Dieppe Raid

[Flying10uk]

I believe that the urgency for capturing the "Enigma material" occurred when the Kriegsmarine switched to the 4 rotor Enigma machine which messed everything up as far as breaking German naval codes were concerned.

[Sunray]

"...Churchill's The Second World War..." Read that this past Fall. Totally different perspective of the war compared to other books. However, Dieppe had nothing to do with Winston. Our 2nd Div's involvement was more about the lads having been sitting around for 3 years doing little but train.
Dieppe was chosen because of its proximity to the RAF.
There was also a new German radar the boffins wanted to look at. "Green Beach" by James Leasor tells the story.
The RN had captured an Enigma machine and its books in May of 1941 off a U-Boat.

[Gil Boyd]

I think it was a U.S ship in fact who recovered the first Enigma machine? or have I got that wrong?

[30Three]

I think that it was the Royal Navy that got the enigma from a U boat; but Hollywood told the story using a US Navy boat!

[Gil Boyd]

Correctumundo:

The first capture of a naval Enigma machine with its cipher keys from a U-boat was made on 9 May 1941 by HMS Bulldog of Britain's Royal Navy, commanded by Captain Joe Baker-Cresswell. The U-boat was U-110. In 1942, the British seized U-559, capturing additional Enigma codebooks.

[CINDERS]

Sunray I mentioned as further reading material in the book by James Leasor Green beach in the Dieppe raid in post #7

[Flying10uk]

When the Kriegsmarine started using the 4 rotor Enigma machine there was a period when Bletchley Park was not able to decipher German naval codes and, therefore, hence an urgent need to obtain a 4 rotor Enigma machine with the associated code books and paraphernalia. Why the Kriegsmarine felt the need to switch to a 4 rotor machine while the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht continued to use 3 rotor Enigma machines I don't believe has ever been explained. The only reason for adding the 4th rotor to the Enigma machine can have been to provide greater encryption but why greater encryption was felt necessary if the Germans believed the code to be unbroken I do not know.

[Gil Boyd]

Probably a small thing called "Esprit de Corps".

They did think they were the kiddies, very arrogrant by all accounts and hailed as a greater hero then others in the two other services.................until the code breakers turned the tide on their little massacre using torpedoes against harmless Merchantmen supplying England.

[Bob Womack]

Bob,

It was Operation Biting, the pre cursor to Dieppe, also known as the Bruneval Raid, which was a British Combined Operations raid on a German coastal radar installation at Bruneval in northern France, on the night of 27–28 February 1942.
It was masterminded, planned and well executed by Major John Frost who was later at Arnhem to lead from the front yet again to great aclaim.
C Company of the newly formed 2 PARA and an RAF Boffin called Flight Sergeant Cox parachuted into the location on top of the cliff, took apart the most important piece of the Wurzberg radar unit that the British needed to ensure theirs had the same effect against the waves of German Bombers that continually bombarded English Towns with such immunity.

I read about the Bruneval Raid when I was a child in the '70s. I had thought it was later in the war but it is good to get the date info now as an adult.


Bob

[Gil Boyd]

Bob,
I think that one raid recovering the Wurzberg radar and the recovery of the Enigma decoder changed the tide significantly in WW2. Two raids that noone really knew about either at the time!