Context: Dieppe Raid 1942 - Operations RUTTER/JUBILEE (6).

"Death Cuts Short a Writers Story", Hurricanes and More

Photo: As found on an interpretative panel in France, showing bodies of Canadian

soldiers piled up on the beach at the village of Puys, following the raid.

Photo Credit - The Canadian Encyclopedia

(There are seven additional photographs and accompanying article re the Dieppe raid at The Canadian Encyclopedia.)

Introduction:

Operation JUBILEE, the second attempt of a raid at Dieppe, took place approximately one month from the time of the columns, editorials, editorial cartoons, etc. displayed below from the July 18 - 22 issues of The Winnipeg Tribune.

Canadian members of RCNVR and Combined Ops are not mentioned directly but they would have been affected by the events on the war fronts that are highlighted.

"Mae West is asking for a divorce?" some sailors would say. "Maybe she'll go dancing with me this Saturday night!"

"Hurricanes are blowing in from Canada, I hear," another would say. "I'd really like to see one flying overhead when we're training on our landing crafts."

(When members of the first draft of Canadians in Combined Ops were serving in Sicily one year later from the time of these articles, they would indeed see Hurricanes in action, some flown by men from their own hometowns!)

Peruse the newspapers from 1942 for more details: e.g., The Winnipeg Tribune -  http://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A1243378

* * * * * *

Dangers in war were all too real. The Butcher's Bill was extremely high in all of the armed forces. Those who reported on the sights and sounds of war, the chaos and carnage, various war activities and human conditions, etc., also made supreme sacrifices. 

EUGENE PETROV, last words - 

Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Petrov became a war correspondent. He was killed in a plane crash while returning from besieged Sevastopol. The short film Envelope was dedicated to him. (Link to Wikipedia)

(Petrov) died in a plane crash in 1942, while working as a correspondent during the Second World War. (Link to Information on Writers)

My father Gordon Douglas (Doug) Harrison, a canadian in Combined Ops, wrote the following in memoirs:

One morning in Sicily I woke up in my hammock in our cave (the hammock was slung between two lime-stone piers and above the lizards) and I saw Hurricane planes taking off just a short distance away. We now began working eight hours on and eight hours off. When we were pretty well unloaded I decided, on my eight hours off, to investigate the air strip and, behold, they were Canadians with Hurricane fighters. I arrived about supper time and explained who I was and was invited for a supper of tomatoes and bully beef... Not that again!

“I have no mess fanny or spoon,” I said, and the cook told me there were some fellows washing theirs up and to ask one of them for the loan of their mess fanny and spoon.

So I walked over, tapped a man’s shoulder and asked if I could borrow his equipment. The man straightened up and said “sure” and it turned out to be Bill Donnelly from my own hometown of Norwich, Ontario. I got my oppo, A/B Buryl McIntyre from the cave and did the vino ever run that night. Small world.

So when we had had enough Bill crawled into his hole in the ground, covered himself with mosquito netting, and we headed back to the cave. Overhead, Beaufort night fighters were giving Jerry fighters and bombers hell. We felt the courage given us by the vino and slept quite soundly in our dank old cave ‘til morning rolled around again.

(Page 34 - "DAD, WELL DONE")

Editor's Note: John McTavish was bounced 59 feet. Not 58 feet, not 60 feet, not 55 - 60 feet. 59 feet. That's some feat!!

The Dieppe Raid is but a month away. Linked to demands for a second front?

We read above, "Thus the initial Allied invasion force would comprise 450,000 men at least."

The next paragraph reveals that "transporting and maintaining such an army" would require great efforts from such men as the Canadians in Combined Operations - and hundreds more - who manned landing crafts ("Don't call them barges," some of them said at one time) at Dieppe, then at the invasions of N. Africa (Nov. 1942), Sicily and Italy (July and Sept. 1943) prior to D-Day Normandy.

For many reasons (some hinted at above), a large-scale invasion of Europe was delayed until June, 1944. Was the (large-scale) raid at Dieppe a way of testing the waters, a way to appease the need now for Second front? Much has been written re the tragic raid. Some books re the raid are presented at this site, and more will follow.

On the early morning of August 19 a similar incident to the one below took place as (chiefly Canadian) Allied troops made their way across the English Channel on their way to Dieppe.

Editor's Note - I have read that Canada was home to the world's third largest navy at the end of World War II.

Some sailors would say, "Maybe she'll go dancing with me this Saturday night!"

Is this artist, writer, related to Robert Wagner, well-known

Hollywood actor (also born in Detroit)?

Interesting quotes follow from some of the returning Canadian forces:

More newspaper articles, editorial cartoons will follow.

Please link to Context: Dieppe Raid 1942 - Operations RUTTER/JUBILEE (5)

Unattributed Photos GH