One Day in August

by David O'Keefe

  While these decisions were being made, the Royal Marine Commando, including Ian Fleming’s Intelligence Assault Unit (No. 10 Platoon), were waiting anxiously on the exposed decks of the Locust and the trailing French chasseurs. They had no clue what was about to befall them. For months they had trained intensively to run the gauntlet of Dieppe’s inner channel, if necessary, in order to reach their targets in the outer harbour. Now, Red Ryder had wisely persuaded Jock Hughes-Hallett to cancel that axis of advance, but it is unclear whether he was in full agreement that they should be switched to an equally perilous course.

  Less than thirty minutes after this crucial meeting, at 0708 hours, Hughes-Hallett, who had full authority to call off any naval action at any point during the raid, issued orders for a flotilla of landing craft to form up behind the Locust, and then at 0731 he commanded Ryder to “proceed as ordered.”58 Before his return to the river gunboat, Ryder shouted via megaphone to the men from Tiger and Robert Forces on Locust and the chasseurs to transship into the landing craft forming up behind the old river gunboat. Like the Fusiliers Mont-Royal, whose whereabouts were still unknown to Roberts and Hughes-Hallett, the Royal Marine Commando would go headlong onto the main beach with instructions to “exploit into the town and report to the Colonel of the Essex Scottish Regiment.”* 59 The implications of these orders are now clear: The Royal Marines would not land as “simple reinforcements,” as many historical accounts claim. Rather, they would make one more attempt to reach their pinch targets in the harbour—albeit by different and distinctly desperate means.60

  Within minutes of the order being issued, the men began their descent into an ad hoc flotilla of four ALCs and two tank landing craft (TLCs), some still smoking and battle-scarred from their earlier run. Once aboard the landing craft, Ernest Coleman noticed, as he recounts in his recently discovered memoir, that the battle surrounding them had whipped up to a feverish pace. “Dog fights were going on, German planes were also dive bombing the ships and small craft,” he recorded. “How the cook on our boat managed to … make us some cocoa and sandwiches I will never know!”61

  Jock Farmer, waiting impatiently to board one of the TLCs with the rest of No. 10 Platoon, could see and hear nothing but a cacophony of “explosions, tracer bullets and screams” from Dieppe’s main beach. “Some of the landing craft,” he noted, the half-wooden ones used by the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Essex Scottish and Fusiliers Mont-Royal before them, now burned “fiercely” like “death traps,” while larger TLCs slowly sank on the shoreline. But even before they were all on board, the German gunners spotted them forming up through the intermittent gaps in the smokescreen. “Most of us managed to scramble aboard his craft,” Farmer recalled. “Suddenly,” he continued, “a couple of shells landed not far from us. The skipper of Locust immediately set us adrift.”62 Within minutes, the six landing craft were loaded and ready for their turn on Dieppe’s main beach.

  Meanwhile, reports flooded in from the Essex Scottish that shellfire was raining down on them from both headlands and that snipers were taking aim with machine guns from the tobacco factory and other buildings in front of them. These messages were quickly followed by desperate calls for immediate evacuation.63 Then, starting at 0742 hours, a series of messages arrived that, to the over-optimistic force commanders, made it appear as if Operation Jubilee was finally coming together. Two messages confirmed that the Royal Regiment of Canada had indeed landed on Blue Beach, though they failed to indicate that Doug Catto’s unit had already been wiped out there. Ham Roberts and Hughes-Hallett concluded there was still a slim chance that the Royal Marines could take the eastern headland. A message from Hunter Force, one of the Canadian combat engineer teams, indicated that they too were alive, after being out of touch for most of the morning.

  Encouraged by these fragments, the force commanders decided to send in the remaining elements of the ungainly Calgary Tanks, to assist Jasperson, bolstered by the Royal Marines, in an attempt to punch through at the tobacco factory. Still they clung to the hope that they could grab their prime objectives in the port. In desperation, Brigadier Bill Southam, the commander of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade, which had just landed on the beach way behind schedule, exhorted the Essex Scottish to “go as far towards the trawlers as possible.”64 The final piece of this plan fell into place moments later when “elements” of the Calgary Tanks, after spending hours trapped on the beach and the promenade, reported that they had made “progress” in front of the tobacco factory.65 To the commanders on Calpe, it seemed that the shortest and most direct route to the harbour and the Hôtel Moderne was about to open up—a hope that trumped any discouraging and realistic reports to the contrary.

