Dieppe: Operation Jubilee - Channel Ports

by Tim Saunders

  The plan was to send all Commander McClintock’s smaller landing craft to the beaches where they had originally landed their troops and to ferry evacuated troops to the LCTs who were to remain about a mile from the shore. Meanwhile, the destroyers and the Landing Craft Flak ‘were to give all possible fire support . . . and all vessels suitably placed were ordered to make smoke’. As there was an onshore breeze, an effective smoke screen was duly made. Also adding to the smoke screen and general fire support were the Churchills of the Calgary Regiment. Twelve of the sixteen tanks that reached the Esplanade returned to the beach leaving four of their number knocked out on the lawns. Given their task of covering the withdrawal, few of the tank crew had any illusion about their chances of evacuation. In the event, only three of the approximately two hundred Calgary Regiment soldiers who landed at Dieppe returned to England.

  HMS Calpe making smoke during Jubilee.

  As indicated above, the Royal Air Force already had plans to cover the evacuation and were already prepared to carry out a series of bombing attacks, mainly on the headlands. Two groups of three Blenheim smoke laying aircraft would augment the Navy’s curtain of smoke between the east and west headlands during the period 1100 and 1200 hours. Effective use of smoke played a significant part in the withdrawal plan. One of the post operational conclusions was that:

  ‘There is no doubt that these smoke curtains were of great use and their presence made possible the evacuation of a larger number of troops than would otherwise have been the case. They also prevented the infliction of damage to the Naval Craft.’

  The smoke however, was a double-edged weapon as it prevented ships engaging targets at the back of Red and White Beaches. Therefore, the ships mainly engaged targets on the headlands, where their fire, as already discussed was least effective.

  The Withdrawal

  Events on the other beaches have already been covered in their respective chapters, therefore, this section will concentrate on the withdrawal from Red and White Beaches and the return passage of the raiding force to the ports of southern England.

  Blenheim smoke laying aircraft.

  The rescheduled withdrawal began at 1106 hours under command of Commander McClintock. Since the code word VANQUISH had been issued, he had been gathering landing craft for the withdrawal into a waiting area about a mile and a half offshore. At the appointed hour, they move in towards the Dieppe beach. As the LCAs broke cover from the smoke, they were hit by heavy fire from the enemy’s headland positions and when the boats approached, the waiting infantry ran across the beach. According to Captain Whitaker ‘Apart from trying to help the wounded it was every man for himself’. However, some men, mainly wounded, were prepared to cover the withdrawal by staying behind to keep the Germans’ heads down. The effect of this was particularly marked on the RHLI on White Beach.

  Sergeant Hickson was watching from the cover of the seawall in the area of the Casino and in his personal account described:

  ‘... a great rush of infantry down from the centre of the beach towards the boats. Instead of scattering they seemed to concentrate on a few craft, and the crowd of men around these craft drew heavy fire.’

  A trio of quotes from anonymous infantryman contained in the COHQ report give a powerful impression of the moment:

  ‘I made my way out to an LCA, but the first one I came to was hit and I was knocked off it. I was picked up by another which was overcrowded and sinking but another craft came alongside and took off most of the men, leaving the rest of us to bale out until we attracted the attention of a further ship which stopped and took us on board.’

  A second soldier recounted:

  ‘We got back to the beach and out to an LCA. Before I got in, it pulled out and I hung on to some ropes and was pulled in. A bullet hit me in the arm and knocked me off the rope but I managed to grab the iron bars by the propeller and after it pulled me quite a long way, a couple of people hauled me up over the back and that LCA brought us to Newhaven.’

  Another man recalled:

  ‘The sea boiled red with the impact of bullets, trashing limbs and gushing wounds. I fought my way into an LCA, ignoring the crew who were inadequate to keep order, and lay gasping in the bottom of the boat as others piled in on top of me. When I could stand up, we were in the smoke bank but still being raked with fire.’

  Most of the craft ferrying the survivors from the beaches to the LCTs were overloaded, some to the point that they capsized, leaving men mainly without buoyancy aids floundering in the sea. The Essex Scottish on Red Beach, however, received only a handful of craft. Consequently, 392 officers and men waited in vain for rescue, under heavy fire all the while from the Eastern Headland.

  Throughout the day, the indomitable Padre John Foote had been calmly ministering to the RHLI’s wounded in the scant shelter of the seawall below the Casino. His citation to the Victoria Cross reads,

  ‘The calmness of this heroic officer as he walked about collecting the wounded on the fire swept beach will never be forgotten’.

  Padre John

  Foote VC.

  During the withdrawal the Padre helped wounded soldiers of his battalion down to the craft saw them aboard and then returned back up the beach to help bring down further men. Later he explained:

  ‘By the time I had got one wounded soldier slung aboard a boat I was on the deck myself, so the fellow said to me, “Come on” but I said, “No, there are lots of chaplins back in England.” I didn’t intend to go home because the action wasn’t over, my work wasn’t done.’

  As recorded in his citation ‘He refused a final opportunity to leave the shore, choosing to suffer the fate of the men he had ministered to for almost three years’. The London Gazette announced that Captain John Foote had been awarded the Victoria Cross for conduct beyond the call of duty on 14 February 1946.

