Address to the
Dieppt Veterans
and
Prisoner’s-of-War
Association
by
The Earl Mountbatten
of
I have flown over specially in
response to the kind invitation of the Dieppe Veterans and Prisoners-of-War
Association, not only to meet as many of them as possible but to recall to them
the inner story of Operation JUBILEE, the Dieppe Raid. On several occasions I have tried to explain
why this Reconnaissance in Force had to be carried out, how essential it was to
our ultimate successful invation of France, and the
vast number of allied lives, including of course Canadians, which were saved in
the OVERLORD landings on 6th June 1944 and in the previous landings
in the Mediterranean as a result of the lessons we learned at Dieppe.
I can’t claim to have been very successful so
far. The best chance came when I was
invited to give my story of the Dieppe Raid in the Canadian Television Programme “Close up” on 9th September 1962
together with Field Marshal Montgomery and Major-General Roberts. My account, which lasted 15 to20 minutes, was
fully recorded, but when the film was edited most of what I had said was left
on the cutting room floor. The way the
film editor fitted in what was left of my contribution destroyed the impact of
the tribute I tried to pay. I made a note on seeing the final version that they
included me saying “It is impossible to over-estimate the value of the Dieppe
Raid. It was the turning point in the
technique of invasion. Many vital
lessons were learnt.” Then the editor
cut in a Company Commander saying “Well, I don’t think it did much good”. So his was the last opinion heard; hardly the
way to round off the lessons learnt.
I tried again to put my views across at the 25th
Anniversary commemoration at
I began by looking up again all the Reports and
Official accounts to refresh my memory and then wrote out a full factual
narrative of all that occurred. It was
far too detailed and too long for an after dinner speech, besides most of you
have your own first hand knowledge of the events and will have read the published
accounts. So you will no doubt be
relieved to hear I decided to scrub that and to confine my remarks to my own
involvement and how the operation finally took the form it did. But above all I want to explain why it was
carried out, why it was absolutely indispensable to carry it out and the
extraordinary value we all gained from it.
Let me start by telling you that in
1942 I was the British Chief of Combined Operations. Together with the First Sea Lord, the Chief
of the Imperial General Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff, we four formed
the British Chiefs of Staff Committee.
My special responsibility was to prepare for the invasion. Our Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, told
me that I was to devise the techniques of amphibious landings and to design and
acquire the appurtenances and appliances needed for the invasion. I was to train vast numbers of soldiers,
sailors and airmen to work as a single team in Combined Operations.
I was to prepare the first plans for
the return to the Continent with General Paget, the
Commander-in-Chief of our Home Forces, under whom the Canadian Corps was then
serving. And meanwhile I was to carry on
with the Commando raids to keep our offensive spirit alive, learn the technique
of landing on the enemy occupied coasts and keep the Nazis on the ‘qui vive’.
Almost my first job was to get many
more landing craft designed and built and to take up and convert more merchant
ships to carry them. It was not until
the Summer of 1942 that I had managed to acquire enough
landing ships and landing craft to lift the best part of a Division for a
simultaneous assault. So clearly we had
to try and see what would happen in an opposed landing with so many landing
craft manoeuvring together in the dark.
We all know so much about the great
landings and invasions which took place AFTER
I told my staff to give me a list of
possible targets. Obviously we really
wanted to take a port because even if the invasion itself took place across
open beaches, a sheltered port would be necessary immediately as weather
statistics showed that one could not rely on more than four consecutive days
fine enough to go on landing reinforcements, ammunition, vehicles and stores
across open beaches. And if we could not
do so the enemy could build up faster than us and fling us back into the
sea. Finally we selected
It contained a small but first class
port and facilities, and photo reconnaissance revealed many invasion barges and
coastal craft, which could be removed and brought back to
My own staff put up a plan designed,
on my instructions, to avoid a frontal assault.
A battalion of Infantry and a battalion of the new Churchill tanks would
land at Quiberville, six miles west of
At this stage I put the whole
project up to my fellow members of the Chiefs of Staff Committee verbally. They saw the vital necessity for such an
operation and we quickly obtained the Prime Minister’s enthusiastic approval in
principle. But the Chief of the Imperial
General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, insisted that the Land Force planning
should be done under the direction of Home Forces, as the number of soldiers
was so much greater than the few commandos for whom my staff normally
planned. In fact the Committee would not
approve an outline plan until this had been done. I had intended to use the Royal Marine
Division and Commandos, who were well trained for the job. But the Canadian Corps had enthusiastic
Infantry Divisions who had been pleading for active service. The decision that the Canadians should
replace the Royal Marines was a high level political decision, and not one in
which I was involved.
The Canadians were in the South
Eastern Command under General Montgomery and so the C-in-C Home Forces
delegated the responsibility for the Land Forces plan to Monty and the
Canadians. The Home Forces planners,
headed by Monty himself, objected to our C.O.H.Q. plan because Quiberville was six miles from
On the 25th April I
called a meeting at which I took the chair, to thrash out the pros and cons of
the two plans. I came out strongly
against the frontal attack but the Home Forces planners stuck to their guns,
maintaining that a heavy bombing attack of maximum intensity on the defences immediately before the landing craft touched down
and followed by low flying attacks would counter-balance the risks of the
frontal attack.
