Presentation: Dad's Navy Days Part 5 (2)

Dad's Navy Days, 1941 - 1945

By G. A. Harrison

Some Dieppe Survivors - Canadians in Combined Operations
Photo - St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol.1, Page 80

Introduction: The following post will be part of a Nov. 2016 presentation regarding my father's WW2 service with the RCNVR and Combined Operations organization.

MY DAD'S NAVY DAYS

Part 5 - Concerning the Dieppe Raid - Operation Jubilee, August 19, 1942 

"I missed going to Dieppe by just one day," my father said during an interview with a reporter from The Brantford Expositor in January 1944. In the newspaper article that followed I read that 'he had been on leave and returned to duty just as the Dieppe casualty lists were coming in. Seven of his combined operations colleagues failed to come back from that cross-Channel venture'. Some had been killed, others taken as prisoners of war.

No doubt the tragic results associated with the Dieppe Raid contributed to his feelings of anger at the time, and survivor guilt in later years.

Al Kirby of Woodstock, one of my father's close mates who participated in and returned from Dieppe on August 19, wrote one of the most comprehensive eye-witness accounts available, i.e., from the point-of-view of a member of the RCNVR and Combined Operations who had been aboard one of the landing craft used to deliver men and material to Dieppe's shore. The 24-page account appears in Combined Operations (1993) by Londoner Clayton Marks, and can also be found in Brereton Greenhous's official history, Dieppe, Dieppe, published by Canada's Department of National Defense (DND) in 1995.

In the book Combined Operations, Kirby's story is preceded by two entries, i.e., a shorter account of the raid by Clayton Marks, and the lists of the Combined Operations personnel and Naval forces (i.e., list of H.M. ships, landing craft and commanding officers) utilized during the raid.

C. Marks writes the following:

DIEPPE - August 19, 1942

It was deemed a failure right from the original plan of operation. The original code word for this landing was "Rutter". It was accepted by Combined Operations and the Home Forces Staffs on April 25, 1942 and the landing was to commence by the 8th of July, 1942. On July 7th the German Air Force flew over Yarmouth Roads and sank landing ships. This, and the bad weather, convinced Mountbatten to cancel the complete operation.

Mountbatten and Churchill had a plan to remount "Rutter" on August 19, 1942 under the code word "Jubilee" with all the same participating forces. The Chiefs-of-Staff were on the wane and Dieppe was desperately needed to restore Combined Operations quickly growing ambitions. Bomber Command could not and would not supply heavy, accurate air bombardment, but could guarantee only limited indiscriminate bombing. The Naval Sea Lord could not supply sea power in the form of battleships due to the recent loss of the battleships "Prince of Wales" and the "Revenge" at Singapore in December of 1941. This left only destroyer sea power of 4 inch guns that could not damage the wall of defense along the French coast. At 2130 on the night of August 18th the landing ships slipped their moorings and headed out to sea on a cloudless and warm evening. The fleet consisted of 237 ships of all sizes from large Infantry landing ships to the 74 LCP's unarmed and unarmoured carrying 6,100 of all ranks.

Many stories and acts of heroism have been told and will be retold over and over again. Officers and men of the British Army, Commandos, Royal Marines, American Rangers, Canadian Essex Scottish, Canadian Engineers, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, Hamilton Light Infantry, Fusiliers Mont Royal and the Royal Regiment of Canada, Black Watch, were all involved in this raid.

The perilous honour of the raid fell mainly to the Canadian Army and the Royal Navy, but members of the Naval team from Canada had a share. Training was not sufficiently advanced for the Canadians to operate as separate Flotillas when the Dieppe expedition sailed from Portsmouth, Shoreham and Newhaven on the night of August 18th; but among the British Landing Craft fifteen Canadian Officers and fifty-five Ratings were distributed.

