First Canadian Draft to Combined Ops Trains for Upcoming Raids
Unbeknownst to Our Sailors the Port at Dieppe was on Their Menu
British prisoners of war* taken at Dieppe marching through the country-
side en route to a prison camp. (Keystone Press Agency LTD, London)
(Photo as found in Dieppe: August 19 by Eric Maguire)
Please click here to learn more about the book Dieppe: August 19
*re the POWs - most were Canadian soldiers
Introduction:
In the first few months of 1942 after arriving in the United Kingdom in late January, my father's division (Effingham, RCNVR) plus one other Canadian division (name unknown) - totalling about 100 new or raw volunteers for Combined Operations - trained in several locations for upcoming raids, underlined in yellow on map below). They visited HMS Tormentor (#31 on map below) near Southampton, HMS Northney I - IV (#29) on Hayling Island, HMS Quebec (#4) near Inveraray, RAF Dundonald (#13) near Irvine (sailors were right next door at Camp Auchengate), and other camps for short stints, e.g., Chamois near HMS Quebec and another camp on Loch Long (perhaps #1) likely related to Commando training.
Map as found at combinedops.com
Canadian RCNVR/Combined Ops officers always knew more than they were telling about the purpose of the training and where/when/why specific operations were taking place. For example, Able-Bodied Seaman Al Kirby (in photo below), in Navy memoirs re the Dieppe Raid, writes that he only learned he was on the way to Dieppe when part way across the English Channel in the very early morning on August 19, 1942. He was told by the soldiers he was transporting in his landing craft.
"Al Kirby meets with other WW2 Combined Ops veterans"
Please click here to read Al Kirby's "very, very rare" 25-page report concerning the Dieppe Raid
Significant details about the months leading up to the Dieppe Raid are found in The Far Distant Ships by Joseph Schull (published in Ottawa in 1950) and some of them are shared here.
On page 145 we read the following:
Already the combined operations force, now being built up under Lord Louis Mountbatten, was a colourful body. Methods of training were, of necessity, as fluid and unconventional as the situations with which the men would have to deal. Each cross-channel raid - and there were many of them - brought new experience and demands for the revision of tactics, equipment and technique. "Haven't you heard? - it's all been changed" - the most familiar greeting in the force - had become a byword and a slogan tacked up in its headquarters even by the time the first Canadian draft arrived.*
*the first Canadian draft arrived after an eventful journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Please click below for more details from sailors' memoirs:
From the Queen of Bermuda to the Volendam by Doug Harrison (RCNVR, Combined Ops) of Norwich, Ontario
Queen of Bermuda versus Chebucto Head by Al Kirby (RCNVR/Combined Ops) of Woodstock Ontario
However unconventional, the standard of discipline and the requirements as to fitness and adaptability were very high. The first Canadian draft, and the drafts which succeeded it, soon began to take on the character of the parent organization. Canadians took part with British commando forces in some of the small, nameless raids, each of which provided its lurid adventures, brought back its quota of information and is now forgotten. There were some of our men in the important raids on Bruneval and St. Nazaire; but even by the time of the Dieppe raid in August 1942 the Canadian naval contribution to combined operations was small. Page 145
In two books entitled St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War, Volumes 1 and 2 (stories written and compiled by Canadian members of Combined Operations, most from RCNVR), one will find a few references to the raid on St. Nazaire that took place on March 28, 1942. The first mention is made by John K. Burgess, Naval Historian, found in Volume 1, page 34:
In the same volume two photographs follow with informative captions, pages 35 - 36:
An excerpt from a two-page report by (Lieut.) John O'Rourke*, RCNVR, re his experiences during the raid on St. Nazaire follows:
There is another page-and-a-half to the report. Please click here to gain access to all of St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War, Volume 1 and go to pages 37 - 38.
Shared below is a fitting conclusion to O'Rourke's report by an editor and contributor to the two volumes of Canadian Navy/Combined Ops stories:
By David J. Lewis
More details from The Far Distant Ships will soon follow.
Questions or comments can be addressed to gordh7700@gmail.com
Please click here to view Books re Combined Operations: The Far Distant Ships (2)
Unattributed Photos GH
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