Arts of War: Drawings of Landing Crafts, and D-Day 1944

The First Landing Crafts Canadians Saw at HMS Northney

The Drawings of D. Moira Cruickshank, and More

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, assault or

LCA, two views mounted on card. One of a series of photographic

reproductions of D. Moira Cruickshank's landing craft.

Photo Credit - The D-Day Story, Portsmouth

Introduction:

The first groups of Canadian sailor (RCNVR) volunteers for Combined Operations Command (British organization) left Canada in January, 1942, aboard the Volendam (Dutch liner). And after landing in Gourock, Scotland, these 90 - 100 raw recruits - not yet even knowing what their role was to be - were soon sent to HMCS Niobe at Greenock. Soon thereafter, they were placed upon trains and delivered to training camps HMS Northney (1 - 4) where they were told what their role was to be.

Lloyd Campbell (RCNVR, Combined Ops) writes:

After a few days at the Greenock base we were posted to HMS Northney III on Hayling Island near Portsmouth on the south coast of England. The purpose was training and it was there that we discovered we had 'volunteered' to operate Landing craft for future raids and landings under the auspices of Combined Ops (Operations).

My Naval Chronicles, page 9

The chances are very good that the Canadian sailors stepped aboard a few LCAs while at HMS Northney, and it is very possible that the drawings by D. Moira Cruickshank were revealed in classroom settings. Several of her expert and valuable drawings appear below, along with other information re the types of craft depicted: 

Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

An original drawing by D. Moira Cruickshank of a Landing Craft, Personnel (Medium) or LCPM. It shows a port side view plus a port stern view seen from oblique angle above. One of a group of drawings that were reproduced for Royal Navy landing craft crew training during the Second World War. It is drawn on the back of a naval chart of Dover. Part of the papers of D. Moira Cruickshank WRNS (Women's Royal Naval Service or Wrens) during the Second World War. From 1942 to 1944 she was based at H.M.S. Northney, Hayling Island, on drawing duties. She made drawings of different landing craft types, which were the photographed and widely circulated thoughout the Royal Navy for training purposes. H.M.S. Northney was a shore base at a pre-war holiday camp, at which sailors received initial training on landing craft. Later in the war she served at Lyneham, where she painted murals in the officers' mess, and did posters about educational and vocational training.

Photographs and a great deal of related information can be found at the informative website entitled The D-Day Story out of Portsmouth, England. (Visit the 'Discover' heading > 'The D-Day Story Collection' > 'Collection: Vehicles, Artillery and Ships')

Original drawing of a Landing Craft, Personnel (Ramped) or LCPR

by D. Moira Cruickshank. It shows a front view plus a starboard bow

view seen from oblique angle above. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, personnel

(ramped) or LCPR, three views. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, personnel

(medium) or LCPM, two views. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, support (medium)

or LCS(M), two views. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, mechanised

or LCM, two view. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, Assault or LCA,

two views. One of a series of photographic reproductions of D. Moira

Cruickshank's landing craft. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, mechanised or LCM

Mark II, two views. One of a series of photographic reproductions of D.

Moira Cruickshank's landing craft. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, mechanised or

LCM Mark III, two views mounted on card. Photo - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, personnel (ramped)

or LCPR, three views mounted on card. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, personnel (large)

or LCPL, three views mounted on card, and a landing craft, mechanised

or LCM, two views mounted on card. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A wartime photograph of a drawing of a landing craft, assault or LCA

two views mounted on card. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

Also at The D-Day Story website out of Portsmouth, visitors will find a selection of artwork by Mr. Robert Rae Rule depicting various scenes re the D-Day landings, June, 1944. Various landing crafts are seen in each drawing and a few of Mr. Rae's art pieces are shared below:

Photo as found at The D-Day Story 

Details that accompanied the above:

A drawing showing British troops landing on the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Some troops are making their way up the beach, while others are caring for the wounded. On the right a white ensign is flying at a beach group post. At the water's edge are an LST (Landing Ship, Tank), an LCT (Landing Craft, Tank) and a Liberty Ship. One of fifteen pen and watercolour drawings done by Mr Robert Rae Rule, who at the time of D-Day was a naval sick bay auxiliary on board H.M.S. Empire Mace, off Gold Beach. Most were drawn at the time of D-Day, sometimes from memory and sometimes from descriptions given by other people, often a few days after the events depicted. All are mounted on coloured paper.

A drawing of a scene on D-Day, showing British Landing Craft, Assault

(LCA) under the stern of H.M.S. Empire Mace in a rough sea, off the

Normandy coast. More information about the drawings is given on

the mounts or in correspondence. Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

A drawing showing the Landing Ship, Infantry (LSI) H.M.S. Empire Mace at

sea with several British Landing Craft, Assault (LCA) on the water around it.

Photo Credit - The D-Day Story, Portsmouth 

A drawing showing British troops inside a Landing Craft, Assault (LCA) at

6.30am on D-Day, about an hour before they are due to land in Normandy.

Photo Credit - The D-Day Story  

A drawing showing three columns of Landing Craft, Assault (LCA) of 541st

Royal Marine Flotilla practising in the Solent before D-Day, May 1944.

Photo Credit - The D-Day Story

Speaking of landing crafts used at D-Day, the photo of the pair below caught my eye. In the background is a very useful LCA, capable of delivering up to 36 members of the army to a foreign shore. And in the foreground is a special craft, indeed, and on board is "Monty giveing the honours."

Details that accompanied the above photo (click here):

A photograph showing a motor yacht (?) moving through the water, front starboard view of bow, with General Sir Bernard Montgomery and other individuals near the bow. A LCVP landing craft is in the middle distance. The photograph may show Montgomery arriving in Normandy, or inspecting or visiting ships. It was originally captioned 'Monty giveing the honours' (sic). One of a series of photographs copied from an album belonging to Bert Edwards, who served on the light cruiser HMS Bellona at the time of D-Day. In addition to taking part in Operation Neptune, the Bellona also went on several Russian convoys. On and after D-Day, Bellona was in the Omaha Beach sector to start with, and fired her guns in support of the troops ashore. Bert Edwards probably took some of the photographs but others may have been taken by other crew members. He is not sure which ones he took. See also the oral history interview with him.

I encourage readers to visit The D-Day Story, Portsmouth. There is much there to discover.

Please click here to link to more of The Arts of War as found in "The Crows Nest" Part 7

Questions and comments can be sent to G. Harrison at gordh7700@gmail.com

Unattributed Photos GH

Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (Pt 4)

Concerning the Dieppe Raid by A. G. Kirby (RCNVR, Combined Ops)

The Raid (Aug. '42) was Followed by Operation TORCH (Nov. '42)

Photo Credit: DIEPPE, DIEPPE by Brereton Greenhous

Introduction:

The account related to the Dieppe raid by Al Kirby - as found in a book of much significance and interest in this latest series of posts, i.e., Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks - is relatively lengthy, coming in at 24 pages. However, the account is accompanied by zero photographs, when 1000s exist. And if I could ask Mr. Marks, the editor of all, and author of much of his book, about the lack of photos he might simply say, "Al didn't give me any."

And Al had the opportunity. He met with Clayton on more than one occasion, I am sure. Below we see both men in a small group, each member dedicated to the job of collecting and distributing veterans' stories in various books:

Five significant books were produced by four of the Canadian men above.

Photo taken in the backyard of the home of Clayton Marks, London ONT.

Back, L - R: 'Gash', Clayton, and David Lewis (David wrote and

collected stories for St. Nazaire to Singapore (two volumes)

Front L - R: Doug and Al (full names are w top photo)

More about these veterans and books - click here

There have been a few times that photographs re Al Kirby (RCNVR, Combined Operations) have been shared on this site, and I will do so again here as I encourage readers to look at his Dieppe record found in Combined Operations, pages 38 - 62:

Photo Credit: St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War

1941 - 1945, Volume 2, Page 390

Excerpt from Al Kirby's account frpm Combined Operations, Page 45

Excerpts can also be found in DIEPPE, DIEPPE 

by B. Greenhous. Photo of book's front cover. GH

Doug Harrison (left) and Al Kirby, on guard duty, likely in early 1942

at HMS Northney (1 - 4), on Hayling Island, or later at another camp

Photo Credit: St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War

1941 - 1945, Volume 1, Page 194

Al Kirby, centre (w big laugh), returning to Canada aboard RMS Aquitania,

December, 1943 with several other Canadians in Combined Ops; e.g., Joe

Watson (Simcoe) fixing his collar, and Doug Harrison (behind Joe W.)

