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Sat 2 Jul, 2005 02:25 pm
Yeah, Stalin asked for a second front, but this mission is a suicide mission. They had no chance to establish a foothold in Europe by this invasion and I doubt how much they actually learned about German's tactics etc. They could've used other methods to test out German's defense. Operation Jubilee was a horrible mistake.
Dieppe is what is called reconnaissance in force. When the planning for the invasion of Europe began, it was assumed that a port city would have to be siezed. The thinking behind Dieppe was to attack a fortified port city and see what happens. What the allies learned was that it was not advisable to attach a fortified port. Thus Normandy and mulberry (an artificial port).
Churchill confirms Acquiunk in his remarkably well indexed "The Hinge of Fate."
Oh, so Mulberry was a result of this reconnaissance mission?
Couldn't they have realized that it was not advisable to attack a "fortified" port without having to send troops to Dieppe?
I would agree with the major reasons stated, but there were many subtexts as well. The equipment for an assault landing needed to be tested. Louis Mountbatten had been named head of the Combined Operations Command, and was anxious to do something, anything. Churchill had also promoted him Lieutenant General, Vice Admiral and Air Marshall (all equivalent ranks) in order that he have the necessary authority, doing so by passing over career officers who had a better claim to the rank. (It is noteworthy that Louis Mountbatten was the grandson of Queen Victoria, and second cousin to the King.) I suspect Mountbatten felt the need to do something spectacular to justify his special status.
The Canadian troops who were sacrificed on that particular altar had been in England since 1939, and had grown restless, as well as losing their edge. Their commanders wanted to put them into action. The results were, of course, disasterous for the Second Canadian Division. The Royal Hamiltons went in with just under 600 men. Almost 200 were killed outright or died as prisoners. Another 175 were made prisoner and languished through the rest of the war. Total casualties were over one thousand, and the two thousand Canadians made prisoner exceeded the entire number captured in all other Canadian operations in the ETO. The Canadian armor bogged down on the beaches, and were shot to pieces. Only the South Saskatchewan and Queens Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada penetrated very far inland, along with the Royal Hamiltons, and therefore contributed mightily to the prisoner tally.
Royal Marines and English paratroopers fared better, and the fifty American commandos got some useful experience, but the price seems not have been worth the results. There was also a German radar facility behind Dieppe, and part of the operation was to neutralize that facility while learning as much as possible about the state of the German radar art.
Bernard Law Montgomery, then Lieutenant General, the commander of the Southeast District in England had opposed the operation. Then, in typical Montgomery style, sent them in in a frontal assault (i have an exceedingly low opinion of Montgomery's military abilities). There was no aerial bombardment before the assault, and the Royal Navy refused to commit major surface assets in narrow waters to shell the beach and the town.
The entire operation was a fiasco, and once again, in my never humble opinion, wasn't worth the cost. Virtually every useful piece of equipment and every effective technique used at Normandy resulted from the lessons learned in the Pacific and in the landings at Gaeta in Scilily and at Palermo.
Very nice description and analysis. (I mean it !). The last paragraph accurately cuts down the rationalization often offered for Dieppe.
On the landing sites, didn't you mean Salerno instead of Palermo?
Another contributing factor to the allied defeat was the new Focke Wulf 190 fighter with which the German air defence on the Channel coast had been issued earlier in 1942. Mainly due to this powerful fighter the allies were unable to establish air superiority over Dieppe, in spite of their numerical superiority.
the dieppe invasion was nothing more than a test to see if an invasion would be possible...i wrote a dissertation on operation rutter, the code name for the dieppe invasion...the lessons learned here were applied at d-day 2 years later. also, operation torch, the invasion of north africa was also a practice run for normandy as was sicily, salerno, and anzio
in response to passkynen, the allies never tried to establish air superiority over dieppe, they thought that they were landing in an area that was not defended, however, they landed in a place where the germans had a heavy machine base in the casino overlooking the channel
r_magee77 wrote:in response to passkynen, the allies never tried to establish air superiority over dieppe, they thought that they were landing in an area that was not defended, however, they landed in a place where the germans had a heavy machine base in the casino overlooking the channel
The RAF committed no less than 49 fighter squadrons to the operation Rutter, outnumbering the Germans three to one. The allies lost over a 100 planes and 71 pilots killed in that one-day operation. That tells me they were trying real hard to knock out the German air defence.
German losses amounted to 30 planes and 14 pilots killed.
Thnx for the link Acquiunk.
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