"What was the point of Dieppe?" Topic

What exactly did the British hope to accomplish?

The objective was to seize and hold a major port for a short period, both to prove it was possible and to gather intelligence from prisoners and captured materials while assessing the German responses.

link

That was pretty much what the Germans kept asking, too.

It demonstrated to our allies that we were still fighting, appeased Stalin (a little) as he kept urging for action in Europe, and (would have been) a morale boost for the Beleagured British people.

It was also a disruptive raid, along the lines of all the commando raids we had been prosecuting before and after Dieppe. These were actually very useful. The raids destroyed, damaged and disrupted the enemy units and materiel, industry and resources, and even more importantly tied down many enemy units that could have been better used elsewhere. A useful "purpose" in itself. So useful in fact (and such a pain for the Germans) that Hitler ordered commando and other special forces prisoners to be shot as spies, rather than be taken prisoner as the Geneva convention stated. That is testament in itself as to how effective the raids were.

So Dieppe COULD have been of use and COULD have accomplished much. However, it was simply too large for such a raid, too small for an invasion – even one just intending to grab a bridgehead for a while – and was too incompetently executed.

But it was a fine rehearsal for what became D-Day, which perhaps was a main reason all along. We learnt a hell of a lot of lessons on how NOT to do it. It was better that we learnt those lessons at Dieppe rather than on D-Day itself.

Because it was the easiest way to alienate Canada?

Mainly practice; a lot of lessons were learned the hard way, but they were at least learned….

The object of Dieppe was to massage Mountbatten's ego. The Joint chiefs had vetoed his earlier plan, he went ahead anyway without telling them, hence no proper air and sea assets or intel.

I've recently read (in Military intelligence Blunders and Cover Ups) that it was intended to boost Mountbatten's career. To the extent that he actually deceived Churchill and the General staff (by not telling them it eas going to happen) and his surbordinates (by telling them that the operation had been approved).

Dieppe is the only unrecorded major Allied operational decision of the Second World War. So it lacked proper resources and key intelligence. The original raid on Dieppe was cancelled (Operation Rutter).

So all the conspiracy theories and tactical justifications are, at best, only partially true. In fact, as Rutter had been cancelled, British Intelligence was encouraging its Double Cross agents to pass as much information on it as possible to the Germans – so it wasn't too surprising that they were ready for Jubilee…

Nice question, too bad there doesn't seem to be a simple agreed upon answer. I think "Unauthorized Action: Mountbatten and the Dieppe Raid" by Brain Loring Villa link does a good job of examining why it was launched although his conclusion it was launched without permission by Mountbatten is a bit of a stretch. Plenty of other books revisit the same question, like the "Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Vol I Six Years of War", it's available online at this link: link

It was a test to see if Canada would remain loyal when its troops were squandered instead of British ones.

It was a test to see if Canada would remain loyal when its troops were squandered instead of British ones.

The Canadian senior commanders were pushing for a more active part in the war, if only to give their bored troops something to do.
(Lord Haw Haw even went so far as to comment "give every Canadian a motorcycle aqnd a bottle of whiskey, and declare Berlin out of bounds, and they will be there within 48 hours…" The 3,238 Canadian Courts martial up to August 42 suggested that he might have a point?)

But for a set of bad tonsils, I might not be here. My grandfather was one of the Canadian engineers who was supposed to go in but came down with tonsilitis and was on the operating table when the battle happened. Apparently the operation was done sans anaesthesia so he might have been better off in the battle.

David S.

its main purpose was to prove the futility of attempting a channel crossing without bringing your own port. The main benefit fell to the US army.
The canadian sacrafice was what convinced the US that a quick jump to calais from england in early 1943 wasnt going to be as easy as they first thought and that as keen and green as they were, perhaps taking the advice of the stoic British wasn't such a bad idea. So they landed in Africa instead…

There are some of us who think that Churchill was very cold and calculating with Deippe, in that he deliberately launched a mission knowing it would be constly and sacrificial…… and His aim was to avoid a disasterous large scale "first involvement" of US troops in Europe.

it is no coincidence that there were US rangers as observers at Dieppe.

It did 3 things.

1. It provided a blueprint of strategic requirements for the D-day landings.

2. it showed the US they were not capable or ready to take on landings in france and they needed to deploy in Africa.

3 It told the germans they needed to defend in depth in the west from 1942 tying up huge forces sorely missed on the eastern front and churchill could justify that to Stalin as a real situation.

I am under the impression that part of the reason for Dieppe operation was to try to take a port, something that would have to be done to support troops landed as the part of the invasion of Europe. The lesson from the Dieppe was that it was a non starter to capture a port. The Allies would have to come up with an effective alternative.

Landing away from a port and gaining a beachhead would be easier, the question was how to support subsequent operations. The solution the Allies devised was to build ports where they wanted them.
link
My view is that the Germans were completely wrong footed. They poured large resources (concrete and men) into defending ports which were effectively wasted. It may be that the German commanders (and POWs evacuated through these ports) were surprised at the Allies ability to build their own ports rapidly to sustain operations.

There were US Rangers present at Dieppe because British Commandos were there. The US Rangers were in fact modeled on our Commandos and in the early days at least were directly trained by them. Some of those Rangers still attached to the Commandos had managed to tag along.

British lives and British tanks were lost at Dieppe too, it wasn't just "pissing off (away) the Canadians." If you sign up to fight you go where you are told and take the rough with the smooth. The Canadians wanted to fight, so british command let them. That's all there was to it. Just wanted to point that out.

The notion that Mountbatten, Monty or anyone else launched such an operation "without permission" is ludicrous, especially considering that they were hardly punished for it afterwards!

In short, there was no "consipiracy". At the end of the day it was an approved official operation that just went very very wrong, partly due to bad intelligence, partly because of bad luck, partly by bad co-ordination and partly of course through errors of judgement. Such things happened.

Well said scutatus
It's good to read someone with a bit of "common".

Paul

According to the official history in Canada, it was to prove amphibious technique. But most of the evidence researched by Canadian historians has proved that the operation was half cocked and self promoting by Mountbatten. His failure at Joint Ops was part of the reason he was "promoted" to Asia. The British War Department felt he had to go but he had connections so they promoted him to a theatre where his military skill would only kill colonial troops. Remember that Mountbatten was only a destroyer skipper in 1940 and certainly did not become an expert in joint ops in 2 years! Here in Canada most Canadians now believe that Dieppe was a waste caused by Bumbling Montbattan and Harry Creacar (Canadian COmmander) seeking glory of the Maple Leaf.

As for Canadians laying around England. That is because the GoC Canadian Army had fought in WW1 and realized (like the Aussies) that the British had a talent for defending the empire to the last drop of the colonies blood. Therefore, Canadian government refused to committ Canuck troops in less than Corps strength and under Canuck Command. This changed after Creacar took over and he was only to please to committ to any idea the British came up with to waste troops. After Dieppe the policy (thankfully) was changed back to Corps Strength and Canadian COmmand saving many more Canadians from the hair brain schemes of the King's assorted cousins in general's uniforms.

Always nice to see so many different points of view. To go back to the original question, what was the Dieppe raid supposed to accomplish? A couple additional reasons to the ones (like testing an attack on a defended port) already mentioned:

1) Like all raids (of which Dieppe was really just a large example) it was intended to keep pressure on the Germans in France (keeping troops there that could be used elsewhere).

2) If successful it would have served to keep morale up for the Allies (at the time Dieppe was planned there was plenty of bad news from North Africa, Russia and the Pacific). In this case Dieppe in the end may have had almost the opposite effect, one of the risks of mounting such a large raid.

3) It was also was intended to help or at a minimum placate the Russians, showing the Western Allies were doing their part, keeping them in the war at a time (before Stalingrad) when Russian survival was in doubt (they had after all collapsed in the First World War).

4) It also addressed US concerns for an early Second Front in Europe. If a full-scale invasion wasn't possible due to shortages in shipping/resources then a large raid could be viewed as second best. Combined with Russian pressure for a Second Front some historians suggest this is another explanation for the large size of this raid (enough to show commitment but not enough to risk too many of the resources needed for other operations, for example no battleships were used at Dieppe). US concerns for a action against the Germans in France needed to be addressed, to keep the Americans willing to accept the idea of landings in Mediterranean as not distracting attention from the main focus of a cross channel invasion and to keep US resources flowing into Europe at a time when there was pressure to send more resources to the Pacific given Japanese successes. Important to remember the raid was planned in part before the battle of Midway.

5) It was also hoped that the raid would lead to a large air battle that would attrit the still strong German fighter forces in France. One factor in the selection of Dieppe as a target was Allied fighter range and perceived ability to achieve air superiority over the port.

