber Command and airborne assaults. The airborne troops were to knock out the Hess Battery and

Goebbels Battery flanking both sides of Dieppe.

The Calgary Tanks were now actually based in the coastal town of Newhaven, a couple of miles west of

Seaford and about 16 miles from two other famous Anglo-French historic sites – Hastings and Beachy

Head. From Newhaven, now a town of 12,000, it would be about 60 miles across the English Channel to

Dieppe. “We got on ships. We were going across to Dieppe, but we didn’t know it,” recalled Raskin.

Bad weather kept them on their LCTs for several days and several nights. The wait was long enough to

get them offloaded back into Seaford.

On July 7th, four FW-190 fighter-bombers crossed the Channel to hit the infantry regiment’s ships HMS

Princess Josephine Charlotte and HMS Princess Astrid with 500 kilo bombs killing several crewmen and

wounding several soldiers. The FW-190 was Focke-Wulf’s and perhaps even Germany’s all-around

greatest fighter of the war when all factors are considered. It was a splendid little fighter, fast straight

out or while climbing, maneuverable and packing a good punch. The units around Dieppe were

equipped with A-2 and A-3 variants of the FW-190. In such configuration, the FW-190 was armed with

two 7.92 mm machine guns and four hard hitting 20 mm cannons. The 20 mm cannons could fire

further and do tremendously more damage to whatever it was hitting. Just several rounds were

required to bring down a fighter and only a few times more than that to bring down a heavy bomber

staffed by a large crew.

In excess of 20,000 FW-190s were produced during the war. And while not every FW-190 saw combat

or brought down an enemy plane, the type was credited with an overall 5 to 1 kill ratio against the Allied

planes it encountered. [Ironically, France would continue to produce the FW-190 aircraft after the war

ended.]

There were also FW-190/U-3 variants set up as fighter-bombers. Officially the Germans called planes in

this category Jagdbombers, but in normal usage, this was shortened to Jabo. The four planes that hit

the HMS Princess Josephine Charlotte and HMS Princess Astrid were such 190s.The FW-190s bombs

passed through both Charlotte and Astrid before exploding, causing just four casualties amongst the

regiment’s crew though several merchant crewmen were killed.19 Weather postponed the scheduled

date to July 8th. General Bernard Montgomery, who was Commander in Chief of Southeastern

Command, was now against the operation. He felt that the secrecy of the impending attack had been

compromised since the troops had been briefed about the operation and then allowed back on shore.

Operation Rutter was thus first postponed due to bad weather and now was cancelled completely and

seemingly permanently. The plan would not lie dormant long.

19

(Poolton & Poolton-Turvey, p. 30)

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21 Narayan Sengupta

Across the Channel to Dieppe

It seems like French cities and villages have existed in their current spots forever, even if the rulers and

names have changed. Logically it follows that there probably would have been some kind of settlement

at Dieppe for several millennia. After all, many existing French cities date back to the Phoenicians or the

ancient Greeks and Romans. But officially, the town of Dieppe goes back merely to 907 AD when

Norman Vikings mentioned a deep river entering a deep harbor, hence the name “Djepp” (Deep).

Being interwoven with the drama of history was nothing new to Dieppe. It was razed by the troops of

the French King Phillipe August in 1195. And then the English occupied it for five years during the 100

Years War. Then the city was bombarded and almost completely destroyed by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in

1694. And it was occupied by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War though, fortunately, it was

spared the horrors of World War I.

The intersections with history were not all bad. There were good events too. In 1524, John Verrazzano

was commissioned by French King Francois I to search for a northwest passage to Asia. He left Dieppe,

hit the North American coast near Cape Fear North Carolina, sailed north and discovered the New York

Harbor, returning to Dieppe on July 8, 1524.

In the 17th Century, Dieppe was one of the origination points for French colonists migrating to Canada.

And Dieppe found itself in permanent contact with England after liaison ship service started between

Dieppe and Newhaven starting in 1774. In 1889, steamships started regularly scheduled timetable

passenger service.

100 years ago, the population was 22,000. Now Dieppe is a town of about 35,000 – which is not too

small by French standards. The buildings along the ocean promenade were several stories high,

crowned with Mansard roofs so typical of French civic architecture. Other homes are mostly brick. The

main landmarks in 1942 were the 12th century flamboyant gothic church of St. Jacques, the church of St.

