Today is the sixty-first anniversary of the disastrous raid on Dieppe (of the 5000 Canadian troops involved, 907 were killed, 1154 wounded and 1,946 were taken prisoner).
Let’s fantasize for a moment and assume the raid had been successful (as the Canadian commander, Roberts, assured his men that it would be- “piece of cake”). What were the plans for the raiding force after securing their objectives. Obviously, they couldn’t stay there indefinitely (no supplies, etc). So, they would have to be withdrawn. But how? Every naval and aerial asset that the Germans had in the area would be brought to bear on them. And this was at a time when the Luftwaffe was still a force to be reckoned with. Likewise the German Navy.
Was there really a plan to get these men back to England? What was it?
If I recall correctly, the plan was to conduct a fighting withdrawal back to the beaches, and simply re-embark the troops on their LSIs and LSTs. Remarkable, in view of the disaster at Dunkerque scarcely two years earlier, but remember that the plan assumed light resistance and a strong element of surprise, both of which were not to be.
In terms of dealing with German opposition, there was a lot of RAF aircover planned (50+ fighter squadrons?), and Royal Navy destroyers and MGBs were believed to be capable of dealing with the Kriegsmarine. The German navy didn’t have any capital ships in a position to attack the troop convoys in any case, Sharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen having fled to Northern waters the previous February.
Absolutely. The word “raid” should give you a clue: they were meant to be returned (and most were, of course).
Apart from doing (temporary) damage to a small part of the Altantic Wall, and testing the Germans’ defences, it was also to test the Allies’ ability to do large-scale amphibious operations on the northern European coast.
Note that “every naval asset” the Germans had in the area was not very much. Even the Luftwaffe was a bit thin there and then, most of it was in Russia or the Med.
But to answer your core question, the plan was the one used: the withdrawal happened on time and as planned. There were fewer men to withdraw than planned, of course, and the resistance was so fierce the rearguard had to be left. The Canadians lost more prisoners in that 9 hours than in the whole rest of the war.
It is not true that most were returned. Less than half of the raiding force returned. According to this:
Also, this is false:
From the previous quote, there were 1,946 POWs at Dieppe. From Here, there were 8,271 Canadian POWs during the Second World War. Heck, there were almost as many -1,689 - prisoners taken in a single day at Hong Kong.
Otherwise you are correct. The troops were to achieve their objectives and retreat to the beach where they were to be evacuated. Obviously, this didn’t happen.
Contrary to popular belief in Canada, the RAF did provide substantial air support, but took very heavy losses. There is a Canadian tendency - I suspect this is true of the military mythology of all minor Allied countries - to blame the senior Allies, in this case the UK, for the disaster that befell us, saying they threw Canadian lives away for nothing and let us die on the beaches. Of course, lots of British troops were killed in similarly pointless and disastrous battles. The truth is that the Allies sometimes got the shit kicked out of them through a combination of bad luck and bad planning, and this is one of those times.
The success or failure of the Dieppe raid had, IMHO, basically no impact on the outcome of the war at all, which is what makes it so sad. Had the raid succeeded I sincerely doubt anything would have been different. It’s popular to say that the raid taught valuable lessons through its failure about amphibious landings, but
A) Nobody who had anything to do with the Normandy invasion was stupid enough to think it was going to be easy. There’s a reason the Allies put it off as long as they did; it’s insanely difficult. There’s a reason the Germans never invaded Britain, too; as detailed in a thread we had two months ago or so, a German invasion of Britain in 1940 would have been a God-awful catastrophe and almost every German in the invasion force would have been killed or captured. Believe me, Dieppe was not some big surprise, like “Wow, I can’t believe this is so hard to pull off!” Had there not been political machinations that forced the issue it never would have been attempted.
B) It’s not as if this was the first amphibious attack ever launched, or was even the only one launched prior to June '44. The USA, at the very least, learned the same tough lessons in the Pacific before Normandy.
C) Many if not all of the lessons learned would have been learned anyway even had it been a success. After all, the raid wasn’t a disaster because they didn’t land successfully; it was a disaster because they got shot to hell after they landed. The withdrawal was executed with skill and aplomb. The preparation and coordination was where the lessons were learned. As the old West Point mantra goes; amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics.
I suppose the word “raid” does suggest a planned withdrawal. Still, the whole idea seems more than optimistic especially when considered in light of the detailed and complex plans for later beach assaults.
IIRC, I thought we got some good info about the state of German radar development from the Dieppe raid. someone correct me if I am wrong (what am I saying ?).
Sorry, I have no source for this at the moment, but I recall that, in response to the Dieppe raid, the Germans transferred 180,000 troups from the eastern front to West Europe. Taking 18 divisions or there abouts from the battle of Stalingrad could have made a huge difference.
You’re probably thinking of the smaller Bruneval Raid, which happened a few months before Dieppe. A team inserted into France to capture a German radar station and grab what technical info they could.
There is however the complication that a minor part of the Dieppe raid had a similar purpose and this has been mythologised. According to R.V. Jones in Most Secret War (Hamish Hamilton, 1978, p402-3), there was someone, Jack Nissenthal, who was sent on the raid with the objective of dismantling the radar station at Pourville. (The original suggestion was to use the same guy as at Bruneval, but Jones claims to have vetoed the idea on the grounds that he’d “done his bit”.) While Nissenthal didn’t succeed in reaching the radar, he did survive and return safely.
The complication is that there is the claim that the expert was due to be shot if in danger of capture by the Germans. And some people thought he had been. And some people thought the expert who’d been shot was Jones. There also appears to have been a court case over related claims.
The British mythology, true or not, is simpler: it was all Mountbatten’s fault. As the upper class twit.
There are allegations/suspicions that the primary motivation for the Dieppe raid was to convince the Americans of the folly of an early second front. There was a prior raid planned which was cancelled when it looked like Americans no longer wanted a '42/'43 invasion. When the Americans swung back towards an earlier France invasion (versus North Africa) Dieppe was reinstated. This theory suggests that the primary goal of the Dieppe raid was to be a bloody failure.
A successful raid might therefore have lead to a 1943 invasion of France, which depending on who you ask would have been a bloody repulse (as too many allied troops were green/unprepared) or an allied walkover ending the war much more quickly (as the German defenses were much more primitive, German forces less numerous (and in rougher shape in general), and the german war industry far less geared up).
At any rate, a more straightforward answer might be that the Germans learn more than the Allies. Allied tactical/TOE shortcomings might not come into focus and the allies might decide to go with a port invasion strategy rather than a beach invasion strategy.
I’ve never heard this, but firstly the Battle for Stalingrad did not start until November 1942 (although the German attack that led to it started in August).
Second those numbers have to be wrong, they are much too large. That would be most of an army group. I doubt there were 18 divisions in the whole of France in 1942 (a quick web search doesn’t find any good numbers for either).