The bulk of the land attack was carried out by men from the 2nd Canadian Division supported by 1,000 men from the Royal Marine Commandos and some 50 US Rangers - the first Americans to land and fight in German-occupied Europe. The whole area to be attacked was divided into nine different sectors:

The raid started perfectly. 5,000 men were in their landing craft by 03.30 and five minutes later were heading for their target beach. Then problems occurred. The landing craft carrying the troops were meant to be lined up behind gun-boats. The landing craft for the Royal Regiment of Canada lined up behind the wrong gun-boat, which for the Royal Regiment of Canada would have taken them to the wrong beach. It took twenty minutes in darkness to sort out the problem. Then the gun-boat leading in No 3 Commando to Berneval unexpectedly came across five armed German trawlers. The ensuing fire-fight left the gun-boat beyond use and it left the 20 landing craft carrying the commandos unprotected. As it was, these twenty landing craft had skillfully dispersed in the darkness. However, it would have been impossible for the Germans on the coast not to have heard the gunfire. Any attack on the Germans at Berneval would, therefore, lack surprise. However, one landing craft did land unnoticed and its 20 occupants took out the Goebbels battery based there to such an extent that it failed to fire an effective shot during the time when the landings took place in Dieppe. However, this was the only success of the Dieppe raid.

Elsewhere, the gunfire had warned the Germans of an attack. The various other beach landings were a disaster. The Royal Regiment of Canada, landing at Blue Beach, was cut down by German machine gun fire. The regiment, delayed by 20 minutes by the gun-boat muddle, landed in daylight and paid an appalling price. Of the 27 officers and 516 men landed at Blue Beach, just 3 officers and 57 men got off.

A similar picture was seen on Red, White and Green Beaches. The Allies were unable to provide those attempting to land with sufficient cover. Air power was hampered by the fact that the whole beach area was covered in a deliberately laid smoke screen. However, the smoke meant that pilots could not support the ground troops adequately. The destroyers at sea experienced a similar problem. When four destroyers (Calpe, Fernie, Berkeley and Albrighton) went in dangerously close to the shore line, their four inch guns were no match for the multitude of guns the Germans had access to.

The tanks that had been loaded for the attack were of little use. Where they got ashore and were not destroyed by the Germans anti-tank fire, the shingle on the beach meant that movement was difficult at best, impossible at worst. Canadian Royal Engineers tried their best to help out the stricken tanks but in murderous circumstances. 314 Canadian Royal Engineers were landed at Dieppe; 189 were killed or wounded on landing - an attrition rate of 60%. Of the 24 tank landing craft, 10 managed to land their tanks - 28 tanks in total. All the tanks were lost, even though some did manage to leave the beach and get into Dieppe town centre - where they were destroyed.

One serious problem - amongst many - faced the by the force commanders, based on HMS Calpe, was the lack of any decent intelligence coming back from the beaches. So many commanders on the beach were killed, that any intelligible information rarely came back. Therefore, for some time, Major-General H F Roberts, commander of the land forces, and Captain J Hughes-Hallett, commander of the naval forces, knew little of what was going on. As late as 08.00, Roberts ordered in more commandos to re-enforce the attack on White Beach.

By 09.00, it had become obvious what was going on and a withdrawal was ordered. While the men had practiced for a planned withdrawal, what occurred at Dieppe itself was basically getting as many men off as was possible in as short a time as was possible. By early afternoon, those who had survived the attack were on their way back to Britain. The return journey was free from any incident as the Germans did not seem interested in pursuing the Allies, though fighter cover was strong.

The raid on Dieppe cost many lives. Out of the 6,000 men who had taken part in the landings, 4,384 were killed, wounded or missing - a loss of 73%. All the equipment landed on shore was lost. The Royal Navy had lost 550 men and 34 ships. The RAF, in what was the largest single-day air battle of the war, flew 2,617 sorties and lost 106 planes, while the Luftwaffe lost 170 planes

What was learned from Dieppe? Clearly, the lack of any flexibility in Operation Jubilee was a vital lesson learned. Any future major beach landing had to have flexibility built into the plan. Secondly, the sea based fire power against coastal based gun emplacements was very ineffective at Dieppe. Neither 'Bismarck' or 'Hindenburg' were destroyed and the gunfire that came from both, led to many deaths on the beaches at Dieppe. At D-Day, this lesson was learned when the coastal gun emplacements of the Germans were heavily attacked before the beach landings took place.


All that to test the strength of the Germans? In all fairness D-Day would have failed if it wasnt for this, but put that many lives infront of that power? hmmm.

thats nuts thanks for the post im a canadian and have always known of the raids but not in that much detail thanx

My personal feelings on Dieppe are to agree with those who, at the time, said it was a political potpourri that was meant to address any number of concerns and which simply got bungled. But at horrific cost in Canadian lives.

Some of those concerns...

-A move to shut up Stalin and the Russians from their demands for a second front.

-A move to shut up the Canadians, who were spoiling for action and sick of garrison duty and endless training in England.
(Like one of the boys said: "We joined up to knock hell out of Nazi's. Not sit around waiting for 'em to die of old age!")

-A move to try out amphibious landing tactics.

-A move to try out some commando raids in conjunction with the main raid.

And although it was one of the worst days in Canadian military history, one thing remains:

Those soldiers went down fighting.
They died in what they could plainly see was a suicide mission the minute their landing craft got near the beaches.

Yet they stormed ashore anyhow.

How many of us would have the guts to do that?