There are actually a lot more reasons. There is pretty good evidence that while the Canadians didn't originate the plan for the raid, they were happy to participate in it as a means to address pressure to get into the fight.

Much is made of the value of the lessons learned, all true I think but something to remember is those lessons would have been learned even if the raid was more successful and they would have been a lot less expensive (I might be sharing drinks with my Great Uncle at the Legion instead of visiting him once in the Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery). After all No 4 Commando (they were British, as Scutatus points out it was not an all Canadian show) was successful among others.

On a separate topic, as for the idea the raid was launched without permission, I think that is a product of the fact there is not really great documentation on the authorizing of the raid. Some people see this as evidence of lack of authorization, other, myself included, when combined with the problems planning the raid as evidence of the tremendous pressure the British command system was under at the time. I found Villa's research good but I don't think he proved his conclusion.

Finally Sctutas, while you are right to point it was anything but a Canadian only operation and there are plenty of Canadians who owe their lives to the bravery of Royal Navy landing craft crews. The tanks at Dieppe were British made Churchill tanks but they were crewed by Canadians from the 14th Armoured Regiment (The Calgary Regiment). No rancor intended, just adding some additional information.

Supposedly. one of the things they hoped to do was captured some German radar equipment there- which supposedly they did, brought back, and helped the Allies figure out the German radar system.

and one thing it did do was keep troops and supplies in France instead of Russia.

Dieppe was intended as noted to tweek the German nose, get a bit of information, raise Allied morale and show the Russians that the Western Allies were taking the war seriously

As to the selection of Canadians, as noted there are lots of people in Canada (my Dad included) who hold to the view that the Brits were determined to fight the war to the last Canadian and Australian, but to be fair the Canadian troops were champing at the bit to get into action – not to mention that I suspect there was a desire to show some better results than the time when Canadian troops had been committed previously under British command (Hong Kong 1941, pretty much a total disaster) – as noted, although most of the troops were Canadian, there were Royal Marines, Royal Navy, RAF and US Rangers involved as well

I suppose Mountbatten decided to "kill off" 170 Commando's & Naval personnel at St Nazaire on a whim. Perhaps he was a secret psychopath, or just a hater of Canadian khaki wallah's. Anyway he was sent out to the far east where he did a very good job. (And it kept him away from all of those "offshore" Brits & French)

All I seem to read/hear is of alternate histories from Crecy to the Falklands' all aimed at British history. One of the reasons you wouldn't get these authors trying to reassess U.S history because they know that there books wouldn't sell.(A bloody good job) And the other is due to having a Anglophobic axe to grind.

Fraserdw
Please name these Canadian historians so I can judge their evidence for myself.
As for the British defending the empire with the colonies blood. It was France and the free world that was being defended. I have relatives (English) from both World wars intered in France, Belgium & the cold waters off Norway. The blood of "ALL" of the empire was spilt for freedom and peace, and yes so as stupid people like yourself can write such a blatant untruth that you have posted above. And at this time of year people should remember the sacrifices made by "ALL" the nations of the world for the freedom we have today.

Paul
And at the going down of the Sun, and in the morning. 'We will remember them. (& God bless em)

Dieppe kind of reminds me of that raid in the desert where the British tried to coordinate assaults on several disparate locations with lots of troops, including regular infantry. The raid was a failure and very expensive for the troops involved, though there were some local successes. Basically the lesson was "bigger ain't better in special ops". Dieppe seems like the same thing, a raid that got too big for it's britches.

Another tactical objective mentioned is to capture and destroy the landing barges in Dieppe harbour.

Reading some of the posts above, I am reminded one unfortunate side effect of the Dieppe Raid was to create tension between the British and Canadians. Even good friends fight, mostly on the same side.

Let me put it another way…
As the originator of this topic, I feel I have that right.

If you were putting on a Dieppe game, what would you assign as Victory Conditions?

I am reminded of an old "Beyond the Fringe" skit which went something like this:
"Carruthers?"
"Sah!"
"Take off in a Lancaster…"
"Sah!"
"Fly over Bremen…"
"Sah!"
"Don't come back. We need a futile gesture at this point."

So…
What was the POINT?
Land, pretend you are capturing a port… for practice…and then leave? No followup? No intent to exploit any success?
THAT's IT???

Dibble- Pierre Berton in his book "Marching as to War" does put a lot of the blame on Mountbatten and Crearar.

