From Wikipedia:
The
Dieppe Raid, also known by its code-name
Operation Jubilee, was an
Allied attack on the German-occupied port of
Dieppe during the
Second World War. The raid took place on the northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. The assault began at 5:00 a.m., and by 10:50 a.m. the Allied commanders were forced to call a retreat. Of the 6,086 men who made it ashore, 3,623 (almost 60%) were either killed, wounded or captured. The
Royal Air Force failed to lure the
Luftwaffe into open battle, and lost 106 aircraft (at least 32 to flak or accidents), compared to 48 lost by the
Luftwaffe.
[5] The Royal Navy lost 33 landing craft and one destroyer.
The other evening I was most fortunate to have sat in on a presentation by Historian David O'Keefe, author of the recent book entitled One Day in August...The Untold Story of Dieppe.
I thought I knew quite a bit about the Raid having worked closely with Veterans for about a dozen years. Dieppe was always caste as a great military failure but that did not stop efforts to find some positives out of defeat.
The two best attempts at this were to say that Dieppe provided the Allies with valuable information on how to do an invasion properly when it came to the successful D-Day Invasion some 2 years later. The other proposition offered up was to say that Dieppe was needed to assure Russia, which was experiencing terrible loses on the German / Russian Front, that the West was prepared at least to try to invade Nazi Europe and by doing so hopefully pull some German Division back from the Eastern Front.
The first argument is specious ...Dieppe was an unmitigated disaster and added nothing toward the planning of D-Day. The second argument is more plausible since Russia no doubt did want to divert Germany's attention away from it but the Raid's poor planning and horrendous losses make it hard to justify that this played much, if anything, in the Allies' planning that fateful day.
So that brings us back to last David O'Keefe's lecture.
First of all, O'Keefe is a great orator and he knows Dieppe inside and out.
According to him, the two reasons offered above for why Dieppe happened have no relation whatsoever to reality. Quite frankly, O'Keefe opinioned, had all the troops been killed at Dieppe it would have been well worth it for the Raid's Senior Planners.
So Dear Reader, what was the Real Reason for Dieppe?
It's an Enigma....really.
As in Bletchley Park and its famous occupant, Alan Turing.
But first a little history about Enigma:
Enigma was a skillfully designed machine that produced a virtual unbreakable code.
Invented by a German, Arthur Scherbius in 1918, it was known as Enigma A. In the mid 1920's, the German Army began to take an interest in its military potential to send and receive secret communications during a time of war.
In mid 1941, Alan Turing was able to break the code of the latest edition of Enigma known as M3. In early February 1942 the Allies learned that an updated version known as M4 was about to be released. Since the breaking of the M3 codes had saved so many Allied Troop's lives and even more importantly had enabled tons of military hardware to reach the shores of Great Britain safely, it was essential to the Top Command that M4 be decoded as soon as possible.
And this Dear Reader is where Dieppe came into the picture.
Intelligence showed that one of these new devices was located in the small town of Dieppe on the west coast of France. And not only that, but along with the machine were new codebooks that would immediately enable the Allies to listen in on top secret communications of the Third Reich. This material had to be obtained at all cost - the loss of life was really an immaterial afterthought.
Only problem was ...Dieppe was strongly defended by German Forces. And not only that, the terrain was most difficult - small stony beaches leading to high impenetrable cliffs. The Raiders were sitting ducks.
Lord Mountbatten oversaw the planning and O'Keefe made it very clear that his only interest in the Raid was to ensure that British Commandos use the confusion of battle to spirit into the village and steal off with the new and improved Enigma and its codes.
In the end things went so bad, that even the commandos could not get through to their golden grail.
If it had been up to Mountbatten and company nothing more would have been said about that sad day and for the most part that is what transpired. It was an embarrassment for all involved and was best forgotten.
Families of those who survived the slaughter say that unlike other veterans, their loved ones never breathed a word about what took place on that beach so many years ago.
Fortunately, some two months later, the Allies were able to obtain the needed code books from a sinking U-Boat.
Experts tell us that the Allies' ability to break the Enigma Codes was instrumental in securing victory and certainly was responsible for shortening the length of WW II by at least 2 years.
For me personally, I am at last comforted to know that a real reason may exist for what would otherwise have been a senseless slaughter of innocent young men.
I intend to purchase David O'Keefe's ground-breaking book and perhaps you may wish to consider doing so as well.
As I see it...
'K.D. Galagher'