  At 0818 hours, with news that the situation on Red Beach was “out of control” and—erroneously—that White Beach was firmly in Canadian hands, the Essex Scottish and the Royal Marines began their death ride towards Dieppe.

  * One of the changes to the raid between its origins as Operation Rutter and its implementation as Operation Jubilee had seen the air drop, scheduled to obliterate the coastal batteries at Dieppe, replaced by an amphibious attack carried out by two additional British army commando units, both of which were veterans of pinch operations in Norway. These units, Lieutenant Colonel John Durnford-Slater’s No. 3 Commando and Lieutenant Colonel Simon Fraser’s (the 15th Lord Lovat’s) No. 4 Commando, would now host the U.S. Army Rangers, distributed throughout them in “penny packets.” The Rangers had replaced the U.S. Marine Corps, which in Rutter had been assigned to go into battle with the Royal Marine Commando on board the Locust. The switch was likely prompted by Locust‘s sacrificial role in the pinch attempt—the “political” implication that had been in Mountbatten’s mind since early June. Still, with the four-rotor crisis looming and pinch opportunities opening up in the Pacific theatre to exploit their work against Japanese codes and ciphers, the Americans, in particular Colonel Hart, were still most eager to monitor the events surrounding Jubilee. (Marine Corps History Division, Reference Branch, Franklin Hart biographical file.)

  * Lacking any specific advance knowledge of the raid, Birch’s Naval Section issued these messages as part of its routine daily work, which included reporting on almost every occurrence in the Channel. Although the commanders involved with the raid knew what to look for, the current evidence suggests that Birch remained in the dark.

  * UJ1404, UJ1411 and UJ1410

  † Ost-Vlanderen, Hydra, Iris, Spes-Salutis, and the Franz

  * The camaraderie and adventuresome spirit of military men were very much on display in the message logs. The plan called for the use of the first name or nickname of the formation commander as the code name for each unit. In this case, when the South Saskatchewans hit the shore at Pourville, the Calpe received word that at “0450 Cecil landed.” Among the other code names were Bob (Labatt) for the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Fred (Jasperson) for the Essex Scottish, Ham (Roberts) for the Military Force Commander, Goose (Gostling) for the Cameron Highlanders, Doug (Catto) for the Royal Regiment of Canada, Joe (Ménard) for the Fusiliers Mont-Royal, Johnny for the Calgary Tanks, Tiger for Tiger Force, Robert for Robert Force, Bill (Southam) for the 6th Brigade and Sherwood (Lett) for the 4th Brigade.

  * Lieutenant General Guy Simonds, who went on to lead the Second Canadian Corps in Normandy (and was Crerar’s chief of staff at First Canadian Corps in 1942), summed up this philosophy in a speech to his officers in the summer of 1944: “As a Commander you must consider at the outset whether the losses incurred are going to be worth the final assault. You must determine where these losses are going to be the minimum you can afford in relation to the value of the objective. We can’t fight the Boche without incurring casualties and every soldier must know this. My point of view is that if I can’t embark upon an operation to take a certain feature, for example, unless it will be useful to me later, the operation is not worthwhile and I call it off with 50% casualties incurred, then I have achieved nothing but a waste of lives; if I cont
inue, and incur a further 20% casualties and bring the operation to a successful conclusion, then the operation is worthwhile. I speak of casualties in grossly exaggerated figures. In no operations yet have I participated where casualties were not between 15% and 25% and even at that, 25% is still a grossly exaggerated figure.” (“Report on the Address by Lt. Gen. G.G. Simonds, CBE, DSO, GOC 2nd Cdn. Corps, to Officers of 3 Cdn. Inf. Div. and 2nd Cdn. Armd Bde at the Château near Cairon by Major A.T. Sesia.”)

