Dieppe: Operation Jubilee - Channel Ports

by Tim Saunders

  ‘It was a matter of going in through the smoke till close, squaring off [to fire] and then retiring, then circling round and repeating the manoeuvre. On each occasion, we were straddled and it seems extraordinary that more ships were not hit.

  ‘He [Captain Browne] called for fire at a white house on the cliff top, which we answered, but I regret did not hit. He was not in a position to spot [fall of shot] and all we could see were the rounds falling short and hitting the cliff face.’

  A ship’s Royal Navy and Royal Marines gun crew in action.

  It is worth recording at this point that one of the recommendations resulting from Operation Jubilee was that ships tasked to support land forces ‘should have bombardment charges’. The Hunt Class destroyers at Dieppe held in their magazines high velocity, low trajectory, Semi Armour Piercing (SAP) rounds that were designed for use in ship to ship engagements. For bombarding the coast, a lower velocity high trajectory round was required that could be lobbed inland. With the wrong type of charges Garth and the other destroyers would be lucky to hit a target on the cliff top.

  The Second and Third Wave

  The landing craft carrying Lieutenant Colonel Catto’s headquarters, along with C and D Companies landed approximately twenty minutes late, at 0530 hours, having sailed well to the west as a result of a navigational error. As the Royals’ second wave started their run-in, the Boston Day Bombers hit the cliff top to the right of the beach with a mixed load of HE and smoke. However, by the time the second wave reached the beach ‘the smoke laid by the RAF had almost entirely disappeared, traces only remained in the treetops above the beach’.

  The second wave landed on the right flank of the beach but, as described by Ross Munro in a newspaper article, they came under heavy fire:

  ‘Vicious bursts of yellow tracer from German machine guns made a veritable curtain around the craft... As soon as the ramp at the bow of our boat fell, fifteen Royals rushed the beach and sprinted up the slope, taking cover along the cliff side. Machine gun fire held back the rest...’

  What Munro could not mention in a wartime newspaper column was that there were many casualties and both landing craft and beach were now littered with further crumpled khaki bodies. In a post war book he described the ‘nightmare of the blood stained beach at Puys’.

  ‘There was one young lad crouching six feet away from me in the LCA. He had made several vain attempts to rush down the ramp to the beach but each time a hail of fire had driven him back. He had been wounded in the arm but was determined to try again. He lunged forward and a streak of red-white tracer slashed through his stomach.

  ‘I’ll never forget his anguished cry as he collapsed on the blood-soaked deck: “Christ, we gotta beat them; we gotta beat them!” He was dead in a few minutes.’

  ‘Canadians were running [east] along the bottom of the cliff towards the stone wall. They carried their weapons and some were firing as they ran. But some had no helmets, some were already wounded, their uniforms torn and bloody. One by one they were cut down and rolled down the shingle slope to the sea.

  ‘On no other front have I witnessed such carnage. It was brutal; and terrible and shocked you to insensibility to see the piles of dead and feel the hopelessness of the attack at this point.’

  The four craft carrying the third wave, consisting of the Royals’ Mortar Platoon and the attached Black Watch company, landed under the cliff to the west of the sea wall at 0545 hours. Colonel Stacey described the situation that faced them:

  ‘Here the main body of survivors of the waves landed earlier were gathered; they had set up Bren guns among the rocks and were firing at the house on the right hand cliff, which was still spouting fire. Lt Koyl, however, said that “Germans were visible on the west cliff also and were engaged by the naval craft with Lewis guns”.’

  The surviving Canadian infantry were reported to be:

  ‘To the westward side of the Beach up against the base of the cliffs, the main body of the first landing of troops were heavily engaged firing up to the enemy on the cliff top also against enemy positions in houses halfway up the cliffs to the east.’

  Little is known of the fate of the soldiers of C Company the Black Watch, as the only men who returned were those who had been wounded in or near the landing craft. It is assumed that the soldiers of this company were virtually all killed or wounded on the fire swept beach. If any of the accompanying Royals’ 3-inch mortars, who were also in the third wave, came into action, they only fired a handful of rounds before the crews were also hit.