As the Chiefs of Staff had given
Home Forces the authority to make their plan I had to yield and the frontal
assault was put into the outline plan which was approved by the Chiefs of
Staff, which included myself. So I shared in the responsibility for
approving the frontal assault, because I felt that a Divisional Reconnaissance in
Force was indispensable to planning a successful invasion later on.
Force Commanders were now
appointed. The Naval Force Commander was
a Rear Admiral who was due for another job and went to it when the weather
cancelled the first attempt. So he does
not come into the final picture. Major
General J.H. Roberts, Commanding the 2nd Canadian Division, who were
to form the bulk of the Land Forces, was appointed Land Force Commander and Air
Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh Mallory, who commanded 11
fighter Group, was appointed Air Force Commander. I was with him at his headquarters in
Uxbridge throughout the operation.
Early in June I was sent by the
Prime Minister to
I was really taken aback when I
heard about this on my return from
My chief Naval Planner was Captain
Jock Hughes Hallett, who had been working hard and
brilliantly with the planners. On 30th
June the Prime Minister wished to hold one final review of the outlook for the
Dieppe Raid which was then timed to take place on or shortly after the 5th
July. He wanted to be quite certain that
it would be right to go on with it. I
brought Hughes-Hallett with me. Field Marshal Alan Brooke was present, and
General Ismay and Major General Hollis of the
Secretariat completed the meeting. After
I had explained the part Hughes-Hallett had played in
the planning to Winston Churchill, the latter turned to him and asked whether
he could guarantee success.
The Chief of the Imperial General
Staff interrupted and told Hughes-Hallett not to
reply. “If he, or anyone else, could guarantee success:
Alan Brooke said “there would indeed be no object in doing the operation. It is just because no-one has the slightest
idea what the outcome will be that the operation is necessary”. Winston then said that this was not a moment
at which he wanted to be taught by adversity.
“In that case” said Alan Brooke, “you must abandon the idea of invading
The great Field Marshal spoke with
such firm conviction that Winston Churchill at once agreed that if those were
his considered views the operation must go forward. This dramatic confrontation made it quite
clear that the invasion hung on the raid, in other words “NO RAID – NO
INVASION”. Please bear this tremendously
important discussion and decision in mind as I go on.
But first let me say that I strongly
supported Alan Brooke, and although I was unhappy at a frontal assault
especially without maximum intensity bombardment, this was what the Army and
Air Force authorities, and the Canadians in particular, insisted on. If I had opposed them successfully it could
only have resulted in the cancellation of the Operation.
I did try and persuade the First Sea
Lord to let us have heavy naval bombardment support from battleships or
cruisers but he categorically refused and pointed out that naval gunfire of
this weight would merely increase the debris which the army wished to
avoid. He summed up “Battleships by
daylight off the
I always allowed members of my staff who had any
responsibility in connection with a raid to go on it to watch how their plans
worked out. But of course they had to be
fitten in conveniently and
they had to be really enthusiastic volunteers.
Captain Hughes-Hallett was particularly keen
to go in with the landing craft at
On June 10th he reported
to a Major of the Security Service in a
Eventually he arrived at the station
and was directed to a special troop train.
He tried to sit down but the seats were too narrow to sit on with his
pack o his back. So he stood in the
corridor until a friendly young soldier not only helped him off with his pack
but promised to help him on with it at the end of the journey.
He finally joined the Camerons in a tented camp near Wootton
Creek in the
Hughes-Hallett
knew what his friends in the Camerons did not, that
they were due to take part in a real raid on 20th June. However, at the rehearsal the landing craft
failed to make the correct land fall and so it was decided to postpone the 20th
June date to enable another rehearsal to take place. When the raid did not take place on 20th
June he could not think what to do. It
was one thing to join the Camerons, but quite another
matter to leave them and get clear of the
On 2nd July Hughes-Hallett was once more dressed up as a Private by the
Security Major and rejoined the Camerons at Newhaven
eventually ending up onboard the ROYAL EAGLE, very crowded as there was also a
battalion of French Canadians onboard.
Troops were briefed about
I held urgent and serious
discussions with him and all concerned about what to do next. Then I talked the situation over with the
Chiefs of Staff and the Prime Minister.
All were agreed that unless we could carry out an actual raid before the
end of the “raiding season” our return to the Continent would be delayed, while
awaiting the necessary operational experience in 1943. But time simply did not permit of finding a
new target, gathering the necessary intelligence, making a new plan and
carrying out new rehearsals.
Then we had a brainwave, so unusual
and daring that I decided that nothing should be put on paper. As you all know, this brainwave was to
remount the same operation and carry it out in mid-August. I put the idea to the Chiefs of Staff and
then we discussed it with the Prime Minister.
Candidly all were startled and at first argued against it on security
grounds. I persuaded them that if they
considered a reconnaissance in Force was still necessary in the Summer of 1942 then there was absolutely no alternative
target that could be got ready in time.