  Wounded soldiers disembarking from a landing craft.

  HMS Calpe embarking evacuees from landing craft.

  Meanwhile, at the beginning of the withdrawal, ‘HMS Calpe had made for the western end of Green Beach (Pourville) embarked two landing-craft loads of troops about 1130 hours and then moved off to the main beaches, where she took further troops on board. ML 194 was ordered to round up all the landing craft she could find in the area and send them back into Red and White Beaches. This renewed attempt was met with a hail of fire and the number of casualties amongst the rescued and the rescuers grew appreciably. Consequently, at 1220 hours, Commander McClintock signalled that no further evacuation was feasible. The Military Force Commander, however, asked for still further efforts and the Naval Force Commander replied with the following signal ‘If no further evacuation possible, withdraw’. The signal was incorrectly sent or incorrectly decoded and Commander McClintock received it without the first word ‘If’. He accordingly brought the evacuation to an end.

  Even though officially at an end, Captain Hughes-Hallett personally took HMS Calpe, with LCA 185 and LCA 188 on either bow, inshore towards the eastern end of Red Beach for one last look.

  ‘We engaged German machine gun posts on the breakwater and when about nine cables from the beach, we came under heavy fire. Seeing only wrecked landing craft, I knew that further efforts to evacuate the force would be futile and being ourselves very hotly engaged, withdrew back into the smoke.’

  German machine gunner arriving to reinforce the defenders.

  Meanwhile, at 1301 hours Major Rolfe, still in the wreck of his armoured car on the beach radioed HMS Calpe requesting that they ‘Bombard buildings and pillboxes along promenade. Enemy closing in’. The next message recorded by the duty watchkeeper just three minutes later read ‘Give us quick support. Enemy closing in on beach. Hurry it up please’.

  German communications were still working well and at 1215 hours, Feldmarshall von Rundstedt in his Headquarters outside Paris had a clear picture of what was happening at Dieppe and briefed his staff that:

  ‘The enemy is withdrawing. It is up to us now – and I’m pressing this po
int – to wipe out as many of the enemy as possible. Drive forward at once! Every available gun barrel must now contribute to the complete destruction of the enemy and the entire front on which he has landed must be cleared in the shortest time.’

  At about this time Captain Hughes-Hallett was asking whether the shallow draft Locust, should make one more attempt, ‘when the Military Force Commander informed him that he had received a signal stating that most of the troops still left on the main beaches were surrendering’.

  The message was passed by a radio operator belonging to C Company, the Essex Scottish’s, who ‘continued to transmit up to the last moment, the very heavy fire to which he was subjected being clearly heard in the earphones of the telegraphists on board the Headquarter Ships’.

  Reserve infantry arrive on the smoke shrouded seawall with an anti-tank gun, in the background is the Casino pillbox.

  A German machine gun team moving to the Esplanade during the final stages of the raid.

  Lieutenant Dunlap of the Calgary Regiment described the end.

  ‘When no more boats were seen to be coming in, the gunfire dropped off and became desultory... We saw troops surrendering in a movement that gradually swept down the beach towards us. Further resistance seemed futile. As the Germans troops appeared in our sector, we raised our hands and gave up.’

  The radio operators on the departing ships sat impotently listened to Major Rolfe reporting that ‘They were making a dash for it’ and moments later came the final message. ‘We are surrendering to the enemy, a mass surrender on Red Beach’. The surrender of the remnants of the RHLI and the Fusiliers Mont-Royal around the Casino and on White Beach took place a few minutes later when German reinforcements started to appear from the Dieppe railway station.

  The troops surrendering included Brigadier Southam, commander of 6 Canadian Infantry Brigade. Sadly, he had taken a copy of his operation order ashore in defiance of Major General Robert’s instructions and had not destroyed it as the enemy closed in. The resulting insight into Allied capabilities and methods that the Germans were able to glean from it was damaging. However, perhaps the most significant result was that in retaliation for a paragraph requiring the Canadians to bind the hands of German prisoners, the Canadian PoWs spent nearly eighteen months in manacles.

  During the final stages of the operation, the destroyer HMS Berkeley ‘was hit by a heavy bomb dropped by a JU 88 during an encounter with our fighters’. The bomb penetrated the superstructure destroying the bridge and the wardroom, broke the ship’s back and flooded the engine and boiler rooms. However, even though she had been abandoned, there was sufficient air trapped in Berkely’s hull and she remained defiantly afloat. HMS Albrington was ordered to sink her in case the floating wreck would fall into the hands of the Germans who would have loudly claimed her as a prize. Albrington’s first torpedo sank the forward section having detonated just forward or the bridge. The strike of a second torpedo was witnessed by Lieutenant Peter Scott. ‘A huge reddish purple burst of smoke and flame belched out of the wreck’s magazine and went up into the calm sky in a tall column with a mushroom of dense blackness at its top – an extraordinary and unforgettable sight’.