John – you don't think that finding out if capturing a port is possible BEFORE launching several hudnred thousand troops across the Channel wasn't a good idea?

Imagine if Dieppe hadn't happened. Then imagine the US Army relying on taking (say) Brest quickly for survival.

The Germans weren't stupid, they knew the value of the ports. By the time the Americans did take Brest (whilst being well supplied) we were all fighting in Germany.

War is a grim business. Occasionally you have to learn lessons using mens lives. Personally I don't think there is much evidence we used Canadians because they were regarded as being expendable.

They were just what we had in the UK at the time.

The primary POINT of a raid is to raid. Not to invade mainland Europe. Put the opposition off their game. Get them to spend resources away from the main front. Plus score some sort of a success at a time when you're not doing so well in other theatres of operations.
Plus the Dieppe RAID was intended to test the practicality of attacking a port.
Some people thought it was a bad idea trying to take a port. Others pointed out if you didn't take a port then how the hell do you get enough materiel ashore to support another front in NWE.

So you could make a case that the Dieppe RAID was a huge success. Dieppe saved tens of thousands of lives at the cost of hundreds.

Did the planners realise it was going to turn out exactly as it did?
Obviously not.
How could they?
Part of the point of trying it on a small scale was that they didn't know what'd happen.

They simply didn't realise you needed more detailed data on stuff like what the beach was made out of. They thought blowing a hole in a sea wall would be practical…
They guessed and they guessed optimistically because they had people champing at the bit for action.
And after all.
It was only a raid.
If it all went pear shaped then they were already minimising losses.

Victory points?
The allies scored a major victory simply by proving that taking a port simply wasn't going to work.
The Germans couldn't win the real world "game".

dead right Bangorstu

Fraserdw
The British troops were too busy in the middle & far East Pushing all those colonial Empire troops forward and on to the German/Jap Bayonets or drinking arrack in a downtown Cairo Kasbah or playing silly s with the Indian rope trick in Delhi ‘much to busy to fight a war you know. What! what! So that's why the Canadian troops were used (That is apart from Mountbatten's Colonial blood lust)

Jackar Nilson
You know, I had a funny feeling that the author would be French Canadian.(I see sparks flying from that grinding wheel)

Paul

"If you were putting on a Dieppe game, what would you assign as Victory Conditions?"

I'd use the ones from the Dieppe scenario in 'Great Battles of WW2'. IIRC they involved capturing various key points, inflicting casualties and getting everyone off safely again.

Sorry, but I can only smell Troll behind this thread.

Especialy as it has once again encouraged folks to come out of their closets, clutching at their respective national handbags to hurl 'I read one book (perhaps) and I believe everything I read' opinion dressed up as fact.

All of this only does dis-sevice to everyone of every nationality who actually fought and bled and died on the beaches of Dieppe, Normandy and beyond.

At 11am in two days time, I hope you will or a couple of minutes at least forget how petty your arguments are.

Regards
Mark

You know, I wasn't going to get into this one. The original question is couched in an accusatory manner, and it has the feel of something that will quickly degenerate into a playground slanging match. However, it managed to push a few of my buttons.

First off, I am gobsmacked by the notion that Dieppe was somehow an unauthorised operation put into action purely by Mountbatten. If he was able to mobilise over 6000 men and sixty RAF fighter squadrons, plus RN assets, almost on a whim, then I'm mightily impressed at how much cache his name carried. Likewise if the operation had been planned then officially cancelled, but he was somehow able to persuade all these participants that it was still on I'm equally stunned at his powers of persuasion.

Some of the posts cover conspiracy theory ground, in that the operation was mounted to prove someone's point to someone else, be it persuading the Americans that a dash across the Channel in an attempt to open up the second front before the end of 1942 was folly, or to convince Uncle Joe that the West hadn't forgotten him. And paramount in this thesis is that Canadians forces were chosen because they were expendable. That's one the buttons mentioned above by the way.

So let's look at this idea. Firstly, it suggests that the planners of the operation knew it was at best only marginally likely to succeed and at worst was doomed to total failure, but they press on anyway, happy to squander men and material to meet a political objective. Well that has been done certainly, many times and in many places. However, I just can't myself buy this version, that in the midst of an all encompassing war, when the Allies were on the back foot in North Africa and the Far East, the British would say, ‘throw some more colonials on the fire' to prove a point for future reference.

