From: olaf@kean.ucs.mun.ca
Subject: Re: Dieppe
Organization: Memorial University. St.John's Nfld, Canada
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 17:52:40 GMT


In article <1992Aug21.220431.1@camins.camosun.bc.ca>, alumni107@camins.camosun.bc.ca writes:
> In article <1992Aug20.171146.1241@compu.com>, fr@compu.com (Fred Rump
> from home) writes: 
>> 
>>	[reply about Dieppe raid]
>> 
>> Does anybody here know what the purpose of this raid was? It was an obvious 
>> suicide mission, but why? Were all the raiders volunteers?
>> 
>> fred
>> 
>> -- 
>> W. Fred Rump 	office:	   fred@COMPU.COM     'mans feet have grown/so big 
>> 26 Warren St.   home: fred@icdi10.compu.com  that he/forgets his littleness'
>> Beverly, NJ. 08010                          		Don Marquis 
>> 609-386-6846    bang:uunet!cdin-1!icdi10!fr   
> 
> There are several theories, but the two most likely ones are :
> 
> 1) Lord Mountbatten, the commander in charge of the raid as a whole, 
> gave the go-ahead without the support of his superiors. Very handy to 
> have him as a scapegoat, since he's dead.
> 
> 2) The raid was supposed to fail (though not as disastrously as really 
> happened) to ease pressure from the Russians to open a second front 
> and to allow Churchill to pursue his Mediterranean strategy.
> 
> The Canadian troops used in the raid were very motivated, and their 
> commanders had been clamoring for action, but they were green. Their 
> lack of experience hampered their performance, despite high morale and 
> numerous feats of courage throughout the entire force. More Canadian 
> casualties occurred in this raid than on any other day of the war - 
> including the fall of Hong Kong and the vicious campaign in the 
> Scheldte estuary.
> 
> Jeff Johnson; .sig agnostic
> 
The contention that the fiasco known as the Dieppe Raid should be
blamed on Lord Mountbatten was recently the main theme of a book
by Brian Loring Villa, entitled "Unauthorized Action: Mountbatten
And The Dieppe Raid" (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989;
xiii + 314 pp., photos, two appendices, extensive notes, index.
Cdn $24.95, cloth; ISBN 0-19-540679-6. $14.95, paper; ISBN 0-19-
540804-7). The book was reviewed by Fraser M. McKee for
"Argonauta", the newsletter of the Canadian Nautical Research
Society, in the October 1990 issue, pp.37-38. A copy of the
review follows:

(writes Fraser McKee:) The Dieppe Raid in August 1942 was very
nearly an unmitigated disaster. A few military writers, some of
its leaders, and quite a few Canadians feel there were some gains
made from its lessons, later applied at the Normandy invasion to
reduce casualties; this is probably true. As well, several
lessons were learned at senior levels about military decision-
making, operational planning and approvals. Villa, in two quite
extensive appendices, particularly examines what went wrong with
the executive-level decision-making and approval processes that
took place just before the Dieppe raid, and the later scurrying
for cover when blame for the losses appeared imminent. Thus the
title, "Unauthorized Action": he does not hesitate to assign
blame to then-Vice Admiral Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Ope-
rations who planned the "Raid"; to Churchill and the British
Chiefs of Staff, who knew of it but did nothing to prevent its
going forward; and to the second level of decision-makers such as
Canadian Lieutenant-General Andrew McNaughton, who commanded the
Canadian troops in England, Captain Hughes-Hallett, Mountbatten's
effective deputy for the raid and its sea-borne commander, and
others.

There were 6,320 troops landed on the beaches on August 19th, of
which 4,963 were Canadians; the rest were made up of two Army and
one Royal Marine Commando, fifty American Rangers, and ten
newsmen. Of these, the Canadians suffered sixty-eight percent
casualties in killed, captured and wounded, and there were fifty-
eight percent casualties overall. If one includes the naval, RAF
and RCAF support forces of another 8,929 men, the total casu-
alties amounted to twenty-nine percent. In the larger war's
picture, even at that early date, out of a total involvement of
some 15,200, these casualties would probably be considered
serious, but not calamitous. Compared to the recent fall of
Singapore and Hong Kong, the loss of Crete, and the enormous
losses of the Russians in the face of the German "Barbarossa"
invasion, Dieppe was not decisive though it was mismanaged, nor
did it cause major re-thinking of Allied strategies as the other
calamities did. Of the thirty tanks of the Calgary Light Horse
embarked, twenty-seven landed successfully and half reached the
town promenade. But none penetrated the town to support the
infantry and all were abandoned four hours later. Only one
landing force reached its final objective, Simon Fraser Lord
Lovat's #4 Commando. One thousand Canadians were spared because
their landing craft could not even reach their beaches. While the
main object remembered in most histories of the Dieppe Raid was
to provide sea landing experience for a future invasion, Villa
provides convincing evidence that this rationale was just for the
benefit of the troops and to provide a sop to ease the
consciences of the Canadians and others for the unacceptably high
casualties.