Remi and the hill top 15th century Chateau de Dieppe, a grand art deco casino built in 1932, two twin

turreted towers left over from city walls that once surrounded the city and a municipal theater. Two

jetties – the west jetty and the east jetty – framed the opening to the large outer harbor and the smaller

inner harbor, both completely within the physical limits of Dieppe. These in turn led to the Basin of Mi-

Maree and then the dry dock before continuing to the River Arques which split Dieppe into western and

eastern halves and which flowed out to the northwest into the English Channel.

It was 42 year old Admiral Louis Mountbatten who pushed Prime Minister Winston Churchill to resurrect

the plan, and had the operation renamed Jubilee. Mountbatten was not just any admiral. He was the

king’s first cousin and a favorite of Churchill’s. His father had been First Lord of the Admiralty. He was

handsome, with movie star good looks and extremely at ease in conversing with and persuading those

around him. For these reasons and more, he had influence. His interesting last name was an invention

necessitated by anti-German fervor during World War I. Like the other British royals, in 1917 he had his

last name changed to sound more English. In his case, it went from Battenburg to the literal translation

of it: Mountbatten.

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22 Narayan Sengupta

The operation Mountbatten advocated was basically the same as Operation Rutter, but the air

bombardment was scaled back to try to prevent casualties amongst the French civilians. Two additional

landing craft had become available, so more men could be used in the operation. Accordingly two

battalions of Royal Marine Commandos were added to the mix in place of the airborne units slated for

Operation Rutter. The airborne units were considered more vulnerable to changes in weather than the

Commandos, so the change appeared to be a logical decision.20 21

“In August, we got word that the King wanted to inspect us doing a landing,” says Sgt. Raskin. “[We

were told this] so that no one would know where we were going. So that night we got on board and

‘boom’, we were headed across the channel. That was the real thing.” Between August 10th and

August 19th, the moon and tide were favorable for such an invasion – a fact easily discernable to the

Germans too, prompting them to be on heightened alert.22 On top of that now the weather was good.

Crossing the English Channel on way to Dieppe (Library and Archives of Canada)

Ponting said “On the afternoon of August 18th, we were told the landing was on and we proceeded to

the port at Newhaven, loaded on boats and sailed for Dieppe at dusk.”

20

(Messenger, 2004, pp. 20-21) 21

In the approximately 6,000 pages of his World War II history, Winston Churchill manages to devote a full two

pages to the 900 killed, approximately one page per 450 killed. At that rate, there should have been 2,700,000

dead Commonwealth troops throughout the war. If Churchill had any great sorrow for the Canadians lost at

Dieppe, then he did a splendid job of being dispassionate, more or less abrogating responsibility for the operation. 22

(Churchill W. S., 1950, p. 510)

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23 Narayan Sengupta

Both Mountbatten and American General Dwight D. Eisenhower were on hand to see off the invasion

force. Mountbatten went to inspire the British and Commonwealth troops, visiting one regiment after

another. Eisenhower went to visit the American Rangers.23

They put out to sea in their LCTs again on August 19, 1942. It was Wednesday and there was a half

moon. And this time they went across the English Channel as part of an armada of 237 vessels mostly

from Newhaven, but also from Portsmouth, Shoreham-by-Sea and Southampton.

Jack Poolton wrote “The troop carriers were being disguised as merchant vessels. False funnels and

bulkheads had been erected to alter their appearance, and flags of neutral countries were being flown…

After dark and out of the sight of land, the flags and the false funnels were lowered, exposing the

Assault Landing Craft (ALCs) that were to carry the Royals…”24

The ships were a collection of destroyers, LCTs, LCPs, LCMs, ALCs, patrol craft and so on. The flotilla

moved together lethargically, but determinedly, limited by the speed of the slowest vessel in the group.

The flat-bottom vessels made a distinctive slapping sound as they pushed their way part through and

part over the waves while the rest of the ships simply cut through them. They were really going across

the Channel this time.