  The western end of the seawall and the slope up to the houses of Puys. One of the points where a few of the Royals got off the beach.

  Despite the dire situation, with grenades being thrown down the cliff, the Canadians were determined to get off Blue Beach. Some time after 0610 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Catto and a small party of officers and men of the Royals and the Royal Canadian Artillery, including Captain Browne ‘got off the beach by cutting a path through the wire at the western end of the sea wall’. According to Captain Browne’s report there were:

  ‘No Bangalore torpedoes available here, as those allotted to D Company had been lost overside from the LCA which carried them, and C Company’s Bangalore men had been shot down as they landed. In these circumstances, the only means of getting through the wire was the use of wire-cutters. The Colonel, Sergeant Coles and two other ranks finally cut a path and through this passage went a party consisting of six officers and fifteen other ranks...

  ‘I left my telegraphist, who was in the middle of a message, with his 66 set on the beach, telling him to follow later; but neither he nor anyone else was able to follow us . . . because machine gun fire from a new position immediately came down on the gap in the wire.’

  A German infantryman photographed on the cliffs of Dieppe.

  Consequently, at 0700 hours, Colonel Catto’s small party was cut off from the remainder of C and D Companies on the beach. However, reaching the top of the cliff above the western end of the sea wall, the party cleared two large buildings with little resistance. Captain Browne describes the situation as a whole:

  ‘Sounds of firing on the left flank had now died completely away. From the centre and the right flank, we could hear intermittent bursts of German automatic fire and the steady detonations of their mortar bombs. From this we inferred that A and B Companies had been knocked out, and that the survivors of C and D Companies were still pinned down in the angle of the cliff, being cut up by mortars. We discovered that we could not get back to the beach, nor could we get back to the cliff edge because of LMG fire from the left flank, up on the hillside.’

  Wehrmacht infantry machine gunners and mortar crew advancing on the cliffs of Dieppe.

  Seeing a strong group of German infantry advancing from the direction of enemy positions in the centre of the beach, presumably released from their task of containing the now destroyed or neutralized A and B Companies, Lieutenant Colonel Catto’s party withdrew westward along the cliff towards Dieppe in the hope of making contact with the Essex Scottish. They got away and reached the main road running between Puys and Dieppe where they eventually went to ground in a wood to the east of an 88 mm anti-aircraft battery that was one of the Royals’ objectives. From the cover of woods Colonel Catto’s party watched the battery in action. Captain Browne wrote:

  ‘The 88-mm Battery of 6 guns on the cliff top... served its guns magnificently. It was low-level-bombed at least four times and machine gunned often by our fighters after 1000 hrs, that is, between 1000 hrs and 1600 hrs, with us as witnesses, and each time the guns were back in action within a matter of a few seconds, firing upon the departing aircraft. Once, after a low-level attack, only two guns were instantly back in action, the other times always at least four.’

  Back on Blue Beach there were further futile attempts to scale the cliffs to escape the withering cross fire on the beach. Gunner Rowe recorded:

  ‘... a corporal organized a small party to attempt to get up the cl
iff. As soon as they came into the open three were killed and I was wounded... I saw a captain and a party try to scale the cliff. All of the party were knocked out and the captain alone got half way up the cliff and then his body came rolling down.’

  The Attempted Withdrawal

  Radio communication with the Royal Canadians on Blue Beach was poor. This was partly the result of the Battalion HQ Number 18 set getting wet during the landing and the battalion, consequently, relyed on Captain Browne’s No. 66 set, which was designed to communicate with the Royal Navy’s ships. In this case, HMS Garth was very slow in passing his situation reports on to the HQ ship HMS Calpe. Other radio users passed a series of contradictory messages before going off the air. This further confused the situation rather than adding clarity. As a result, General Roberts never developed a clear picture of what was going on on Blue Beach. He even tasked air reconnaissance to try to establish what was happening. However, what was eventually clear was that from about 0630 hours, repeated requests for evacuation from the beach were received by landing craft, mother and HQ ships.

