UK War Office - The Dieppe Raid

THE

DIEPPE RAID

THE COMBINED OPERATIONS ASSAULT ON HITLERS EUROPEAN FORTRESS, AUGUST 1942

THE COMBINED OPERATIONS ASSAULT ON HITLERS EUROPEAN FORTRESS, AUGUST 1942

An Official History

THE DIEPPE RAID

The Combined Operations Assault on Hitlers European Fortress, August 1942

This edition published in 2019 by Frontline Books, an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS,

This book is based on the revised version of Battle Summary No.33, which is located under the file reference ADM 205/174, from a series of records from the Admiralty, which is held at The National Archives, Kew, and is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. A number of additional appendices are based on file reference ADM 234/447, which is also which is held at The National Archives, Kew, and is also and is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Text alterations and additions Frontline Books

ISBN: 978-1-52675-291-8

eISBN: 978-1-52675-292-5

Mobi ISBN: 978-1-52675-293-2

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Dieppe, 19 August 1942

Showing Principal Batteries, Landing Places and Troops Engaged

Dieppe Operation Jubilee

19 August 1942: Diagram to Illustrate Tracks of Units on Passage

Disposition of Naval Force During the Passage

Dieppe Action with Enemy Forces

Plot of Enemy Convoy 18 19 August 1942

Dieppe After the Raid August 19th 1942

Sections Of German Defence Plans

Battle Summary No.33, Raid on Dieppe was originally written in 1944. The events of the Raid had been carefully analysed at Combined Operations Headquarters as soon as it was over, and a combined report was issued in October 1942, (under reference B.R. 1887), which, together with the contemporary reports of Force Commanders etc., was largely used in the compilation of the Battle Summary.

Since then information from returned Prisoners of War and other sources, notably the Official History of the Canadian Army by Colonel

C.P. Stacey, have become available. The ensuing revision, which is the basis of this book, contains additions and amendments in the light of this information.

The real interest of the Raid lies in the lessons drawn from it, which in their application provided the key to the success of the remarkable series of Allied landings carried out from November 1942 onwards, culminating in Normandy in June 1944.

Admiralty, London,

November 1958

This official history is reproduced in the form that it was originally written. Aside from correcting obvious spelling mistakes or typographical errors, we have strived to keep the edits and alterations to the absolute minimum. As a result of this policy, a number of inconsistencies remain. For example, Hughes-Hallett is often included without the hyphen. The format and style of some of the appendices has been adjusted to assist in easier reference by the modern reader.

Note : The letters L, M, S, often found in brackets after landing craft mean Large, Medium and Small

The month of April 1942, when the raid on Dieppe was first considered, marked in almost every theatre of war, the nadir of Allied fortunes since the capitulation of France in 1940. In the Far East, the Japanese had so far carried all before them; Singapore fell on 15th February, Java surrendered on 9th March; Rangoon had been occupied and the fate of Burma and north-east India was in the balance. Some four thousand miles further east, Japanese landings had taken place in East New Guinea; Australia felt herself gravely menaced. In the Middle East a German advance of some 300 miles in Cyrenaica took place in the first week of February; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunninghams Mediterranean Fleet, gravely weakened by recent casualties was hard put to it to protect the vital convoys to Malta, then undergoing savage air attack.

Serious losses had been suffered recently by the British Navy and at the same time a new fleet had to be formed for service in the Far East. True, the enforced entry of the United States in the previous December guaranteed ultimate success, but some critical months must yet elapse before the damage inflicted on the American Fleet at Pearl Harbour could be made good. The Battle of the Atlantic had entered its grimmest phase; U-boats sank a higher tonnage of merchant shipping in the quarter ending March 1942 than in any previous period, and this was on the increase. Only in Russia had the Axis received a check, where their armies, having failed to achieve a knock-out blow in the autumn, had been caught unprepared for the rigours of a winter campaign and had suffered heavy punishment at the hands of the Russians. The Spring break-up, however, imposed a lull on the Russian front in March.