  * The account given by Sergeant Dubuc and entered in the official record was dismissed by his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Labatt, as “absolutely preposterous from beginning to end.” However, the Canadian Army Historical Unit under the legendary Canadian military historian Charles P. Stacey refused to dismiss the account in its entirety, although it included, as they said, “some embroidery.”

  * According to Captain Hellings, a Royal Marine officer riding on the Locust: “After the floating reserve had been landed there was no news, until Commander Ryder returned from Calpe, when he reported that Red and White beaches were clear of opposition and the General wished the Marines to go in and support the Essex Scottish through White Beach. The colonel (Picton-Phillips) gave his orders from Locust THE IDEA BEING TO PASS THROUGH the beach to the town and there, reform and report to the Colonel of the Essex Scottish, the object of the force being to pass around the west and south of the town and attack the batteries on the eastern cliff from the south.” However, B Company Commander Captain R.K. Deveraux reports, “I was told by Colonel Phillips that the whole force of the Royal Marine Commando was to go direct into the harbour.” (Report Operation Jubilee Royal Marine Commando, 19 August 1942, statement by office commanding B Company, Captain R.K. Deveraux, TNA ADM 1/11986.)

  FOURTEEN

  ALL IN ON THE MAIN BEACH

  Theirs not to reason why Theirs but to do and die.

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, “THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE”

  “We are going in!” is the cry Corporal Paul McGrath remembers from that moment. As the order was passed quickly from man to man, one young Marine turned to Peter Huntington-Whiteley, standing next to Joseph Picton-Phillips at the back of the tank landing craft, and inquired, “For Christ sake, sir, where the fucking Hell are we?” For months the Royal Marines had trained in Portsmouth harbour for this moment, but for security reasons nobody except the officers had known the name of the port they planned to raid until the last moment; some, apparently, never knew. “I suppose I can tell you now,” came the terse reply from the always correct lieutenant. “That,” he said, pointing to the cloud of black smoke, “is Dieppe—and I want to see you in my office tomorrow morning for using improper language.”1

  Within seconds, all the boats, with the exception of one with mechanical trouble that trailed behind, were enshrouded in a smokescreen that muffled the sound of the engines. For some reason, only repetitive refrains of “Oh, Danny boy” raced through McGrath’s mind. “For a while,” he recalled, “we were in an eerie, fog-bound capsule of time,” but as they drew near to the beach and the smoke cleared, shells of all calibres started to whizz overhead or fall between the craft. The closer they got to White Beach, the more intense it became, particularly from the western headland. Ernest Coleman, tucked along the starboard side of the landing craft nearest the cliffs, noted that “the noise from the machine gun was like somebody playing a kettle drum.”2 For Bob McAlister, sitting with his Robert Force colleagues in a small landing craft that was following the TLC carrying members of Tiger Force, Picton-Phillips and No. 10 Platoon, the constant noise and explosions were “terrifying.” He recalled:

  I couldn’t see how I could summon up enough strength to lead my section into that inferno. I had a look behind me and what I saw gave me all the courage I needed and a great feeling of relief. The faces I looked at, including the officers sitting at the rear of the sections, were a mixture of my feelings. Their faces were white and drawn. I felt almost cheerful and could do anything.

  Heading towards Dieppe at full speed, McAlister’s boat was the first to be hit:

  There was a terrific bang at the rear of the craft. When I looked around the flames were shooting straight up for about 40 feet, like a blow torch. One man had just cleared the hatch and went straight into the water, another was climbing out through the flames, screaming in pain. He fell in the water and continued screaming. The first officer (naval) who was in the water was shouting to us to get off the boat at once as the petrol tanks could blow up. The third chap in the engine room of the boat didn’t make it. The naval chap kept shouting, “Get clear of the boat quickly, the tanks will catch fire.” The smoke, fortunately for us, drifted across us as we piled out of the boat, hiding us from the guns on the cliff.3