The original Naval Force Commander had taken up a new appointment; the
only man who could possibly take his place at such short notice was Captain
Hughes-Hallett himself, who as my Chief Naval Planner
knew all the details.
General Roberts and Captain Hughes-Hallett agreed that as the last rehearsal went so well no
further rehearsal would be needed if the main plan remained the same, thus
no-one would have forewarning that the Raid was to be re-mounted. Two new small infantry landing ships had
meanwhile become available who could carry commandos by sea in place of
paratroops, to put the coastal anti-ship batteries at Berneval
and Varengeville out of action. You see the meteorological conditions for the
use of paratroops are different from those needed for a seaborne landing, as
the former depend on the height of the cloud base. These might well not coincide with the
conditions suitable for landing from the sea.
In fact as it turned out the airborne conditions would not have been
right during the 19th August period, when the raid was carried out,
and if we had not substituted commandos for paratroops the raid would have had
to be cancelled again, and this time for the rest of 1942.
But Mr. Churchill and the Chiefs of
Staff remained understandably worried about security. I explained that although German aircraft had
reported the assembly of ships and craft in the
At all events it worked and secrecy
and security were so complete that the Germans ran a routine coastal convoy right
across our leading Flotilla on the eastern wing of 0350. It made a mess of the Commando landing at Berneval though a brave and resourceful Major got 23 men
ashore who by sniping at the heavy guns prevented them firing at the
ships. But such a convoy would, of
course, have been cancelled and German coastal craft sent out to attack our
ships if they had known we were coming.
Incidentally, the other Commando successfully knocked out the battery at
Varengeville and brought prisoners back.
The German records after the war
revealed that their High Command had no inkling that any raid was mounted or even planned for
August. On the contrary, Field Marshall
von Runstedt relaxed the degree of preparedness,
which had been in force in June and July, and as a result the Luftwaffe
Commander in the
Now we must admit that our
intelligence greatly underestimated the strength of the
At Pourville too, our beach
intelligence was poor as the gradients were too flat and shallow to enable LCTs to land their tanks in support and this was the
primary reason for the failure of the troops to secure the vital high ground at
the western end of the Dieppe frontal beaches, in spite of the outstanding
gallantry which won Colonel Merrill his V.C.
We were able to remedy our lack of knowledge of beaches and approached
gradients for
However, I don’t want to depart from
my promise not to go into details of the Operation in this speech. Our losses were very heavy and it was the
shock of these losses which really made us appreciate how woefully inadequate
our intelligence and techniques were at
And here I must refer to another
nasty shock later on when Hitler ordered the
It is no good entering into a
competition in beastliness with a real beast; or if you will allow me to quote
a rather coarse American saying “Never get into a pissing match with a skunk”. So we rejected reprisals and in due course
Hitler allowed his vicious orders to lapse, but Winston assured me that this
would be a war crime for which Hitler would be tried after he surrendered.
And it turned out that I would have
been in the same boat if we had lost the war for I have my file from Gestapo
Headquarters and the last entry reads “When we lay our hands on this man he is
to be tried” and it is signed “Himmler”.
I mentioned previously that I always
tried to let my staff go on raids they had helped to plan. Two were killed and nine wounded at
Finally: Was
Those who did not appreciate what we
were really after obviously regarded it as a failure as we failed to capture
and hold the port long enough to send the cutting out party in and bring back
the enemy invasion craft. The withdrawal
of the assault troops started on time but the enemy’s command of the beaches
prevented the landing craft, in spite of the courage of their crews, from
bringing back most of the soldiers. The
idea of failure was underlined by the casualty figures. Out of just over 15,000 soldiers, sailors and
airmen who fought at
Perhaps it would help in assessing
the Casualty List if we look at the number who were killed or succumbed to
their wounds, or died in prisoner-of-war camps, and exclude those who survived
the war and came back. In fact I would
like to exclude nearly all those who are at this dinner or qualified to
attend. Then we find that 4,056 out of
the 4,963 Canadians survived. In other
words 907, or under one in five of the Canadian Forces
who took part lost their lives as a direct result of the Raid.
I do not wish to imply that this is
not an appallingly high figure but let us see what was achieved by this
sacrifice. From the lessons we learnt at
What is more, the Germans learnt the
wrong lessons from
We had already been investigating
trying to produce sheltered water off beaches.
We now came firmly to the conclusion that we would not invade without
prefabricated mobile ports which we could take with us to the open beaches
which were lightly defended. So the
MULBERRIES were largely developed from our experience at
In the Combined operations Report on
It was, of course, distressing that
these lessons had to be learnt at such a heavy price, but I must repeat that
without Dieppe OVERLORD could not safely have ever taken place. And then how much longer would the war, with
all its horrors and mass murder of civilians have lasted? So it is to all of you who fought with such
gallantry and courage at
It was a vital stepping stone to
victory and you, the heroes of
~~~ Typed by CAP YI Angela
Mennie – Oct. 21, 2005 ~~~