  The attempted evacuation of the Royals consisted of numerous attempts by landing craft to close on the beach to pick up surviving Canadian infantrymen. The following examples are typical of the efforts made by the Royal Navy to get the Canadians off the beach. Lieutenant Ramsey commander of LCA 209 headed inshore some time between 0600 and 0700 hours. The Flotilla Officer of the Queen Emma recorded that:

  ‘... a radio message was sent out from Blue Beach asking all LCAs to return to the beach to evacuate the beach party... LCA 209, went in under covering fire of an LCS [Landing Craft Support]. Upon reaching the beach, the boat was swamped with soldiers and forced to retire. Very heavy fire was encountered and many of the soldiers were killed or wounded. Owing to the jam and excess of personnel in the boat, it was impossible for the doors to be housed up, and a fair amount of water was shipped. When the craft was about 50 yards from the beach, she was hit by a heavy gun and capsized.’

  Private Simpson was amongst the infantrymen on the beach watching the LCA approach:

  ‘... and orders were given to board her. There was a terrible scramble and nearly everyone (still alive) made for the small ramp doors. The slaughter was awful. The boat had to be pushed off the beach. It was so full of holes it began to sink. At that time, I would venture to say at least fifty men were aboard. Bullets were still pouring in and a bomb landed alongside. It turned over on its keel and stayed afloat. A few men swam away, while others and myself clung to the still floating craft. We were only about a hundred yards from the shore and were still being blasted by enemy fire. From what I saw, there was no life on the beach.’

  Only a handful of men either swam from the wrecks to safety or were picked up by other landing craft that braved the enemy fire. Without the effective support of a destroyer attempts to rescue the Royals went on until mid morning, at the cost of mounting naval casualties.

  Eventually, with grenades being ‘lobbed down from the cliff top above’ and machine gun fire emanating from ‘inaccessible German positions’, the remaining survivors of the three companies stranded on the western end of the beach surrendered at about 0800 hours. It is probable that by this time over half of the men were dead and of the remainder, few can have been unwounded. Gunner Rowe who was clinging to an overturned LCA just off the beach recorded that ‘After all the firing had died down, the Germans came down with stretchers and started clearing the beaches’. Those on the beach recalled that the nervous defenders shouted at them in German:

  ‘... until several English speakers yelled, “Put your hands on top of your head. Quickly now, or you will be shot.” We could see that they would not take no for an answer. We climbed up one of the cliff ladders passed the piled bodies of the rest of the battalion who had died trying to force a passage though the wire.’

  The German evacuate the wounded Royals from the beach.

  The ubiquitous German photographer captures the Royal’s surrender.

  Meanwhile, Captain Browne and the rest of Lieutenant Colonel Catto’s party, lying up in the wood south of the Eastern Headland, heard the Germans marching the prisoners away from the beach shortly after 1000 hours. This group, without chance of escape, though concealed from German reinforcements on the roads and in the fields around them, saw little military value in their situation and surrendered during the course of the afternoon. The Royal Regiment of Canada had all but ceased to exist.

  Of the 554 Royals who set out on Operation Jubilee, only two officers and sixty-two Other Ranks, most of whom were wounded to some extent, returned to England. The Royals suffered more heavily than any other Canadian battalion at Dieppe. To this total must be added the loss of seventy men of the Black Watch of Canada. The inner flank landing at Blue Beach had been a disaster and according to Ross Munro, ‘Nobody had counted on casualties like this’. The whole plan had relied on surprise but the landing was late and made in full daylight. To compound matters, the enemy on the headlands had not been suppressed by bombing or naval bombardment and once the landing force were in trouble the Royal Navy’s Hunt Class destroyers were unable to provide adequate assistance.