  With the German fire now increasing to fever pitch and the landing craft starting to drift apart in the smoke as they ran towards the beach, the futility of the charge began to dawn on Lieutenant Colonel Picton-Phillips, riding in the lead boat with the rest of Tiger Force and Fleming’s IAU. Concluding that any effort to storm ashore would result in a useless waste of lives, the diminutive, eccentric but thoroughly determined Royal Marine commander embarked on a selfless and heroic action of the highest order—one witnessed by all aboard the landing craft, and one they could never forget. “The Colonel[,] realising the hopelessness of the situation,” recorded Jock Farmer in his memoirs, “climbed on an ammunition box and, with Captain Comyn holding onto his legs as the boat was rocking heavily, put on white gloves so that other incoming craft would see him, and signalled them to turn back.” In full view of the enemy on the shore and well above the protective steel walls, exposed to enemy fire, Picton-Phillips waved off the attack. “The next thing I noticed,” a young Marine by the name of J.J. Dwan recalled, “was little puffs of green blanco coming off his equipment as he was being hit, then blood spurted from the left corner of his mouth and he slumped down on to the deck of the landing craft. Nobody could have lived through that fire doing what he did. It was the ultimate act of courage.”4

  The Intelligence Assault Unit history records that Huntington-Whiteley gave Picton-Phillips rum and comforted him in his last moments. His actions had saved some, but not all, of his Marines. Despite the signal, one or two other craft, and the TLC carrying the IAU, continued to plough their way to shore. As Paul McGrath, now standing next to the mortally wounded Picton-Phillips, recalled:

  A fallen Canadian soldier lies, almost as if at rest, on the rocky beach below the town of Dieppe. The large pebbles proved an unforeseen impediment to the Allies’ tanks, stalling them on the beaches. (photo credits 14.1)

  The Sub-Lieutenant who skippered our boat seemed unaware that the action had been called off. His job was to deliver us onto the beach at the designated point and he continued to drive forward at full throttle. The chaps at the bow were bracing themselves in the anticipation of the ramp falling in front of them, to be followed by a frantic scramble up the beach over potato-sized pebbles when, about thirty yards from the shore-line, the boat stopped abruptly. It was impaled on one of the many underwater obstacles that were submerged beneath the high tide.5

  Then, suddenly, the vessel lurched to the starboard and righted itself. The quick spin gave some on board a glimpse of what lay ahead for them. As Sergeant John Kruthoffer noticed, the beach was

  fireswept … occupied by prostrate bodies and a few desperate groups clinging to cover. A look in any direction showed only too clearly that along the whole stretch of beach the landing of tanks and infantry had been smashed to a standstill. For those of us who could see over the side, the feeling at that moment was not of panic or unreasonable fear—but sheer amazement and disbelief. Not a logical reaction, but a short space of a few seconds when the brain tries to reject what has been fed in. “Get out fast—spread out—and run like hell for cover.”6

  As much as Kruthoffer wanted to get off the ship, he could not: the ramp had been jammed by the grounding as well as a direct hit from a German gun conce
aled in a cave in the headland. They were hopelessly exposed to German fire, which now picked up in tempo and gave no signs of abating. McGrath watched in horror as “bombs and shells cascaded down around the boat and exploded in the sea[,] but some of the bullets struck home. There were gasps and groans and slumped bodies.” Desperate to “get rid of us,” the young naval sub-lieutenant in charge tried “to lower the ramp and finding it jammed, climbed up with a hammer. As soon as he showed himself he fell dead amongst us.”7 For Kruthoffer, the whole episode proved surreal, with only “parts of jigsaw” clearly remembered years later:

  A group at the front trying to kick the ramp down. The CO, the crewman and others hit and falling about; a scream at the back end trying to dodge small arms fire coming down amongst them. Those looking over the shore side or trying to climb out, getting it in the head or chest and crashing back on to those behind them. Some Bren-gunners at work—one immortal bawling for full magazines—another enthusiast firing from a sitting position, threatening to shoot the head off anyone moving sideways.8

  There was no point in any attempt to return fire, but one Marine kept hammering away with his Bren gun in what McGrath called “a useless exercise.” Hit again and again at the rear of the boat by German shells, some Marines died instantly while others found themselves hurtled into the sky and tossed overboard into the shallow surf.