Cross channel attack on Dieppe. The British Royal Navy had cleared a path through the minefield. (Narayan

Sengupta/Google)

The men were lectured on their mission and given aerial photos of Dieppe to study. No one yet realized

that the maps were obsolete. And expectations had been set for an extremely easy mission. Poolton

wrote:

23

(Leasor, 1975, p. 65) 24

(Poolton & Poolton-Turvey, pp. 33-34)

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24 Narayan Sengupta

“We were told we would not need respirators, and water bottles would be optional; it was

thought we would not need them as would only be in France a few hours. On the ship,

sandwiches and tea were made available, but went mostly untouched. There was no rum

ration given, and no praying. We were going into our first action cold.”25

The soldiers were a diverse bunch. Naturally they included both Anglo and Franco-Canadians. But they

also included, for instance, Polish Jews and Czech Jews who had migrated to Canada as well as

Americans who had joined the Canadian military.

Poolton wrote an introspective letter to be mailed home to his mother only if he failed to return:

“Dear Mum,

I am writing this letter on board the troop carrier, H.M.S. Queen Emma. We are finally going to

see action, and at present are heading for Dieppe, a German held port on the French coast.

This is going to be a frontal attack using infantry and tanks. We are to capture and hold for

four hours and then withdraw and embark for England. There are hundreds of ships taking

part in this operation. Everyone is calm, almost the same as when on maneuvers, but eager to

come to grip with the enemy…

I feel very proud of my regiment and have confidence in the officers and men… The English

Channel is very calm tonight, just like a mill pond. Our landing craft are hanging where the life

boats would normally be. It is a very beautiful and peaceful night…

We all know that the enemy has well-trained and experienced soldiers, but we volunteered and

trained very hard for this and would not want to miss it under any condition. I am sure that the

ship’s crew will get us to our destination safely. We have mine sweepers ahead of us as the

channel is heavily mined…

God Bless You All,

Your Loving Son,

Jack”26

Though he could not know the odds that were ahead of him, having the foresight to write such a letter

would prove to be an excellent decision.

25

(Poolton & Poolton-Turvey, p. 34) 26

(Poolton & Poolton-Turvey, p. 35)

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25 Narayan Sengupta

Attack!

The target was a picturesque stretch of French coastland perhaps 11-12 miles long going from west to

east rising gently slightly to the north. From west to east, the population centers dotting that part of the

coast were the villages of Vasterival, Varengeville-sur-Mer, Pourville, the city of Dieppe almost exactly in

the center and the hamlet of Petit Berneval (Berneval-sur-Mer) to the east. Tightly wrapped on both

flanks of Dieppe were sheer white chalk cliffs, rising up to 50 meters (about 165 feet) above the

beaches, and topped by thick French grass that stays green year round.

Map of the Dieppe area. Much of the coastland other than the White and Red Beaches was largely cliffs of varying heights.

(Narayan Sengupta/Google)

The British planners had given the beaches code names: from west to east, they were named orange,

green, white, red, blue and yellow. And they had also assigned names such as Hess, Goebbels and

Rommel to the various batteries around Dieppe.

No. 4 Commando would hit Orange I and Orange II on both sides of Vasterival near Varengeville-sur-

Mer. Slightly to the east, Cameron Highlanders of Canada and South Saskatchewan would hit Green

Beach at Pourville. White and Red, right at the center of Dieppe would have the most assault troops and

the tanks. In all four regiments: the Essex Scottish, Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Royal Marine A

Commando and, of course, the Calgary Tank Regiment would land there. Fusiliers Mont Royal was held

as a floating reserve offshore, but it was tentatively planned to have it land there as well.

Blue Beach, just north east of the center of Dieppe was the target of Royal Regiment of Canada. And

finally, Yellow II and Yellow I Beaches at the foot of Berneval-sur-Mer and Berneval-le-Grand were for

No. 3 Commando.

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26 Narayan Sengupta

The towering chiseled cliffs clawed out of chalk had drawn numerous admirers over the centuries.

People had lived in their shadows and walked the beaches and sailors had drawn comfort seeing them

first upon returning from distant shores. The cliffs had catalyzed artists such as Claude Monet who

painted them and their red roof houses perched tightly at the top. But these same cliffs posed

considerable obstacles to the attackers and provided great natural defenses for the defenders. This

gave a double advantage to the Germans.

In between the cliffs, there were a number of natural exits off of the beaches that led into gullies that

eventually rose to meet the plateaus behind the cliffs. But the Germans had long anticipated an

invasion against the Atlantic Coast – especially in this area. So the beach exits were blocked with barbed

wire, pillboxes and other assorted obstacles.