Sub-Lieutenant C.D. Wallace was the first Canadian casualty. He was killed in the dark hours of the morning, when the Flotillas on the extreme left flank of the assault made the fatal encounter with a German convoy. Lt. J.E. Koyl, a Canadian who was to figure in many happier landings, was boat Officer of a Flotilla which included thirty-three Canadians. It left its parent ship, "Duke of Wellington", at 0334. As the craft neared the beach shortly after five, they came under heavy fire from shore. They managed to land their three platoons of the Canadian Black Watch near Puys; but as they were withdrawing the British Flotilla Officer was seriously wounded and Lt. Koyl took charge. Continuing seaward, he transferred the wounded Officer to a British destroyer, and about 1200 when the evacuation of the beach was ordered, led his craft in again through heavy fire from shore and attack from the air.* Before he could beach, however, he was ordered to turn back. German batteries were laying down a curtain of steel that made evacuation an impossibility.

Photo found in St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 1, Page 60

Meanwhile, Sub-Lieutenants A.A. Wedd and J.E. Boak, each in command of one of the landing craft (Personnel) which had sailed directly from England, came into shore with their Flotilla a little east of Dieppe harbour. Passing through smoke and into the fire from the German weapons of all calibres, they landed their troops and withdrew. They were sent in an hour or so later to Dieppe harbour itself; but were recalled almost immediately and re-routed to one of the beaches near Puys. As they reached the inner fringe of the smoke shrouding the beach, they came upon a group of Canadian soldiers crouching on a capsized landing craft just off shore, and pinned down by fire. Although the soldiers waved and shouted at them to steer away, the craft ran close alongside, heaved ropes across and managed to rescue three of the men. Then, as the fire from shore blazed up to new intensity, the Flotilla was ordered to turn back from the beach. It was not to go in again. Like all of the other Flotillas, it was to have the memory, most poignant for the Canadians, of having left behind many of the soldiers it had brought ashore.

Unhappy as the immediate results of Dieppe were, the performance of the Canadians in the landing craft had been worthy of their brothers in the Army; and some of them remained with the soldiers as prisoners.

Lt. R.F. McRae stated:

"On August 19, 1942, at dawn, in our R-Boat, with Lloyd Campbell, Richard Cavanagh, Robert Brown and a unit the Fusiliers Mont Royal, we were off the French coast which was invisible behind a heavy smoke screen and from which there came the awful noises of war. About 0730 the Flotilla got orders to go in and land the troops. We quickly formed up in line abreast, went through the smoke screen and saw that we were headed toward a beach under high cliffs with the heads of the enemy looking down over the top and pouring machine-gun fire into our boats. Campbell, who was at the wheel, took a line of bullets across his thighs (and later, as a P.O.W., lost his legs in successive amputations and died before Christmas from gangrene). Cavanagh, who was standing next to him, got it in the chest and died an hour later when his lungs had filled up. Brown, though hit in the stomach, took over the wheel from Campbell. I was the lucky one and received only a piece of shrapnel in the ankle.

In the meantime, the engine had been blown up and was on fire and the plywood hull of the boat was well perforated, but we had enough weight on to make it to the beach. The troops scrambled ashore except for their Captain who had been standing up forward with us and was badly wounded, and I believe, dying. Some of the troops never made it across the beach which was strewn with their bodies, and those who did were easy targets for grenades lobbed down from above. There was no life in the boats on either side of us, and it was, I think, because they could see that I was busy with the wounded and that we were unarmed so that the Germans on the top of the cliffs gave up trying to finish us off.

Some hours later, it was evident that a surrender had taken place when I saw a few German soldiers walking along the beach with a medical orderly. I jumped out of the boat to fetch the orderly for the wounded but our discussion was rudely interrupted by a Corporal with a machine-gun directing me, in no uncertain terms to a crevice in the cliff face, down which a rope had been lowered. A few surviving troops and myself were ordered to hoist ourselves up the rope, hand over hand. I did not see my crew again.

"The drawing of my experiences as a POW pianist"

St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol.1, Page 64

Provenance Bob McRae

I spent the first year as a P.O.W. in handcuffs in a British Army Officers camp and then was shifted to a British Naval Officers camp for the remainder of the war. The last two weeks were spent with a long straggling column of P.O.W.s being marched up to the Baltic and regularly being strafed by our own fighter aircraft.