In Kirby's account, we learn of an unheralded Canadian in Combined Ops who was killed during the Dieppe Raid. Joe McKenna was from Souris, PEI and I have no picture of him, unfortunately, and have been unable (so far) in connecting with family members or relatives.

But I do have some additional details related to McKenna, RCNVR, Combined Operations. Click here for more information "in memory of Joe".

Following Kirby's account re the raid in Combined Operations by C. Marks is a letter from a sailor to his father. Interested readers can click here to view letter by D. Ramsey, RCNVR, Comb. Ops.

And following D. Ramsey's letter is a map from Combined Operations revealing some of the landing beaches where Canadians in Combined Ops served (with American troops) during Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of North Africa), beginning November 8, 1942:

The beaches east and west of Oran were just part of the landings. Page 66

Map inside the front cover of The Watery Maze reveals, left to right, the

Western, Central and Eastern Landing Forces; dates from Nov. 8 - 12

Below are two of my favourite photographs related to Canadians in Combined Operations serving during Operation TORCH. My father not only mentioned the TORCH landings in his memoirs but was caught "just doing his job" by an RN Photographer on November 8, 1942:

Troops and ammunition for light guns being brought ashore from a landing craft

assault (ramped) (LCA 428) on Arzeu beach, Algeria, North Africa, whilst another

LCA (LCA 287) approaches the beach. Operation 'Torch', November 1942.

[Canadian sailor, centre, knee-deep in water, is Doug Harrison, RCNVR]

Photo Credit: Royal Navy Photographer Lt. F. A. Hudson, (IWM)

Caption: American troops landing on the beach at Arzeu, near Oran, from a

landing craft assault (LCA 26), some of them are carrying boxes of supplies.

Photo Credit: Royal Navy Photographer Lt. F. A. Hudson, (IWM)

More photographs from the Imperial War Museum's extensive files follow:

A12647 American troops manning their landing craft assault from a doorway

in the side of the liner REINA DEL PACIFICO. Two of the landing craft are

numbered LCA 428 and LCA 447. Hudson, F A (Lt), Imperial War Museum

A12648 American troops exiting their landing craft assault on the beach

 at Arzeu, near Oran. Some of the ships of that convoy can be seen in the

distance. Photo Credit: Hudson, F A (Lt), Imperial War Museum (IWM)

A12651 Landing craft off Arzeu. Photo: Hudson, F A (Lt) IWM

A12658 American soldiers tending to a wounded native soldier on the

beach at Arzeu. Photo Credit: Hudson, F. A. (Lt), Imperial War Museum

A12672 American troops landing light guns on Arzeu beach.

Photo: Hudson, F A (Lt), Imperial War Museum (IWM)

For an extensive number of photographs concerning the invasion of North Africa - as stored in the archives of the Imperial War Museum - please click here IWM.

My father Doug Harrison writes the following about the landings in Arzeu:

My group went through much more training at H.M.S. Quebec and then we entrained for Liverpool. Prominent pub was The Crown in Wallasey. We left Greenock in October, 1942 with our LCMs aboard a ship called Derwentdale, sister ship to Ennerdale. She was an oil tanker and the food was short and the mess decks where we ate were full of eighteen inch oil pipes. The 80th and 81st flotillas, as we are now called, were split between the Derwentdale and Ennerdale in convoy, and little did we know we were bound for North Africa....

At Anchor. Photo Credit: J. Hall, Gourock, Scotland. FL11110, IWM

We had American soldiers aboard and an Italian in our mess who had been a cook before the war. He drew our daily rations and prepared the meal (dinner) and had it cooked in the ship’s galley. He had the ability to make a little food go a long way and saved us from starvation. Supper I can’t remember, but I know the bread was moldy and if the ship’s crew hadn’t handed us out bread we would have been worse off....

