The Dieppe Raid in its Proper Context

» Brian_Hughes - Hi Joseph. My compliments on a very well researched article.

Hi Joseph. My compliments on a very well researched article.

Curiously enough I had occasion to refer to Dieppe in a post to a general discussion thread the other day. For your information I've repeated it here...as you can see this topic has a personal connection for me.

"I have always had an an interest in Military History although I have tended to restrict myself to WW 2, mainly for two reasons.

1. I was born in London England in 1943 and spent my formative years being assured by my elder sister I had in fact been dropped during an air-raid.

2. I also grew up hearing my elders start every other sentence with the words " before the war...." and going on to explain how, and to what extent, my country and indeed the world was changed.

This aroused my curiosity And I proceeded to spend a fair amount of my youth reading every book I could lay my hands on, on this subject. It is almost ironic that I now live in Canada, because my earliest memory of school is sitting on the floor in the assembly hall with all the other children and our each being given a fresh apple....from Canada. Also there is a French side to our family who used to own a golf course on the outskirts of a small seaport across the Channel and I spent a lot of holidays there in the 1950's. The name of that town, Dieppe, and for Canadians, there is a great deal of military history in that one battle.'

From my own readings, admittedly a long time ago, I remember it being said that the Dieppe raid would serve the purpose of being a "trial run" for Overlord and an exercise in "combined operations" as envisioned by Mountbatten. Much of the blame for the "failure" was attributed to the fact the force was detected by the Germans whilst on it's way. The main lesson learned was that a heavily defended channel port could not be targetted for the Overlord invasion. This lead to the designation of the Normandy beaches at Arromanches and the creation of the Mulberry "instant" harbours.

There is a very sobering plaque in Dieppe itself which marks the furthest inland point reached by Allied forces during the raid. It is a very short distance indeed from the beach.

I hope this of interest to you.

Brian Hughes

Suite 101 Editor, Internet:
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-- posted by Brian_Hughes

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» shooter1369 - Article on Dieppe Raid

Hello, I would like to say that your article is very well done, however there is one small mistake. You said, and I quote (roughly) "no American soldiers took part in the raid". Well the truth is 50 American soldiers were infact part of the Dieppe raid. I say this because I feel they should be recoqnized for their attempt to raid the beach, althought it was a disaster.

-J

-- posted by shooter1369

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