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It was 76 years, yesterday, since Johnny Mann and some other guys waded ashore at Dieppe, France.
Johnny was with the Montreal Fusiliers. He walked off the beach with 8 bullet holes in him. One of which was a compound leg fracture. Johnny didn't know that until the MO on the ship asked him how he got off the beach. "I walked, sir."
RIP Johnny.
That was a bit of a very costly folly that was but probably gave the British food for thought about combined operations and the suitability of the beach for AFV mobility as the Churchills were rather slow and ill suited, I have a reasonable No. of books on that raid.
The commonwealth fighter pilots on the day gave the naval ships a wide birth as the Navy was known to fire on friend or foe without much provocation, a book I have which is a good read is from the aerial side of things with that raid is "The Greatest Air Battle" 19th August 1942 the Dieppe Raid By Norman Franks.
The Canadians certainly paid a disproportionatly high price for that mission.
The rate of casualties regarded as 'acceptable' during WW2, is beyond our imagination today .. thank god!
"...Canadians certainly paid..." 5,000 from 2 Canadian Div., 1,000 Brit Commandos, some Poles and Czechs and 50 U.S. Rangers were involved. 3,623 causalities out ~ 6,086. I knew Jonny when I was running a CF Army Cadet Corps 35 + years ago. He went on to fight as Commando. Wore a sport coat with the Combined Ops badge on it. Called it his 'hero jacket'. The guy was a character.
Read "The Greatest Air Battle" years ago(pretty much everything else published about Dieppe too). As I recall, the ground troops wondered where the RAF was. They kept the Luftwaffe out of the game, way high up, where nobody could see 'em. Got an 'A' for a drawing I did of it in high school art class.
The army chaps also wondered what the RAF was doing at Dunkirk thing is they were keeping the hordes of Luftwaffe away from the beaches miles away inland it was the first time the Spitfire had fought against the ME-109's as previous squadrons in France were Hawker Hurricanes the animosity against the RAF pilots from the army soldiers took along time to settle after Dunkirk.
Spitfires had been used against the Me109 since the beginning of hostilities. My Godfather was an RAF fighter pilot who flew Spitfires, Mosquitos and Meteors during the war. The Spitfire's war record was an occasional topic of discussion for us.
Aug 9, 1944. 74 yrs ago, B-26 raid on Brest Harbor - my father in law 's plane was disabled and he had to bail out. Broke his ankle, eventually captured and spent ltime as POW, repatrioted when Army took the hospital he was in.
Unfortunately as tragic as the loss of life and/or wounded (almost 60%), it was also a complete failure. Add 106 aircraft lost.
A six hour assault, the next four they were able to retreat most of the men, some left behind. Ten hours of hell for so many brave men.
Dieppe Raid - Wikipedia
Some WW2 deaths by Country
Country...............Military Deaths...........Total Civilian and Military
Canada................45,400...................... .45,400
Australia..............39,800..................... ..40,500
United Kingdom...383,600.....................450,700
United States.......416,800.....................418,500
Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans
Elements of the USAAF 52nd fighter group (4th FS) flew its first combat mission in Spitfires on that day, but not over the landings. The 31st fighter group did however, and scored its first victories of the war. Both of these groups, six squadrons, flew 'reverse lend lease' Spitfires until replaced by P-51s in April 1943. They flew Spitfires in England, North Africa, and Italy in the 8th, 12th and 15th Air Forces.