And that brings us on to the second button. It would appear to be taken as read by some that, when going to war, Britain made certain that when lives needed to be squandered it always went first to its handy pot of empire troops for victims. OK. That's an opinion, and people are more than entitled to have opinions, that's in part what the war was about, facing up to Nazi totalitarianism were individualism was hardly a major plank of ideology.

Such opinions aren't formed overnight and obviously nothing I can say will persuade those who hold such views to re-examine them. The relationship between Britain and its Commonwealth forces was strained to say the least at many times during the war – not in itself unique as the relationships between many countries fighting on the same side was sometimes less than professional.

However, the accusation is that Britain actively practiced a form of fratricide against Canadians at Dieppe and by extension Commonwealth forces as a whole. So, where are the memos, telegrams, communiqués, briefing notes, private letters or memoirs that bear out this point? Were British commanders ever exhorted to ensure that in all marginal operations, suitable non-British units and formations were to be used for the main effort? WW2 was perhaps the best recorded in history, and being the largest I still haven't read everything yet, but I'm minded that such evidence would have pushed its way to the fore by now.

The planners for the Normandy landings anticipated that the leading assault troops might quite literally be annihilated in the fight to secure the beachheads. So if the British were happy to wash foreigners down the drain while keeping their own men safe, why did they not simply assign the whole of say II Canadian Corps instead of just 3rd (Canadian) Division to the assault landing phase? If the conspiracy theory holds true, shouldn't every major assault landing have been conducted by entirely by non-British troops, such as Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Normandy? Perhaps even Arnhem could've been undertaken by 44th Indian Airborne Division, rushed over from the Far East?

Because that is the accusation, and it is an accusation, make no mistake, of a crime being perpetrated against Commonwealth troops by British generals and politicians (and I agree that both groups have made themselves eminently easy targets by their own actions over the years). In my opinion, the accusation is made glibly. It would seem to ignore that wherever there were Commonwealth troops operating, from Europe down to the Med and over to North Africa and the Middle East, there were British troops as well, and that they were all in the firing line. Arguing whether Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, India and various African nations should have been involved in the war simply because the British needed their support is a worthy matter of debate. Alleging that when that support was given, the British abused it and viewed the troops sent as merely disposable assets moves from debate to insult.

I realised a little while ago that I'd reached my tolerance point for certain types of debates (though it wasn't actually this one). So I'm going to take a leaf out of R Mark's book, who I think hit that particular plateau a while back, and bid TMP adieu, for a while at least. Debate is healthy and entrenched opinions need to be challenged once in a while. Far too often though I've seen things thrown out purely to start a fight, or the most off-handed dismissal of large and bloody chapters of the war with the lack of respect for those involved more akin to General Melchett of Blackadder fame. If anyone does find incontrovertible evidence to the end that Britain consciously enacted a policy of bleeding the ‘empire' white before committing any of its own forces to action, I'd be interested and horrified at the same time to know, and likewise astonished that while doing so we still managed to lose over a quarter million dead of our own.

Gary

Gary,

Well said.

I think that Berton would be very suprised to be described as French Canadian considering he was born in the Yukon and his mother was from Toronto.

link

David S.

The following paragraph from R.A. Forczyk's review of the Osprey Campaign book on Dieppe is very interesting:

"The manner in which Ford handles the fact that the Dieppe landings were a conspicuous disaster that achieved few objectives and resulted in 60% casualties further highlights the Twilight Zone that surrounds Operation Jubilee. Ford's subtitle for this volume, "prelude to D-Day" highlights the post-war British conviction that the Dieppe landings were a necessary precursor to the D-Day landings and that many invaluable lessons were learned. Taken in this light, of experience gained that saved lives in future landings, Dieppe's losses appear more acceptable. Unfortunately, Dieppe appears less of a "prelude to D-Day" than a "successor to Gallipoli," the infamous British landings in 1915 that also failed to achieve their objectives and cost thousands of lives. Furthermore, the idea that Dieppe was an essential prerequisite to D-Day conveniently ignores the fact that the Anglo-Americans would conduct four major opposed amphibious landings before D-Day (Torch, Sicily, Salerno and Anzio) that were much larger and that were not designed as raids. Actually, the idea that Dieppe was necessary in order to ensure the success of D-Day has become a historical palliative to dampen Canadian outrage and to soothe the consciences of leaders who recklessly threw 6,000 troops into the frying pan for dubious objectives. Yet is has been abundantly clear since 0506 hours on 19 August 1942, when the German machineguns began the slaughter on Blue Beach, that Operation Jubilee was a dumb plan executed by brave soldiers."

