I was listening to the Canadian Broadcasting station today and they had a short story about the Dieppe raid. I believe they said that some 900 Canadian soldiers were killed there, and some of the veterans who are still alive were there recently for a memorial service. This action is truly quite the story of the Allies perhaps trying something that the forces were truly not prepared for. God bless all those who participated in this battle.
<shrugs> They didn’t know what they didn’t know until they tried it. At that stage the closest thing they’d faced to an opposed amphibious landing in the modern era was Gallipoli, and there they mostly got ashore without trouble.
Documentary on tonight in the UK (satellite) that will allegedly give the real reason the the raid, recording it so I will see what it says.
Presently the hints are involving Ian Fleming, a diversionary cover raid and attempts to get German naval codes.
I have heard that some valuable lessons were learned and mistakes were avoided during the Normandy assault. Nevertheless, it was a high price that was paid in Canadian lives that’s for sure.
I’m sure the Canadian survivors of this experimental landing were pleased to hear this.
It comes under “piss poor prior planning” and was near a criminal undertaking.
Gallipoli was no better and in fact, worse.
Not really - it needs to be seen through the lens of what was known at the time. AIUI in the early 1940s the US Marines were the only force in the world with a decent doctrine for opposed amphibious assaults. The UK has the genesis of one at the time of Dieppe, largely born out of the Commando raids. It was in fact a reasonably effective doctrine - when applied to acceptably weak defences. The flaw was in both underestimating the effectiveness of the German defences and overestimating their own ability to defeat them. This could not be corrected without experience - and doesn’t come anywhere near the heading of criminal conduct.
The landings at Gallipoli were not what was originally planned which was to force the straits with obsolescent French and British battleships and land at constantinople.
What actually happened at Gallipoli was pretty much the same as happened at Anzio. Commanders stopped to build up stores instead of moving inland right away, both landings meant the enemy forces managed to gain the higher ground and bottle up the invasion forces. Both were then kept there trying to fight their way out and failing ending up with a stalemate.
Both Gallipoli and Anzio were ill planned and ill-thought out misadventures. Especially Anzio where the original beachhead commander, Gen. Lucas, if oft criticized for not moving inland. His force was far too small and the operation was scaled down to an emaciated landing force and I think the overlooked consensus is that if he had moved inland, he simply would have been cutoff and quite possibly annihilated by the same German forces that ended up blockading the beachhead as the Heer forces reacted much faster than the Allied command had predicted or thought possible, IIRC. But although Lucas was somewhat unfairly relieved IMHO, his successor turned out to be one of the better, more unrated American field commanders of the war–Maj. Gen. Lucian Truscott. He ultimately succeeded Mark Clark, and should have done so much earlier…
I would like you to expand on the US Marine’s “doctrine for opposed amphibious assaults.”
In the early 40s or at least prior to this event.
I believe Dieppe was a popular tourist mecca for many years before the sacrifice we are discussing.
Tides, flows, and vehicle accessability seemed to be unknown in spite of this.
I have seen good troops thrown away under blundering and poor judgement.
Helped bag up a few, actually. Unecessary loss is a personal issue for me.
I understand your point as seen through the lens of the time, as I do with the Atomic bombings.
I simply believe this was a misadventure from the beginning and had no assets or plans to exploit any ground that might have been gained.
Good people were simply thrown away in a poor experiment.
No matter the reasons for the raid, valuable information was gained and proven to those that thought it would be easy.
As a result (in hindsight some may be obvious but it is easy when you look at after the fact).
Proper prior recce of all beaches and tides was done (gradients, tide flows, composition, defences and obstacles)
New equipment and tactics devised (especially for dealing with obstacles)
Importance of naval gunfire shown along with bigger guns (bring the battleships closer, it was though to be to risky for big ships and the naval bombardment was reduced from the initial plan)
Proper air cover is a must, fighters and interdiction (air cover was reduced from the original plan)
A landing to take a port would be difficult if not impossible so a new method of getting supplys to the landing forces needs to be found (Mulberry - even though the majority of supplies still came over the beach and PLUTO - although this also did not live up to the initial promise it helped greatly to deliver the supplies overland from the ports when it was extended).
Airborne landings would have been very useful to disrupt the defences (the airborne component was cancelled).