The cliffs at the two Orange Beaches near the villages of Vasterival, Varengeville-sur-Mer and Pourville

are crowned by a lighthouse. In the pre-dawn hours of August 19th, the men on the invasion craft could

see its beacon sweeping out to sea from 10 miles away. This was a good sign as it meant that the

Germans weren’t expecting the invasion, or they would have turned it off. But at the speed at which

they were traveling, they still had two hours to hit the beaches. And things could still go wrong.

Facing the mostly Canadian invasion force was the 302nd Infantry Division. The division comprised of

three infantry regiments – the 570th, 571st and 572nd, the 302nd artillery regiment and one anti-tank

battalion, one recon battalion and one engineer battalion. In spite of such decent actual strength, the

defending forces were shrugged off merely as “a company of the German 571st Regiment and some

Luftwaffe anti-aircraft gunners.”27

The 571st regiment was holding Dieppe proper. Its headquarters was perfectly placed in the chateau

overlooking Dieppe which gave regimental commander Oberstleutnant Hermann Bartelt and the rest of

the men inside a commanding view of the beaches.

Flanking Dieppe were two other German regiments – the 570th and 572nd. Complimenting them were

the other assets of the 302nd Infantry Division placed one or more miles inland from the beaches. 302nd

was inexperienced and static – meaning not equipped for movement, but it was well armed which was

perfect for defending a port like Dieppe. Finally there was the 10th Panzer Division - an extremely

experienced, but worn down German armor unit, refitting and resting approximately 70 miles away near

Amiens after having spent a year on the East Front fighting the Soviets. Prior to that, the division had

fought both in the invasion of Poland in 1939 and in the attack on France in 1940. During 17 days of the

French campaign, it had helped to breach the French defenses at Sedan and then raced 400 miles across

northern France and in the process reaching Calais and bagging 20,000 prisoners. Now it was having a

hard time getting fuel or spare wheels.

The plan was that the British No. 4 Commando would hit the German gun battery named Hess,

comprising six 150mm guns at Vasterival. British No. 3 Commando would hit the Goebbels battery with

its three 170mm guns and four 105mm guns at Petit Berneval. Even the 170mm guns had a theoretical

range of 17 miles – more than enough to cover the entire invasion area. The smaller 105s could punch

27

(Keegan, 1983, p. 121)

Disaster at Dieppe

27 Narayan Sengupta

out to about six miles.28 The remaining regiments – all Canadian other than the Royal Marines - would

hit Dieppe or its immediate flanks.

The bad news started at 3:47 am when part of the armada ran into a small German convoy using the

cover of night to try to slip down the English Channel from Boulogne, France into Dieppe. The British

had actually picked up the German convoy using shore based radar not just once, but twice and had

plenty of time to relay a warning to the armada. But there was a snafu and they did not.

The Germans also had radar. In fact, Pourville, the target of the forces destined for Green Beach, was

home to a German Freya radar station sitting snugly on top of the cliff, surrounded by 12 foot high coils

of barbed wire. The Freya was used for detecting British airplanes coming across the English Channel.

The Freya was a Mark II which was the latest model and was, in fact, the only Mark II installed anywhere

thus far. The British were very curious about its capabilities and were determined to learn more about it

and steal its secrets if they could. The unit had an air detection range of 150 miles and could practically

pick up British planes as they took off from their air bases across the Channel. But it could detect ships

at sea as well. At sea level it could acquire targets up to 5 to 10 miles out to sea. This range increased to

about 23 miles for ships with superstructures.29 The Freya radar was targeted too. The troops would

try to land, capture the Freya radar station and take back anything they could to England in hopes of

gathering German secret technologies. And there were other concrete hardened gun batteries and

machine gun posts and bunkers in between and around the villages.

The Freya radar was basically a large rectangular antenna array that oscillated back and forth from left

to right and back making semi-circular sweeps. It had also picked up the British armada. It was even

able to specify the details of its five column formation, that it had stopped to gather for about an hour

and that it had then started forward again, moving its columns more or less in parallel toward Dieppe.