In the convoy close to us was a converted merchant ship which was now an air craft carrier. They had a relatively short deck for taking off, and one day when they were practicing taking off and landing a Swordfish aircraft failed to get up enough speed and rolled off the stern and, along with the pilot, disappeared immediately. No effort was made to search, we just kept on.

One November morning the huge convoy, perhaps 500 ships, entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. It was a nice sun-shiny day... what a sight to behold.

An Allied convoy, escorted by sea and air, plowed through the seas toward

French North African possessions near Casablanca, French Morocco, in Nov., 1942,

part of Operation Torch, the large British-American invasion of French North Africa.

Photo Credit, AP Photo as found at The Atlantic

Doug Harrison continues:

On November 8, 1942 the Derwentdale dropped anchor off Arzew in North Africa and different ships were distributed at different intervals along the vast coast. My LCM had the leading officer aboard, another seaman besides me, along with a stoker and Coxswain. At around midnight over the sides went the LCMs, ours with a bulldozer and heavy mesh wire, and about 500 feet from shore we ran aground. When morning came we were still there, as big as life and all alone, while everyone else was working like bees.

There was little or no resistance, only snipers, and I kept behind the bulldozer blade when they opened up at us. We were towed off eventually and landed in another spot, and once the bulldozer was unloaded the shuttle service began.

For ‘ship to shore’ service we were loaded with five gallon jerry cans of gasoline. I worked 92 hours straight and I ate nothing except for some grapefruit juice I stole.

 
"Dad, Well Done", Pages 23 - 25

Click here to read an excerpt re the invasion of North Africa from  Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks.

Click here to read another short entry about the N. African operation in Combined Operations (Pages 71 - 72) by Lloyd Williams.

Click here to be introduced to another book with many details about Operation Torch, by Jack Coogin.

More photographs and stories (or links to stories) from Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks - and other related photos and accounts from various, significant resources - will soon follow.

Please click here to link to Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (Pt 3)

Unattributed Photos GH

Training for Combined Operations: "The Schuyts Were the Biggest Exercises Thus Far"

Training Prior to Dieppe Involving Canadians in Combined Ops

Exercise Schuyt 1 at Irvine Did Involve 'Surprises For Us Too"

H11177. A landing craft containing a Valentine tank being launched down the

slipway of a landing ship during combined operations training on Loch Fyne

in Scotland, 27 June 1941. Photo - Major W.G. Horton, War Office, IWM.

(Similar training took place at Irvine as well, Canadian Navy vets tell us...

and the ship may be HMS Iris or Daffodil, Landing Ships-Stern Chute)

Introduction:

While sharing photographs and related information about the Canadians who volunteered for Combined Operations in a series of posts entitled Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (meaning the book by Londoner Clayton Marks; parts 1 - 3 so far; link to Part 1), I came across a couple of related stories in a fine book I was referencing, i.e., St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War, Volume 1.

Volume 1 and Volume 2 were compiled by David and Catherine Lewis and Len Birkenes, both men members of RCNVR and Combined Ops. The volumes, inspired by an earlier book, i.e., Combined Operations by C. Marks, contain many significant Navy veterans' stories and much writing and photos by David Lewis himself.

Five significant books were produced by four of the Canadian men above

More information about David Lewis and other authors here

Back, L - R: 'Gash', Clayton, and David Lewis (David wrote and collected

stories for St. Nazaire to Singapore (two lengthy volumes)

Front L - R: Doug and Al (full names are w top photo)

The next four photos relate to St. Nazaire to Singapore:

Readers who peruse Volume 1 using the link provided earlier will learn that the Dieppe Raid was the earliest actions in which a relatively large group of Canadian sailors were used to man landing crafts on enemy-controlled beaches. The raid at St. Nazaire ( read "The Greatest Raid of All" by Lucas Phillips, CE), a few months earlier in 1942 (March 27 - 28), employed only a few Canadians and is breifly documented in Lewis and Birkenes' book.