  The Naval Force’s withdrawal from the French coast is described in the COHQ report:

  ‘On the completion of the evacuation, the craft formed up into convoy approximately four miles to the seaward of Dieppe and were led towards England by the Fernie. The Calpe proceeded to the eastward to pick up a British pilot reported in the sea. She thus moved away from the protection afforded by the concentrated AA fire of the other ships and sustained two dive bombing attacks in both of which a number of near misses were secured, causing casualties and damage.’

  HMS Berkley foundering in the water. Inset: HMS Albrington’s torpedo administering the coup de grace to HMS Berkley.

  The report goes on to say that the force’s passage back to England ‘was uneventful, save for a number of ineffective air attacks’.

  ‘It proceeded through the western swept channel of the enemy minefield to a point approximately 20 miles from Newhaven where it was joined by HMS Mackay and Blencathra. These ships escorted the small craft to Newhaven while the Calpe, the other destroyers and the Locust went direct to Portsmouth having over 550 wounded on board.’

  The coastal and landing craft reached Newhaven without further incident and the destroyers with the Locust berthed along side at Portsmouth shortly after midnight.

  Sergeant Cooke in charge of the Royal Marines manning the guns on Landing Craft Flack No 5 paints a vivid picture of the events on the passage back to England.

  ‘On the way back a look at the wardroom and the Mess Deck was sufficient evidence of the sharpness of the action – there was blood and more to spare. The doctor and his assistants worked like Trojans, but their efforts could not prevent the death of several of‘the wounded survivors we had taken on board. One by one they ware laid out on the deck and a Union Jack found in the pack of a dead Canadian officer was used to cover his body.

  ‘One scene will not be forgotten – another Canadian officer Capt Catto, Royal Regt of Canada – having been picked up after some four hours in, the water being helped aboard with his eye shot out quite calmly said “Don’t hurry me boys”. That was typica1 of the attitude of the wounded throughout. That was Dieppe as we saw it.’

  Conclusions

  ‘The Duke of Wellington said that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eaton. I say that D Day was won on the beaches of Dieppe.’

  Admiral Lord Mountbatten

  Some commentators have decried the notion that the Dieppe raid provided essential lessons that underpinned the success of the D-Day landings. They say that the lessons had already been learned at Gallipoli and the principals of assaulting a defended coast were already well understood. The fact is that, despite Churchill’s tantalizing link with both Galipolli and Dieppe, conditions of warfare had changed and a new generation had to discover what was tactically feasible.

  (Above and below) Canadians march through the streets of Dieppe into three and a half years of captivity.

  Canadian wounded being treated in Dieppe after the battle.

  Even though information and techniques were clearly developed as a result of the raid, the quickly and so often used public claim that ‘vital lessons have been learned’ was, during the aftermath of the raid, widely seen to be an attempt to mitigate the public perception of yet another military disaster.

  The reality is that the raid was mounted at a point in the war when both, Russia and America, were demanding that the Britain launch a second front in north-west Europe during 1942, in order to relieve pressure on Stalin’s armies on the Eastern Front. At the very least, the raid was a reality check and served to concentrate the minds’ of Allied planners on the extent of the measures that they must take to breach Hitler’s embryonic Atlantic Wall. Gone were plans for Sledgehammer and an unrealistically early return to continental Europe in 1942. The result was that the Western Allies agreed to concentrate on the Mediterranean. In Moscow, Stalin was relieved to see not only German divisions being tied down in France but additional formations being taken from the Eastern Front to strengthen the West against another raid or invasion.

  At Dieppe, Combined Operations staff and senior military officers were able to mount the trial landing that they had sought. Remember also Field Marshal Alanbrook’s words to Churchill on the eve of the operation:

  ‘No responsible general will be associated with any planning for invasion until we have an operation at least the size of an attack on Dieppe behind us to study and base our plans upon.’

  Finally, were the Canadians deliberately sacrificed? Was there a conspiracy? In 1942, after three years of war, the Canadian troops in Britain and their politicians at home, understandably, wanted action and the Dieppe raid was an opportunity to relieve the resulting political and disciplinary pressure. It has to be remembered that the Canadians had a proud military tradition based on their ach
ievements in the Great War where they earned a reputation as being amongst the finest assault troops. Expectations of Canadian performance in battle against the old enemy were high.

  Having committed the predominantly Canadian troops and British naval and air forces to the raid, the planning was over restrictive and unrealistically detailed. The force lacked the experience to execute the plan or cope with the inevitable ‘events’ caused by enemy action and errors in planning or its execution.

  The lessons of the raid were numerous and studied in detail, so much so that any list of comparisons between Dieppe and D-Day show a list of self-evident contrasts. Not least amongst the lessons were that it was not a practical proposition to directly attack a heavily defended port area. Consequently, a beach landing on the Normandy coast away from the heaviest of defences was necessary and that a prefabricated port would be necessary to sustain major operations over said open beach. The necessity for special means to overcome coastal defences was starkly obvious to those who had landed on the exposed beaches of Dieppe. Hence D-Day’s massive integrated air, sea and land fire plan designed to subdue the defenders, while specially designed armoured vehicles crossed the beach and breached the concrete defences.