The full review is here
link

Trolling?
Hardly.
I don't see how anyone can construe my opening question as trolling, but that's the price we pay posting to da 'Net.

I have a very hard time justifying the slaughter of so many first class troops.
If anyone wants to bring in their own personal agenda and axe to grind, that is their business. I have long ago learned that one cannot police threads that they start.

If

"…that Operation Jubilee was a dumb plan executed by brave soldiers."

is the best we can come up with, that's pretty sad.

Interesting reading, but it's still total garbage for a conclusion.
He ignores the whole point of what the operation was to show. i.e. Could you assault and take, then hold a port and keep said port in operation? he even suggests that they should have missed out the attack on the port itself. Go figure that out….

Can I ask if the British were so keen to throw non british lives away, why no canadians had been in a planned action before july 1942 when the first canadian troops landed in 1940?. Canadian troops had been in Britian for 2 years and had never been used in any action whatsoever, while british divisions were being trained, then shipped everywhere from Iceland to Africa and India.

It has always seemed to me that the british always had a tendancy to keep all the "fourth and tens" for themselves, which resulted in harder, slower, fighting which then gets translated into tardy incompetence by their commanders.

Dieppe was a disaster, It was good and appropriate that it was the canadians who liberated it in 1944.

Furthermore, the idea that Dieppe was an essential prerequisite to D-Day conveniently ignores the fact that the Anglo-Americans would conduct four major opposed amphibious landings before D-Day (Torch, Sicily, Salerno and Anzio) that were much larger and that were not designed as raids.

To describe the landings at Salerno and Anzio as opposed is stretching it a bit. Neither Torch or Sicily the other 2 had anything like the immediate impact on the landing troops that Dieppe and D-Day did. Even on Sicily the Herman Goerings drive to the beach was seen off without too much drama by naval gunfire.

Also, you might want to check out the book "Green Beach", as it chronicles a real life participant of the raid. He had a side mission to gain access to a German Radar station there, to try and get intel on German Radar tech. He failed to gain access to the station, but British Intelligence was able to glean a lot about German frequencies and such, which helped out later in the war. The book also alludes to some of the screw ups during that raid.
Also, a fair number of historical sources point out that Dieppe WAS a practice run for the eventual invasion of NWE. The fact that it was poorly executed doesn't diminish the fact that there were several valuable lessons learned, which were applied 2 years later during D-Day. Conspiracy theories aside, is was a valuable, though costly, tactical operation.

Fraserdw, Perhaps I'm wrong and you are not a puerile sheep who thinks its 'edgy' and cutting edge to jump on the rather over crowded anti-British bandwagon.

So if thats the case, can you name ALL the 'kings assorted cousins in generals uniforms' you mentioned? Or even just half a dozen? Or are you refering simply to Mountbatten, (actually an Admiral) who was recognized as having snafu'd the op and was duly promoted out of harm's way…

As I understand it, one objective was to capture a German radar set so it could be studied. See the book "Green Beach."

It also was probably meant to demonstrate to the US generals that a landing in France was not as easy as they thought.

It also was probably meant to show Stalin the same thing -- and thus that the Western Allies were not faking or exaggerating about why they could not yet establish a "second front."

"a dumb plan executed by brave soldiers" is an apt definition of all wars.

The plan was initially to have a large Commando force raid Dieppe. Canadian Government pressure to be more active led to their participation.
Most of the ideas that the British wanted to kill off the Dominion troops is from the movie "Gallipoli" and crap Hollywood movies that always portrays the self-governing Dominions as slaves.
Ironic that having left the Empire, the Americans can't bear to acknowledge that a lot of people thought it was a good thing to be part of…..
I was born in Britain and have lived in Canada for 28 years. I have spoken to many Commonwealth veterans and they all have deep respect for their comrades from other parts of the Commonwealth and those from the 'Mother Country'.
A great many of the Canadian troops had either been born in the UK, or were the children of British immigrants. My mother had 6 male cousins who served in the Canadian forces, all of whom were born in Wales. 3 were killed in Normandy………..
The Canadian troops were rightly respected as excellent shock troops and as a result saw some of the toughest assignments of any troops, which they usually accomplished with signal success.
Once again the OFM has stirred people up and caused trouble. He once told someone very rudely to do his own research rather than asking for help. Considering the enormous amount of material available regarding World War 2, I do wish he would take his own advice, read a book and make up his own mind. Perhaps he gets lonely under his bridge……

Once again the OFM has stirred people up and caused trouble.