What follows from Volume 1 is a story by David Lewis related to early training, just prior to the Dieppe Raid, at HMS Quebec, near Inveraray, and at HMS Dundonald, near Irvine, Scotland:

Photo as found in St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 1, page 41

After completing our initial training in Combined Operations boats at Hayling Island, HMS Northney, we entrained for Scotland and took the MacBrayne’s paddle-wheeled steamers from Wemyss Bay for the tourist trip to HMS Quebec at Inveraray.

Particularly for the first and second flotillas but also for the third and fourth later, there were time intervals between basic training and the more serious exercises leading up to major raids and invasions. Of these the largest exercises were Schuyt 1 and Schuyt 2. The name picked was that of a class of agreeable small Dutch vessels carrying cargo about the peace time European coast and river ways. A number had escaped the Nazis and now worked the British Coastlines.

Before these exercises there was a pleasantly relaxed time at Quebec with light duties due to recurrent breakdowns and shortages of boats. The elastic discipline of Combined Ops kept the men together at Inveraray. We waited to learn rope tricks and cliff climbing, the threatened characteristics of Commando activity, but found they were not in our job description after all. So Quebec turned out to be a lot less demanding than we had expected. In fact quite the contrary.*

[* Editor's Note: David Lewis was an Officer. Ordinary ratings would likely disagree with this assessment.]

Lewis continues:

Time was on our hands. Some of us went to have tea with the high-pitch-voiced Duke of Argyle. Some used Mill's bombs to fish his salmon streams, and climbed his mountains and explored his deer park land. The light casualties amongst his sheep were suspect. Some of us had leave with all the pleasant, exciting, and educating experiences of days in the British Isles.

But then we were called together. For a while we had our own ships to carry our landing craft about. They were strange creations indeed. HMS Iris and Daffodil were called Landing Ships-Stern Chute.

LCM being hauled up the slipway on HMS Iris. Photo: Royal Navy,

Imperial War Museum. (Compare with top photo of this post)

Editor says, Take note of the gun on upper level, right side.

They were old Harwich-to-the-Hook of Holland ferries, each fitted out to carry rail cars. They are recorded as being armed with four six-pounders, five Oerlikons and five ancient Lewis guns to protect themselves and their precious cargoes.*

[*Lewis adds: This may have been to terrorize the enemy as I don't remember seeing any guns myself being mounted aboard in our time or later on. Reference: Allied Landing Craft of World War Two, Naval Institute Papers, Annapolis, MD., Fourth Printing, 1989. This book is the completest of all on the subject, factually and pictorially. Thanks to Clayton Marks who found it.]

For awhile they seemed as if they might be our vessels. They could carry thirteen LCAs
mounted on trollies - two per craft. The craft were picked up in the stern chute and hauled up onto the main deck and then, by a complicated switching system, made snug on three tracks on the covered deck. They took us to Irvine for the Schuyts.

Photo as found in St. Nazaire to Singapore, Volume 1, Page 50

Editor says, Take note of the gun on upper level, left side.

The main excitement was launching the crafts by pushing them to the chute one by one and watching them race down the track and plunge into the sea, splashing up a great wall of water. Very spectacular but we couldn't quite crowd out of our minds the possibility that the LCAs would just keep on going down to Davy Jone’s Locker, though it never happened to us. I dread to think what would have happened if we had to launch in rough weather.

Our LCAs were then moored in Irvine Harbour on the Ayrshire coast. We were housed in Nissen huts and tents at HMS Dundonald. The pubs of the harbour were well used*. 

[*Editor's Note: Though David Lewis was their Officer, ordinary ratings would likely not disagree with this assessment.]

Lewis continues:

Our camp was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Some enterprising matelots (sailors) found them penetrable, as recorded in one of our photos of the time. Len Birkenes and others went forth and back through the fence to enjoy Scottish hospitality.

Len Birkenes returning on Board at Irvine through a makeshift 

gangway. Photo: St. Nazaire to Singapore, Volume 1, Page 44

The Schuyts were the biggest exercises thus far manned by Combined Operations. In conception and organization they were planting the seed that matured on D-Day. The exercise troops were loaded from the mainland and great excitement was present since the beaches would be attended by dignitaries including King George Vl, Winston Churchill and our new chief, Lord Louis Mountbatten. They had assembled to witness The Shape of Things to Come.