The Freya station even went so far as to try to get warning to the ground units at Dieppe, but this

correct intelligence was rebuffed in some instances, but not in others. It was the expected German

convoy, came the reply in the case of the German Navy, echoing a similar error made by the Americans

at Pearl Harbor eight months earlier. And thus the German convoy from Boulogne was not alerted. But

for the most part, the Germans were now alerted to the invasion force.

So while both the Germans and the British had detected the other using ground based radar, both

groups of ships were left in the dark, figuratively speaking, and both were surprised. Nonetheless, it was

the Germans who reacted first, firing a star shell into the dark night sky to illuminate the British vessels.

The Germans had the added advantage of having their excellent German E-boats. The British called

them E-boats, but the German term for them was S-boat for Schnellboot – literally “fast boat”. And fast

they were. Equipped with three 20 cylinder Mercedes Benz engines totaling an astonishing 3,960

horsepower, the E-boats were capable of 44 knots. They were hard hitting too and within their hundred

foot length, they packed four 533mm (21 inch) torpedoes fired through two tubes, a 20mm cannon and

two 7.92mm machine guns. They ran into No. 3 Commando on the eastern flank heading toward Yellow

Beach near Berneval, scattering its vessels.30 Some of the Commando boats were sunk. In exchange,

the British sank three of the E-boats.

28

(Kaufmann & Jurga, 1999, pp. 394-397) 29

(Leasor, 1975, pp. 105-107) 30

(McNab & Bishop, 2006, pp. 78-81)

Disaster at Dieppe

28 Narayan Sengupta

British No. 3 Commando’s objective was to land on Yellow Beach, get to the 170mm gun Goebbels

Battery and knock it out. Rather than landing in one group, they landed piecemeal after being scattered

earlier in the night. First 20 men on one of the boats landed, found the 170mm battery, and then

engaged it with their automatic rifles. They weren’t able to knock it out, but they did keep the gun

crews occupied.

No. 4 Commandos was led by Lord Lovat, the founder of the Commandos. Their objective was Orange

Beach – the 150mm gun battery code named Hess. Lovat was having a homecoming of sorts as his

distant ancestor had crossed over the English Channel in the other direction along with William of

Normandy, soon to be William the Conqueror, in 1066 AD. Now Lovat’s men landed quickly. They

found themselves hemmed in by barbed wire until they blew their way through with Bangalore

Torpedoes. The Bangalore Torpedo had nothing to do with being underwater, but instead was a British

invention that used a series of 1.5 meter length sections of metal tube that were screwed together to

position an explosive at a distance. In exchange, the explosion gave away their position in the process.

They groped their way about in darkness, but eventually scaled the hills around Quiberville. They found

the battery and assaulted it attacking with light machine guns, an anti-tank rifle, grenades, a 2-inch

mortar and other assorted small arms.

A lucky shot hit the German magazine, blowing it up. The Commandos then rushed forward and quickly

suppressed any remaining resistance before moving to and disabling the other 150mm gun battery.

The Germans had 112 men manning the battery. For the Germans, it was a bloodbath: only four were

left alive by the time the Commandos had finished their work.31

Overhead were already two squadrons of Spitfires and some Douglas Boston32 bombers. No. 4

Commandos penetrated as far as two miles inland before pulling out by 7:30 am.33 They had lost 12

men of all ranks killed outright and lost another 33 who were wounded, missing or both. 34 No. 4

Commando were the only ones to complete their mission as originally envisioned, capturing the four

surviving Germans including a non-commissioned officer named Leo Marsiniak and returning safely to

England without any further loss.

H-Hour was set for 5:20 am on the main beaches: landing in darkness was chosen to mask the invasion

force and confer upon it the advantage of surprise and stealth. Finally, invading in the morning meant

getting the advantage of high tide so that the Commonwealth troops had the least distance possible to

traverse when crossing the beach. “But you see, we ran into German boats”, Sgt. Raskin said, referring

to the E-boats, “and that tipped ‘em off”. The sound of combat meant that the Germans on land had

been warned and were awaiting them manning the machine gun nests flanking the gravel debarkation

beach.

“There were high hills on each side and the Germans were dug in there just waiting for us,” Sgt. Raskin

said. Throughout the morning, the men in the armada found themselves staring into the direction of

31

(Botting, 1978, p. 27) 32

The Douglas Boston was known as the A-20 Havoc in American service. 33

(Messenger, 2004, p. 20) 34

(The Chief of the Imperial Staff, 1943, p. 17). It is unclear how the men could be counted as both wounded and

missing and not simply counted as wounded prisoners of war.

