Colonel Lewis M. Boone - Dieppe 1942: Reconnaissance In Force With Strategic Overtones

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Text originally published in 2003 under the same title.

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Dieppe 1942: Reconnaissance In Force With Strategic Overtones

By

Colonel Lewis M. Boone

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

In the early hours of August 19, 1942 an amphibious force of approximately 6000 troops, primarily Canadians of the 2nd Infantry Division, approached the coast of France. Their destination was the small port of Dieppe and their mission was to foster German fear of an attack in the West and compel them to strengthen their Channel defenses at the expense of other operational areas. Their secondary purpose was to learn as much as possible about new techniques and equipment and gain experience and knowledge necessary for a future great amphibious assault. By early afternoon, 807 Canadians lay dead in and around Dieppe. Another 100 would die of wounds, and in captivity, and about 1900 more would sit out the rest of the war in POW camps. The intent of this paper is not to refight the battle in detail, but to examine the strategic implications of the raid in terms of future operations by the Allies. This paper will also inform the reader on the utility of the mission given the tragic loss of life that day. Historians still debate whether Dieppe was a needless slaughter or a precursor for success at Normandy on 6 June 1944.

Too large to be a symbol, too small to be a success. Lord Haw Haw, German propagandist commenting on the Dieppe raid

The raid on the small coastal town of Dieppe, France in August of 1942 represents to most readers of history, the epitome of failure. The story of Dieppe still evokes controversy among historians even today and much has been written about this relatively small engagement of World War II. The reasons why the raid on Dieppe failed at the tactical level are not difficult to discern. The question is: was anything learned by it and if so, was it applied by the Allies to future operations such as HUSKY in Sicily or Operation OVERLORD in Normandy?

Many believe the courage and sacrifice of an untested Canadian infantry division on 19 August, 1942 paid major strategic dividends, particularly on D-Day. Still others suggest it was a failure of leadership and a tragic waste of life with lessons that could have been learned in training. Even the characterization of the raid as a reconnaissance in force by Winston Churchill was steeped in controversy. It is not surprising that both sides claimed victory in varying degrees, the Germans in the near term, and the Allies in future battles. Lord Louis Mountbatten, the acknowledged strategic leader of the raid, defended its utility from a score of journalists, biographers, and veterans of the raid, until his assassination in 1979. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was spared most of the controversy as much of the documentation of the raid was still protected under the Official Secrets Act prior to his death. Finally, by most accounts, Major General J.H. Ham Roberts, the 2 nd Canadian Division commander, unfairly bore the responsibility for Dieppe's failure, all the while choosing not to become involved in the controversy. A closer examination in this paper of the consequences surrounding the raid on Dieppe will show that there were indeed some successes by the Allies on that fateful day and that lessons learned from Dieppe carried over to history's largest amphibious assault on 6 June 1944.

The Allied situation in the spring of 1942 was grim. The Germans had penetrated deep into Russia, the British Eighth Army in North Africa had been forced back into Egypt and in Western Europe, the Allied forces faced the Germans across the English Channel {1} German U-Boats were still exacting a terrible toll sending hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping to the bottom of the sea while Joseph Stalin was demanding that the Allies open a second front in the West to relieve the Russians from the German onslaught. Strategically, the Allies understood the dire consequences should Russia succumb to the Germans in the East. A negotiated settlement and the shift of German forces to the West, would at the least, extend the war for several more years. Great Britain's reaction since the fall of France in 1940 had been to conduct a series of small intelligence-gathering and harassing raids along the coast of France and Norway, none of which achieved any significant military objective. These raids, some as small as several individual commandos, seemed to raise morale in Britain and were intended to show the Nazis that Allied forces could return to the continent whenever it suited them.

In October 1941, Admiral Louis Mountbatten replaced Sir Roger Keyes as head of the British Combined Operations Headquarters and immediately set about focusing on planning a significant raid in size that would in his words, give the Allies the priceless secret of victory. That is, a raid that would inform the Allies on how to conduct an eventual attack on the continent that would lead to eventual victory. Early in 1942, following the United States Chiefs of Staff joining with their British counterparts to become the Combined Chiefs of Staff, a directive issued to Combined Operations stated: Raids in force designed to obtain information and experience in the enemy's defense system are to be pressed forward as opportunities arise. {2} This directive fit in nicely with Lord Mountbatten's proactive agenda and ultimately it would come to justify the raid on Dieppe by being a good rehearsal for both SLEDGEHAMMER (the contingency to attack in France if Germany collapsed in Russia, or vice versa) and ROUNDUP, a plan strongly advocated by the American contingent to land in France in early 1943. {3}

Mountbatten selected as his chief staff officer and planner, a 40-year old Royal Navy officer, Captain John Hughes-Hallett. A paradoxically complex yet concise, clear-thinking officer, Hughes-Hallett conceived the two great raids which contributed so much to the invasions of North Africa and Normandy. Because the second raid (Dieppe) would not have taken place if the first had been unsuccessful, the incredibly daring attack on the French Biscayan base of St. Nazaire is an essential ingredient of the Dieppe story {4}

On March 27, 1942, a force of approximately 630 sailors and commandos set sail for St. Nazaire, France. The plan for Operation CHARIOT was to breach the harbor defenses and ram an obsolete American Lend-Lease destroyer, the HMS Campbelltown, loaded with five tons of high explosives into the locks that controlled water flow into the dry dock area.