The loss of Campbell and Cavanagh and later Brown**, as you can see, was a complete waste and unnecessary."

**POW McRae was later reunited with Robert Brown, who had - unbeknownst

to McRae - survived his wound. St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 1, Page 65

Clayton Marks continues:

Though there are still some who dispute the value of what was learned at Dieppe, they are not to be found among informed persons or among any who bore high responsibility in the later stages of the war, except for General Montgomery. There are others besides him who have criticized details of the raid, or the retention of Dieppe as the target after the original postponement. Mistakes were certainly made, and the Germans themselves were among their severest critics. They found fault with the rigidity of the plan, the frontal attack, the absence of parachutists, the failure to use bombers, the failure to land tanks at Quiberville. Fortunately they were confirmed in their belief that in our next landing we would go for a large port in the initial stages? and this erroneous conviction colored all their planning. They convinced themselves also that it was on the beaches that we would be most easily defeated, and they made their dispositions accordingly.

In fact we had learned that a frontal attack on a defended port was impracticable, and we never tried it again. A British General is on record as saying, not long afterwards, "Well, if we can't capture a port, we will have to take one with us". The Prime Minister had already and separately had the same idea.

In order that this grim experience should not be for nothing, a full and detailed report, with the lessons learned clearly deduced and codified, was compiled in C.O.H.Q.; printed, and given a wide circulation. No time was wasted in chewing the cud; it saw the light and was being closely studied in a very short space of time. Combined Operations, Pages 26 - 29

* re transferring wounded RN officer to a destroyer. The following newspaper article appeared on February 5, 1944 in The Free Press, London, Ontario.

NORWICH BOYS IN THICK OF TWO INVASIONS BY ALLIES 

LS. BURYL MCINTYRE AND LS. DOUGLAS HARRISON 

WITH “BIGGEST ARMADA OF ALL TIME” 

“I saw my lieutenant, the flotilla officer, ‘get it’ because he did not know the meaning of fear. I saw ship’s gunners being strafed and standing to their guns. I can remember a Bren gunner standing in plain view of wicked cross fire, pouring all he had into the Jerries to cover his mates’ landing.” LS. Buryl McIntyre (right, in photo below), home on leave in Norwich with his friend LS. Douglas Harrison (left) told what he remembered of Dieppe where he was mentioned in dispatches for his work as coxswain of a landing barge.

“It was a dark night in August when we crossed the Channel toward Dieppe. Just at dawn we could discern the coast of France. Out of the dark sky and into the light outlining the coast came a plane diving on gun positions on shore, the guns in his wings and cannon in the nose twinkling much like a ‘Hallowe’en sparkler’. Then as he was just below treetop height, so it seemed, he pulled out and let his bombs go. He zoomed up and set off for home, ‘a job well done’.”

Buryl’s lieutenant was shot down just as they were touching the beach and coxswain Buryl took command of the barge. After landing the troops, he pushed away to find the nearest destroyer to get help for his officer. He picked his way through the maze of boats, all moving as quickly as they could to avoid the bombing and strafing of enemy planes. Another barge drew alongside and tied up to see if there was anything they could do. As it pulled away its tie rope became entangled in the propellor of Buryl’s barge, stopping the engine. Buryl dropped into the water, swam around to the stern of the tossing barge and slowly unwound the rope. Then they pushed on.

He finally got his officer aboard a destroyer and stood by nine hours, waiting and watching. Finally a senior officer commanded him to take his barge home to an English port seventy miles across the Channel from Dieppe. When the Dieppe honours were released Buryl McIntyre was mentioned in dispatches for coolness and courage in emergencies. Later he helped land the British First Army and supplies near Algiers and took part in the Allied landing in Sicily. During the invasion of Italy he was in a North African hospital.

ALC 269 leaving Newhaven, August 21, 1942. C. Sheeler, L. Birkenes 

ALC 269 returning to Southampton from Newhaven.

C. Sheeler and Joe Spencer (under the White Ensign), Aug. 21, 1942

Used with permission of Gary Spencer, collection of Joe Spencer

Please link to Presentation: Dad's Navy Days Part 5 (1)

Unattributed Photos GH