Disaster at Dieppe

29 Narayan Sengupta

the sun rising in the east. This gave yet another advantage to the Germans, who were themselves

mostly in the shadows with the sun behind them.

In between the towering white cliffs casting their long dark morning shadows over the pale blue waters

of the English Channel and behind the seawall was the town of Dieppe. And at the heart of the city at

White Beach and Red Beach, the seawall formed a very shallow “U” shape surrounding the invading

Commonwealth soldiers on the beaches at the center of town.

The Germans were starting to take to the air too. The German Jagdgeschwader (fighter wing) JG 26,

based at Amiens, Abbeville-Drucat, St. Omer-Arques (all in France) and Wevelghem (Belgium), had

approximately 110 FW-190 fighter and fighter bomber aircraft. Its companion wing JG 2 was about the

same number of fighters though it had some Me-109s in its mix. Both units had excellent track records

from the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, the Mediterranean and the Balkan Campaign.

Two FW-190 pilots from 5/JG 26 based in Abbeville 35 miles away from Dieppe took off shortly after 6

am for a reconnaissance mission over the Somme River estuary. As the two Germans climbed higher,

they started seeing flashes below to the southwest. It was the invasion fleet’s destroyers firing at the

targets on shore. As they flew in closer to investigate, one of the two FW-190s was hit by friendly anti-

aircraft fire from one of the batteries in Dieppe and thus it became the first Luftwaffe aircraft damaged

that day. The two pilots returned to base and proceeded to get chewed out for bringing one of the

planes back damaged.

More fighter units went out by 7 am and at 7:50 am. The Germans were able to increase the number of

planes they had over and around Dieppe. There were approximately 20 to 30 by 8:30 am and perhaps

100 Luftwaffe fighters above Dieppe by 9:30 am.35

There were also several Luftwaffe squadrons of night bomber planes in the vicinity. They included

Junkers Ju-88, Dornier Do-217 and Heinkel He-111 and totaled about 220 aircraft.36 They were ordered

to go after the invasion fleet. This they proceeded to do over the next several hours, making attacks

involving three to 15 aircraft, but never able to get a hit.

35

(Caldwell, 1991, pp. 119-121) 36

(Caldwell, 1991, p. 119)

Disaster at Dieppe

30 Narayan Sengupta

Loading on to a pair of Landing Craft, Machines (LCMs) just off of Dieppe (Library and Archives of Canada)

Disaster at Dieppe

31 Narayan Sengupta

Unraveling a Disaster

South Saskatchewan Regiment was tasked to Green Beach at Pourville and then to the cliffs overlooking

Dieppe on the west flank. They landed in the wrong place and eventually were forced to cross a

bottlenecking bridge over the Scie River.37 The August morning air was shattered by loud sweeps of

machine gun fire, artillery fire and mortar fire. The Canadians were hemmed in by the dramatic terrain.

For the Germans, it was easy. They merely concentrated mortar and machine gun fire to rake the

soldiers on the bridge which led to a massacre. In all, the unit lost 84 dead and 89 wounded.

Detail of Dieppe. White and Red were directly in front of the promenade. The beach photos included herein were taken at

White and Red Beaches. Note the dark blue shadows thrown by the seaside cliffs. (Narayan Sengupta/Google)

Calgary Regiment would land at White and Red Beaches right in the center of Dieppe. The town beach

was very rocky here as at the other landing sites. The men referred to it as the shingle and it consisted of

black and gray ocean smoothed chert rocks ranging in size from pebbles to some as big as grapefruit.

Mixed in were seaweed and seashells, exactly the way Mother Nature serves them up on countless

shores around the world.

Reconnaissance had been far from perfect so no one knew how difficult it was going to be to get off of

the beach. The shale on the beach was unanticipated and slippery and made it difficult for tanks and

men alike to get good traction. It was deep too, so there was no way to dig down easily deep enough to

hit sand or some other surface that would give the tanks better traction. The rocks would have caused

problems had they been the only unanticipated factor. But to the rocks must be added a slope that was

37

The road has since been renamed “Rue de 19 Août 1942” (Road of August 19, 1942) in honor of these brave

men.