  225 dead Royals were gathered on Blue Beach by the Germans.

  The dead lay on the beach waiting to be collected by the victors.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  INNER FLANK ATTACK II: GREEN BEACH

  On the western Inner Flank, the South Saskatchewan Regiment (SSR) were to land on the beach at the small but popular holiday resort of Pourville, a mile and a half west of the main Dieppe landings, and three miles east of the Orange beaches and No. 4 Commando. As with the other flank attacks, the time of the landing on Green Beach was 0450 hours.

  The Pourville beach (Green Beach) is overlooked by cliffs to the east and the west. Immediately behind the beach is an eight-foot-high sea wall. Though by no means as formidable as the wall at Blue Beach, with plenty of barbed wire it was still a significant obstacle – especially if the enemy were alert. Beyond it lay the village of Pourville, on ‘what is in effect a narrow strip of land between the marshy flats of the Scie and the sea.’ To make the river Scie valley more of an obstacle, the Germans had inundated much of the valley bottom, thus extending these marshy flats almost to the sea wall.

  The Germans who were holding the coastline from the western end of the Dieppe Esplanade to Pourville were 8 Kompanie II/571 Infantarie Regiment. Their efforts were divided between manning positions overlooking Dieppe itself and the cliffs west of Pourville, while a platoon of about forty men were positioned in Pourville covering Green Beach and the Scie Valley. As elsewhere on the Dieppe coast, the Germans had fully exploited the defensive qualities of the terrain, and had strongly fortified the high ground that afforded good fields of fire across both the beach and the valley. In the centre of the headland east of the beach stood one of the chain of German radar (RDF) stations that kept watch on the coast, along with a couple of anti-aircraft batteries, one of which was in the process of building protective concrete casemates at the time of the raid.

  Looking west from the Western Headland across Green Beach, Pourville and the Scie Valley to a further set of cliffs.

  German Defences West of Dieppe

  The South Saskatchewan Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Merrit, was to land astride the River Scie and establish a beachhead ‘with the minimum delay to enable the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada to pass through without opposition’ and attack the enemy airfield south of Dieppe. The Camerons were to meet up with the tanks of the Calgary Regiment, which would be landing on the main beach at Dieppe and attack the reported divisional headquarters location in the château of Arques-la-Bataille. Meanwhile, the South Saskatchewans had the task of clearing the usual collection of gun positions between Green Beach and Dieppe.

  The inundated Scie Valley and the high ground east of Poutville, photographed during February 1942.

  The inundation of the valley behind the beach shaped the detail o
f Colonel Merrit’s plan, but as there was sufficient space on the beach, all four companies were to land in a single wave. A Company on the left (east) flank:

  ‘...would immediately operate against the high ground to the east of Pourville capturing two light anti-aircraft guns, as well as the RDF station on the cliff and other guns nearby. This company would subsequently consolidate, make contact with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry [RHLI, who were to land on the main beach].’

  D Company, landing in the centre left, would clear Pourville east of the Scie bridge and strike inland in a south-easterly direction to clear and to take a battery that was described in briefings as being light, but marked on the intelligence overprint as being heavy. Then having linked up with the RHLI, they were to secure ‘les 4 Vents Farm’ or as it was known to the Canadians, ‘Four Winds Farm.’

  According to Colonel Stacey, C Company on the battalion’s right, were ordered to clear ‘a large white hotel overlooking the beach. This building turned out to be the quarters of a group of foreigners [slave or forced labour], some of which at least were Belgian’. C Company was then to take and hold the headland to the west of the beach until the Cameron Highlanders had advanced up the Scie Valley en route to their tasks at the airfield and the German headquarters. In the right centre, B Company was to clear Pourville, west of the Scie, including a building thought to be a German officers’ mess, and take an infantry defensive position a little way inland. The Saskatchewans would subsequently form the western portion of the temporary defensive perimeter around Dieppe. It was planned that the battalion’s eventual withdrawal would be via the main beach at Dieppe.