Supported by extensive notes (thirty-eight pages worth, an aver-
age of forty-three per chapter, and one over a page long itself),
massive research into primary sources, and extensive quotations
from senior military levels and from other published histories,
Villa concludes that Mountbatten, appointed at Churchill's
insistence as Chief of Combined Operations ten months before with
absolutely no previous experience, was the primary culprit. He
cites Mountbatten's search for a high profile image (such as his
lengthy involvement at the time of Dieppe with the Rank movie "In
Which We Serve," a thinly disguised account of his life in HMS
"Kelly"), his public relations advancement, and his conviction
that he was always right. That he did not have final and
published authority for making the actual attack on August 19th
is of lesser import, and still open to some doubt. Of greater
significance are the reasons for the raid and for the acceptance
of its more-or-less apparent and serious dangers (particularly
the fact that the original plan, named "Rutter," had to be
abandoned when weather prevented a landing in early July). He
examines these reasons in the greatest of detail: political rea-
sons in Britain and reasons in Canada having mostly to do with
the Army, Navy and Air Force. For instance, as a result of the
German drive deep into Russia, the Soviets were exerting enormous
pressure on Churchill for some sort of an attack on German forces
at a time when he had been forced to cancel summer convoys into
Murmansk following the PQ 17 debacle. At the same time, the Army
needed a quick success to offset complaints that it no longer
showed a successful fighting spirit. Politically and militarily
the Canadians wanted a visible Canadian operation against the
prime enemy, Germany. Finally, RAF Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris
and the Chief of Air Staff Sir Charles Portal, defending the
already suspect strategic bombing of Germany in the face of
severe problems in mounting the first of the publicised
"thousand-bomber" raids, refused to divert any bomber effort to
"side-shows" such as cross-Channel raids. As a result, the Dieppe
Raid was preceded by only a few minutes of pre-landing bombing.
Even the Americans, despite their recent hard lessons of losses
on their coasts to U-Boats due to their unpreparedness, were
pressing for a full-scale invasion of the Continent, even if only
temporarily. While the British realised this was ludicrous, given
the Allies' complete lack of preparation, they were looking for
some substantive action to quell all these pressures. As Villa
states, it was the politically explosive intrusion of public
opinion that made necessary that disastrous gesture. And here
were the Canadians, principally McNaughton, actually looking for
an opportunity, even volunteering to take on all raiding for the
Army. Mountbatten claimed he did have authority to re-mount
"Rutter," using the same troops, under its new and final name
"Jubilee." But in reality he had only a directive to plan for
such a new and badly needed operation, and he was expected, as
was normal, to come back to the Chiefs of Staff for final
approval signatures. They certainly knew of the operation and
accepted it and the actual mounting of it, and took no steps to
prevent its occurrence. This, in effect, provided Mountbatten's
"out."

Villa produces a closely reasoned story and resolves many of the
contentious issues, such as the claim that German defensive
troops had forewarning (which they didn't), the pressures on the
ultra-conservative Mackenzie King to accept combat for Canadian
troops, the lack of supportive parachute landings, or aerial or
naval bombardment, and the many diverse bodies lurking in the
decision making background all wanting a major raid by someone on
a Continental port. It is this assessment of pressures on events
that gives the book its primary value, foreshadowing Henry Kis-
singer's observation, made in an entirely different context, that
"Outside observers of policy making assume people sat around in a
seminar-type discussion, having all the facts.... That is rarely
the case.... Usually decisions are made in a very brief time with
enormous pressure and uncertain knowledge. (1973)" In his final
pages, Villa eases off on his condemnation of Mountbatten and
even of the Chiefs of Staff, partly because of Lord Lovat's ob-
servation that "It would have taken a very strong man [to resist
the pressure for action] and he [Lord Mountbatten] wasn't...
rather [he was] like a cork on a wave...everyone pushing on him
(pp. 210, 242)." This book will not be enjoyed by devotees of
Churchill and Mountbatten, as this reviewer is to some extent.
But his points are well supported by facts and the book illum-
inates new facets of that sorry event, forming an excellent
counterpoint to earlier assessments, even if perhaps it tends to
some rather blatant armchair-quarterbacking after the event.
Maybe it is best, as a Canadian, to give the final word to
Lieutenant-Colonel Cecil Merritt, VC, of the South Saskatchewans,
wounded that day and taken prisoner: "We were very glad to go...
We were up against a very difficult situation and we didn't win,
but to hell with this business of saying the generals did us dirt
(p. 247)."

I hope that r-printing this review helps answer some questions
about the Dieppe Raid.

Olaf Janzen
Department of History
Sir Wilfred Grenfell College
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Corner Brook, Newfoundland
A2H 6P9