Disaster at Dieppe

32 Narayan Sengupta

steep for a beach, a ridge that would force any tanks to expose their vulnerable underbellies to anti-tank

fire as they crested it. Right behind the ridge was a sloping trench carved by the oceans waves and then

further dug out by the Germans. The Churchill tanks were underpowered and thus were sometimes

throwing their tracks as they tried to get traction. The plan had foreseen engineers landing with the

Calgary Tanks to unroll long carpets of chespaling, but most of them had been unable to land due to the

intensity of the German response to the landings. The vertical stone seawall was thought to be three

feet tall; in fact it was seven feet tall and higher.

Detail of Calgary Tank Regiment landing. (Narayan Sengupta/Google)

There were 24 LCTs involved in the operation – each carrying up to three Churchill tanks for a grand

total of 58 tanks38.

Starting at 5:33 am, three LCTs got in close enough to the shore to land their tanks. LCT 1 landed just

inside the West Jetty (located on the east side of the beach) to disembark three C squadron tanks: Chief,

Company and Calgary. Situated practically right next to the LCT was a 37mm anti-tank gun whose crew

plugged away at LCT 1. In spite of this, all three tanks rolled ashore in good order. Calgary was third off

and landed pulling the scout car Horace to the shore behind it. The 37mm was knocked out, but so was

LCT 1 which then proceeded to sink in the shallow water with its bow still onshore.

Chief crawled west to the other end of the beach in front of the Casino and then eventually returned to

where it had landed, taking part in the battle the whole time. Company was following behind Chief but

was immobilized not more than 100 yards from the shore. Chief had been immobilized as it was

38

(Henry, 1993, p. 64). The detailed information of the names of the Calgary Tank Regiment’s vehicles and the

fate of each of them has been abstracted from Hugh G. Henry’s detailed “Dieppe Through the Lens” book.

Disaster at Dieppe

33 Narayan Sengupta

climbing the slight ridge on the beach, but was still behind it. Both Chief and Company were Churchill Is

equipped with a insignificant 2-pounder gun in the turret. But the more powerful 3” howitzer hull gun

lacked sufficient elevation to be able to fire on targets on the other side of the promenade. So the

Company’s crew spent the next few hours firing the 150 2-pounder turret rounds.

Calgary was a Churchill III tank. The IIIs mounted a 6-pounder gun in the turret. The tank’s capacity was

84 rounds which was an excellent number and meant that the tank could stay in action for a great deal

of time before having to replenish. Horace, towed behind it, was blown up almost immediately after

landing killing one of its crew. Calgary spent much of the morning moving very little, but firing away at

the Germans.

LCT 2 landed next to LCT1 and disgorged Cougar, Cheetah and Cat. Cat came out pulling the Daimler

Scout Car Hector.

Cougar dropped its chespaling device, got over the seawall and up to the promenade, turned west and

then engaged in a running gun battle with Germans in the tobacco factory at the center of the

promenade. Eventually Cougar disabled itself when stones from the shingle caught in the tracks

snapping the left one. The right hand track was soon hit by German gun fire. A German 75mm gun

opened up on Cougar and hit the tank at the turret ring. It was Cat that silenced the 75, but then it was

disabled by a Stuka Ju-87B dive bomber attacking it from above. Cougar’s crew, led by Thomas Cornett,

sabotaged the interior and then retreated to the beach. 39 In spite of that, they were later captured.

Other tanks also succeeded in firing at German targets as well, but soon heavier weapons were brought

to bear which destroyed or knocked out several of the Churchills one by one.

Cheetah clambered up over the seawall, but was hit in its belly as it did so. The shot failed to penetrate,

but made the bottom of the hull so hot that it turned red hot at the gunner’s feet and knocked out all of

the fuses shutting down the tank. The crew reacted quickly, replaced the blown fuses and got under

way again. LCT 2 was coming under heavy fire, and so it withdrew without unloading its assault

engineers or the accompanying mortar detachment.

Hector actually got over the seawall – the only scout car to do so. The Daimler was actually the Daimler

Dingo - a very small two man scout car running on six cylinders and usually equipped with a single

machine gun. It drove around the promenade probing for a way to enter the town, finding none, and

eventually returning to the beach. An errant shot found its mark, flipped Hector 360 degrees and

ejected both crew members.40

LCT 3 was attempting