Oh, my stalkers are back! How lovely.
It's strange how wondering why brave, high quality troops were wasted in a bone headed plan makes me a troll. Takes one to know one, I guess.

Well this thread has not been completely pleasant, but I think that that original question was a fair one and I too was curious about the answer. At least given how I understood the question (I'll refrain from assuming motives on the part of OFM).

I think that it might be productive to rephrase the question. Set aside hindsight for a moment and forget the degree to which the operation failed. Go back instead to the last few days leading up to the operation, just prior to its launch, and before its success/failure was known. As with any operation the men involved (not just the British, and not just the high command) expected that the operation might accomplish something, that it had some objectives. What were the immediate objectives and longer-term accomplishments that the men were working towards? What did the men have in mind when it was launched?

I think this has largely been answered, so perhaps this topic should just die here, but are there any additional thoughts given this re-worded version of the question?

Seems to me its the phrasing of your replies that seems to do it to me John.

Recce was the biggest fall down on this operation. To avoid alerting the Germans no photo recce was carried out over the town and the photo picture was formed by advertising for photos of the local area in the papers and interviewing crews of pleasure steamers and the like that had sailed to and from Dieppe befor the war. Churchils wife was interviewed as she had lived in the area for a time. The German guns placed in the tunnesl to the west of the town where not detected during the build up.
Training for the operation took place away from Luftwaffe eyes but on totally unsuitable beaches. Most of the armour and support vehicles bogged on the beach or failed to cross the anti tank ditch that had been placed just in front of the promenade. The whole area infront of the town was a criss cross of barbed wire. That said, the Germans had made on tactical error in not demolishing the casino in the right (had flank of the beach and throught there the only really effective attempt to get into the town made ground.
The flank attacks had mixed fortunes attacking the gun positions (Yellow failed while Organge succeed)and the attempt to get to the Freya Radar failed.
Pourville was held for most of the raid (Google Merritts Bridge)but had to be evacuated when pressure mounted on it.
Air support. A bomber raid scheduled was cancelled and command and control of CAS was very ineffective, taking upto a hour and a half for support requests to make it to Squadrons. The RAF where under orders not to attack the town to prevent French losses.

Having walked the ground around all those beaches both in the early 70s on a School trip to Pourville and 2 years ago i can recommend taking the ferry into Dieppe to get a idea of the land and then going up to the top of the Cliffs overlooking the town to get an idea of just what faced this landing. Was it a plan to kill Canadians? no, but it was a example of poor planning and execution that whgere learnt ready for Normandy. Hence our forces use of proper landing craft for both vehicles and infantry (with some armour protection) and development of the Hobart Funnies.

I can recomend Dieppe after the battle magazine issue 5
Spirit of the Prairies Lt Col Merritt
Dieppe the shame and Glory by Terrance Robinson
The Air Battle Dieppe at Dawn, the sotry of the Dieppe Raid by RW Thompson
Combined report, the Dieppe Raid. Combined Ops HQ C/B 04244
Recconisance in force, Combined Ops 1940-1942
British intelligence in WWII by FH Hinsley
Lord Mountbattens Biography by Phillip Ziegler

"Most of the ideas that the British wanted to kill off the Dominion troops is from the movie "Gallipoli" and crap Hollywood movies that always portrays the self-governing Dominions as slaves.
Ironic that having left the Empire, the Americans can't bear to acknowledge that a lot of people thought it was a good thing to be part of….."

Ummmm, "Gallipoli" was a joint production of The Australian Film Commission and R & R Films, an Australian film company. Any other "American" films which portray the self-governing Dominions as slaves you like to site?
:)

"The original question is couched in an accusatory manner, and it has the feel of something that will quickly degenerate into a playground slanging match."

I take many of your points as to the eventual acrimony that came out of this, but to say that the question, "What exactly did the British hope to accomplish?" is "couched" in ANYTHING says more about you than John. It seemed to be a pretty straight forward question, and then when he clarified his intentions after all the hoo-ha had started I can't possibly see where anybody could say he was trolling or being deliberately inflammatory in any way.

Great discussion otherwise!

Marc, I'm glad you pointed that out! I was surprised that Gallipoli was being used as proof of Americans Empire hatred as well.