Doug Harrison's account begins in the middle of the first dark night. We planned to surprise the enemy and of course there were some surprises for us too.

Pages 41 - 42

My father Doug Harrison's account follows:

EXERCISE SCHUYT 1: MAROONED ON A SUBMERGED SAND BAR

It was so damn dark. “Keep closed up!” I can still hear Andy Wedd’s voice to this day. (I am glad I saw him shortly before his death.)

At the night exercise the time of arrival was midnight. The crew was Koyl, Art Bailey, Stoker Lank and his pail (Willard Lank was always chewing kelp), and myself, with a full complement of English soldiers. Believe me, these fellows were sick soldiers. Bailey and I lashed ourselves down as best we could and emptied the helmets as the soldiers handed them up. Destination or landing, I don’t remember. Troon (Scotland)? I can remember two perimeter lights vaguely in the distance.

We were perhaps headed south and it was rough (all of this is true). Our craft ran aground on a sand bar. Koyl ordered everybody - Bailey and I and himself - overboard to look or tread for deeper water. First we tried rocking the craft in conjunction with the motors. No luck. Wandering in sea boots, underwear, duffel coats, I fell into deeper water (which wasn’t too cold fortunately) and hollered, “Over here, sir!”

So we worked our asses off to free the ALC and we were successful. The soldiers helped to rock the craft. Koyl’s fuming, “We are going to be late!” And he is flotilla commander. Bailey and Koyl were able to get aboard. I wasn’t and they drove off and left me out in the water.

I was scared, But I felt I knew Mr. Koyl. I discarded all my clothing but uniform pants and underwear, found a sandbar and waited it out. They made their landing eventually but.... How is he going to find me (this is unbelievable)? I thrashed my arms, swam on my back for short stints to maintain circulation and after an eternity I saw an Aldis lamp blinking.

Motors were cut, then revved up, then cut. Koyl had a fair idea perhaps but I don’t know how he knew where to locate me. Eventually our voices came reasonably close together. I was caught in the light of the Aldis lamp and picked up after one and a half or two hours waiting. My hands were all wrinkled. I felt all in.

When we returned to Irvine (a few miles north of Troon), Koyl, Bailey and I hurried to a local pub (now known as the Harbour Light). We were given hot porridge, rum and our clothes were taken to be dried and we were wrapped in blankets. All of this help came from ladies. It was late afternoon before we left the pub - Royal Sovereign or King George?

I was a very lucky fellow. In the darkness Koyl and Bailey took awhile before they missed me. I didn’t really know what went amiss but the fact that the landing had to be made on time was uppermost in Koyl’s mind.

St. Nazaire to Singapore, Volume 1, Page 46

Full caption with photo: The Public House, the King’s Arms, where the Skinner

family revived Doug Harrison and the rest of Jack Koyl’s boat crew. They used

hot drinks, hot porridge and hot blankets. Pub’s name has been changed,

perhaps in honour of the occasion to “The Harbour Light."

Editor’s Note: I believe the photo and caption above were added to my father's story by David Lewis, creator of St. Nazaire to Singapore Vol. 1, to help clarify the name of the Scottish pub. 

I add this note for the same purpose: I visited Irvine, Scotland in October, 2014 and visited both the long-standing Harbour Lights (formerly known as the Victoria Hotel) and King's Arms Hotel. The Harbour Lights was formerly owned by John and Mary Burns, and the King's Arms Hotel, owned in 2014 by the Scott family, was formerly owned by the Skinners, a family both mentioned by David Lewis and my father (in another story) as the ones who helped out the tired ALC crew. So, of all the names tossed about, the King's Arms Hotel is definitely a good fit, but its name was never changed "in honour of the occasion." So, a bit of mystery remains re where Dad was served rum, porridge, etc.

More about the Dieppe Raid has been listed under click on Headings in right margin.

Also related to Dieppe, please link to Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (Part 3).

Please note, Part 4 of the above series will follow on this site shortly.

Please email Editor with questions or comments at gordh7700@gmail.com

Unattributed Photos GH