1000 Men, 1000 Stories : Memoirs re Combined Operations

The Dieppe Raid: August 19, 1942 - Part 8

- Thursday Morning, August 20, 1942

The clatter of people walking about and the noise of loud conversation awakened me about eight the next morning as there had been no wake-up call. I saw that Lantz was already up, then I remembered McKenna. His bed had not been slept in, so I quickly got up and dressed, went down to the field kitchen and caught up with Lantz. As we ate, we discussed our next move. Since the whole place was still in turmoil and concerned only with the unloading of boats which were still returning, we were not required on our own craft and everyone was either helping the Army with their work or doing whatever they pleased. Lantz and I decided to scour the boats alongside to see if we could find out what happened to McKenna. On our way back down the jetty, we came across the body of a poor commando, laying close to the wall of the freight shed. Things were still in very much of a turmoil even though the Army had been working all night to clear up the mess of the returning landing craft. Finally we saw R-84, tied up with the other R boats at the jetty. We crossed over to her and questioned a fellow on the next boat, as she was empty.

We were told that R-84 had come in very late last night, badly shot up in the bow section and the seaman and the stoker were both dead, and the officer was badly wounded. I'm sure that this must have occurred on our second run in, as at that moment I saw chunks of timber flying off the bow of McKenna's boat just before we turned around to head back out to the destroyer again. Jumping down into Joe's boat, we were greeted by the most gory sight imaginable. The windscreen and supporting posts had been completely shot away. A large section of the foc’sle was torn out and lay over the starboard side. In the bilge, slopping back and forth with the motion of the water, was what looked like gallons and gallons of blood. Evidently, poor Joe had taken a burst of machine gun fire through the windscreen and with his chest torn asunder, collapsed into the bilge along with his Stoker. They both died immediately, we were told, and lay together in a pool of blood all the way home. For Joe and his English Stoker, R-84 had become a plywood coffin. Another landing craft apparently towed her all the way across the English Channel stern first. Later that morning we learned that there would be a funeral service at the graveyard in Newhaven the following day for the dead who were brought back, so we both planned to go in the hope of finding McKenna. We were both very- disappointed however, as next morning our Flotilla was required to muster at our boats at 0800 and we drove the landing craft through the roughest weather that I have experienced, back to Portsmouth. Consequently, we were unable to go to the funeral.

"Killed in WW2: Aug. 19, 1942. AB Joseph McKenna. V1540. P.E.I."

It was a great relief however, to be reunited with our old gang when we arrived back in Devon and we spent many hours going over all that had happened. We were all greatly saddened by the information that our Flotilla Commander, Lieutenant R. F. McRae and his entire crew, Stoker A. Brown, Ordinary Seaman R. Cavanagh and Able Seaman Campbell, were lost and no one had any word about how or where. Sub. Lt. Andrew Wedd from Toronto, one of our own Officers, was wounded and received a "Mention in Dispatches", which is an award for outstanding conduct. As we discussed the operation among ourselves, over the next few weeks, we began to get a rough picture of what went on. It was not until many years later that I finally learned that our landing was only one of five separate landings that made up the Dieppe raid. Through reading the many books that were subsequently written about this operation, I learned that it was not the town of Dieppe that our Flotilla had attacked, but the town of Pourville, which is about three miles east of Dieppe.

"... Cavanagh and A/S Campbell, were lost and no one had any word..."

Throughout the war we heard a great many wild stories as the rumour mill churned on, but a great deal of what we heard proved to be erroneous. One thing that stands out in my mind was the rumour that to this day, haunts every discussion about the Dieppe raid, and that is that the planning of the raid was leaked to the Germans and they were ready for us. This seems highly unlikely to me, for if this was true, I doubt that the No. 4 Commando could have landed without opposition and done so well at Quiberville, the south Saskatchewans would not have landed without opposition at Pourville, and the No. 3 Commando would not have landed without opposition at Berneval.

There is no doubt in my mind that the experience of the Dieppe raid had to be gained as a basis for the Normandy Landings and I think that the Allied experience at Normandy bears this out. Although an eighteen year old inexperienced kid has no basis for criticizing the planners of such a difficult operation as this or any other for that matter, I cannot resist the temptation. I personally think that the three major faults of Dieppe were as follows:

(1) A poor operational plan by the Army: It seems to me, looking back, forty five years later, that an Army Field Commander should have been able to foresee the debacle that occurred on the main beach in front of the town. After visiting Dieppe in 1987, I was appalled that the attack on the town was made from the sea rather than from the rear. The excellent defensive position of the town, between the high cliffs to the right and the left coupled with the good use that the Germans made of these features, practically precluded any successful approach from this direction. The Canadian Infantry Units did extremely well to get as far as they did, but the experience of the raid on St. Nazaire, only four months previous, should have been sufficient to indicate the probable cost of this approach.

(2) A poor job of transportation by the Navy: The job of the Navy was to conduct the Army safely across the Channel and deposit them at the correct place, at the correct time. This was carried out properly for the most part, but for a very critical section it was botched in a most unforgivable way. Earlier I described the sighting of tracer fire a little before 0400 in the morning. This turned out to be an accidental interception of a German convoy by the R-boat Flotilla carrying the No. 3 Commando Battalion from Newhaven. This group was being led and protected by, a steam gunboat under the command of Commander D. B. Wyburd, R.N., a small flackship and two L.C.S. (landing craft support) which were armoured landing craft with .5 Vickers machine guns mounted in turrets. None of these craft had radar, or even a reliable wireless set.

Since this group was on the extreme left flank, they came under the overall protection of the destroyer Slazak, a Polish manned tribal class. Since none of the escorts were scouting ahead, the interception of the German convoy immediately exposed the No. 3 Commando to destruction by the Germans. Then, Commander Wyburd was left with no other option but to engage the enemy in a losing battle which sacrificed several landing craft and resulted in the killing and wounding of a great many Commandos. With their Battalion decimated, the survivors pressed on and arrived at their destination about an hour late in broad daylight. In addition, the south Saskatchewan Regiment, which landed ahead of us at Pourville, were split up by being landed on two sides of the river Scye instead of being landed together on the right side. This might have been avoided by briefing the landing craft crews in advance so they would know what they were looking for and possibly been able to rectify this error before it was too late.

(3) Poor communications during the entire operation: Army radio communications, in that era, were very undeveloped compared to today's standards, as were the Navy's, but I think a great deal more use could have been made of the landing craft. Our entire Flotilla sat around and did nothing all day long when we could have been much more useful shuttling back and forth from the beaches to the Headquarters Ship Calpe with messages and observers. The speed and manouverability of our R-boats, coupled with the fact that we were very poor craft for use in a withdrawal, made it worth sacrificing some of us in order to get the information needed to rescue the entire operation.

It is my opinion that if the Officers managing this affair had put as much effort into the planning as the other ranks put into the execution the result may have been different. It seems to me that the only people who come out clean are the Air Force and the Commandos.