1000 Men, 1000 Stories : Photographs: Dieppe Raid 1942

The Blanketed Dead, POWs, a Burial at Brookwood, Surrey

[Photo Credit: Associated Press Wirephoto, as found in The Winnipeg Tribune
(page 7), August 25, 1942. A second photo from Brookwood is found below]

Introduction:

About half of the photographs I present related to the Dieppe Raid can be found in very high quality - with accurate captioning - at the Imperial War Museum, UK. It is reported that the museum has more than 11,000,000 photographs in its possession, so "Happy Hunting," I say.

The majority of the photographs presented in this entry are from two significant collections and two individual pix are from The Winnipeg Tribune, a very helpful source of information concerning World War 2 events and (often) accompanying pictures.

I also present below the continuation of an excellent story about the Dieppe Raid - from the viewpoint of a Canadian in Combined Operations aboard a landing craft.

Al Kirby (RCNVR, Combined Ops) of Woodstock Ontario writes:

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 focs'le 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.

Page 59 - 60, Combined Operations by Clayton Marks, London Ontario.

The photograph below accompanies the first one above from The Winnipeg Tribune. Brookwood, Surrey, is home to one of the largest military cemeteries in Europe, and is inland south-west of London.

Readers can link to a 1942 newspaper account of the military service and burial here. Look for the article that begins with the following headline and opening paragraph:

* * * * * *

The following photographs re the Dieppe Raid can be found at histomil.com.

histomil1 - German soldiers inspect the landing craft carrying the bodies of

dead Canadian and British soldiers after the Dieppe Raid, 1942

histomil2 - Hundreds of helmets of dead Canadian troops lying on the beach near

Dieppe, France, one day after the attempted Allied landing on 18 August 1942,

with the wreckage of an Allied tank in the background.

histomil3 - An unidentified Canadian soldier, who is armed with a Thompson

machine gun, escorting a German prisoner who was captured during Operation

JUBILEE, the Dieppe raid. England, 19 August 1942.

histomil4 - A group of Canadian prisoners of war captured by the Germans

during the raid on Dieppe.

histomil5 - Destroyed 'Churchill' tank of 6th platoon squad in the 14th Tank

Regiment 1st Canadian Tank Brigade - Dieppe Raid. In the background of the

photo - Canadian soldiers prisoners under escort of German soldiers.

histomil6 - Major J. M. Figott and members of his company of the Royal

Hamilton Light Infantry kneeling at the graves of Canadian soldiers killed

at Dieppe on 19 August 1942. Dieppe, France, 1 September 1944

histomil7 - Brigadier W. Basil Wedd of Headquarters, 1st Canadian Army, placing

a wreath on the graves of Canadian soldiers killed at Dieppe on 19 August 1942.

Ambleteuse, France, 23 September 1944

histomil8 - US troops of the 1st Ranger Battalion defend a captured German gun
position during the first morning of Operation Torch in N. Africa, Nov. 8 1942

Editor's note - I added this photo in the histomil collection because 50 U.S. Rangers participated in the Dieppe Raid, as mentioned below:

The US 1st Ranger Battalion was an elite special operations unit of the US Army created in 1942, and consisted of men who were the first American soldiers to see combat in the European Theater. The soldiers’ first bout of combat was in the Allied failure known as the Dieppe Raid in France. (histomil)

The Editor has no good reason to include the following, but it was with the histomil collection:

histomil9 - Fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster William Joyce, known

as Lord Haw Haw, lies in an ambulance after his arrest by British officers at Flensburg,

Germany, on 29 May 1945. He was shot during the arrest.

The following set of pix come from another significant website, i.e. World War II Today.

Link - http://ww2today.com/22nd-august-1942-hitler-struggles-to-understand-purpose-of-dieppe-raid

More details re Dieppe available at website.

ww2T’day1 - A German infantryman picks his way among blanketed Canadian

dead after the failed Dieppe raid.

ww2T’day2 - The German presentation of events at Dieppe was exploited to

the full for propaganda purposes. Allied dead lie on the beach.

ww2T’day3 - A view of the beach at Dieppe after the Allied raid on 19th August 1942.

ww2T’day4 - Prisoners of War, captured at Dieppe, are marched
away from the port area.

ww2T’day5 - Landing craft of No 4 Commando running in to land at Vasterival

on the right flank of the main assault at Dieppe. The unit achieved its objective, the

destruction of the ‘Hess’ Battery in a copybook action, the only success of the raid.

More details about the raid, including a video, can be found at the website World War II Today.

Link - http://ww2today.com/19th-august-1942-operation-jubilee-the-raid-on-dieppe.

ww2T’day6 - Captain Patrick Anthony Porteous VC RA

ww2T’day7 - Charles Merritt VC

ww2T’day8 - Captain John Foote, Canadian Chaplain Services, was Regimental

Chaplain with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry

A newspaper article featuring Captain John Foote was presented in an earlier post, i.e., Articles: Dieppe Raid - Operation Jubilee Part 5. I include it again below: