Dieppe Raid

[Flying10uk]

I didn't personally take part in the Dieppe Raid, during WW2, myself nor was I present in Dieppe during the "Dieppe Raid" to witness events unfold.

I do know that certain claims have been made, in recent years, suggesting that during the Dieppe Raid an attempt was made to seize Enigma material, specifically relating to the 4 rotor Enigma machine. I do not consider it fit for me to either confirm or dismiss these claims because I was not there myself.

However, I do have the intelligence to understand Bletchley Park's need for the 4 rotor Enigma material at this time in the war because they were unable to decipher Kriegsmarine coded messages once they had been encrypted using the 4 rotor Enigma machine. Of course the Germans would have changed the codes if they had discovered or realised that Enigma material had gone missing during the "Dieppe Raid" and that is why the material would have been taken in such a way that the Germans wouldn't realise that material had gone missing. If the plan was to demolish the building that contained the Enigma material, once it had been seized, the obvious thing would have been to demolish a number of buildings. Physical items didn't necessarily needed to be taken from Dieppe for Bletchley Park to obtain the material and information that they needed. An obvious way to achieve this would be to use a camera.

I believe that I am correct in stating that one of the Churchill tanks did make it up the beach at Dieppe and onto the seafront road, proving that the Dieppe beach could support tanks but not very well. Perhaps if lighter tanks were used, than the Churchill tank, more would have made it up the beach?

[vykkagur]

I didn't personally take part in the Dieppe Raid, during WW2, myself nor was I present in Dieppe during the "Dieppe Raid" to witness events unfold.

I do know that certain claims have been made, in recent years, suggesting that during the Dieppe Raid an attempt was made to seize Enigma material, specifically relating to the 4 rotor Enigma machine. I do not consider it fit for me to either confirm or dismiss these claims because I was not there myself.

However, I do have the intelligence to understand Bletchley Park's need for the 4 rotor Enigma material at this time in the war because they were unable to decipher Kriegsmarine coded messages once they had been encrypted using the 4 rotor Enigma machine. Of course the Germans would have changed the codes if they had discovered or realised that Enigma material had gone missing during the "Dieppe Raid" and that is why the material would have been taken in such a way that the Germans wouldn't realise that material had gone missing. If the plan was to demolish the building that contained the Enigma material, once it had been seized, the obvious thing would have been to demolish a number of buildings. Physical items didn't necessarily needed to be taken from Dieppe for Bletchley Park to obtain the material and information that they needed. An obvious way to achieve this would be to use a camera.

I'll grant you, that's a perfectly plausible scenario: Photographing without removing, then demolishing the building(s) to explain why the books were not removed. Risky, but can't be discounted.

[vykkagur]

I believe that I am correct in stating that one of the Churchill tanks did make it up the beach at Dieppe and onto the seafront road, proving that the Dieppe beach could support tanks but not very well. Perhaps if lighter tanks were used, than the Churchill tank, more would have made it up the beach?

Actually, the majority of the Calgary Tanks' Churchills made it off the beach and onto the seafront, 15 of the 29 landed. They were unable to penetrate into the town. The Churchill was heavily armoured and had excellent climbing ability, but always suffered from having too small a gun, being designed to the obsolete "infantry tank" specification. When they tried to exit the esplanade, they found all the streets blocked by heavy concrete structures that they couldn't demolish with their small guns. The planners had intended the sea wall and the concrete barriers to be demolished by charges placed by sappers on foot and without protection. Of course, they were unable to accomplish their objectives, most of them being slaughtered by the wall of machine gun fire and light artillery.

The operation was designed to test the feasibility of capturing a port, intact, from which to supply the landed forces. (There were a number of secondary objectives, such as drawing the Luftwaffe into a major engagement, and testing new equipment.) Dieppe proved conclusively that it was not feasible. This was to lead directly to the design of the portable harbours, the Mulberries, and things like PLUTO, pipeline under the ocean, so the advance could be supplied over the beaches. The fate of the sappers prompted the birth of Hobart's Funnies, that whole series of armoured engineering vehicles designed to cross soft ground, overcome obstacles like ditches and walls, and demolish concrete emplacements under fire. Fittingly, they chose the Churchill (because it was heavily armoured and had excellent climbing ability....)

The lesson learned at Dieppe, and the ingenuity of the solutions, was demonstrated on D-day - both ways. The British and the Canadians used the Funnies extensively and effectively during the invasion, and after. The Americans were offered them; Eisenhower was enthusiastic, but the commander of American forces, Bradley, regarded them as a joke and used only the swimming tanks on the day. They wasted them by dumping them in heavy seas miles offshore and almost none reached land. The Americans landed on their beaches with engineers, on foot, assigned to blow obstacles. On Utah they lucked out, missed the beach by four miles, and landed in an open area with no heavy fortifications, advancing quickly inland. On Omaha, they landed on a heavily-defended and fortified area with major concrete emplacements blocking the exit from the beach. The engineers were decimated, as were countless men who were then trapped in the killzone for hours. Deja view all over again.... They eventually got off the beach by blood and sheer bravery alone. The thousands of American dead and wounded on Omaha have much for which to thank Omar Bradley.

I probably should have mentioned about getting a Canadian started on talking about Dieppe. We take it right serious 'round these parts! It's like talking to Newfoundlanders about Beaumont Hamel in the First War.

[Flying10uk]

According to the claim in the documentary it was British Commandos who were tasked with attempting to "seize" the Enigma material during the Dieppe Raid and a number of attempts, according to the claim, were made to put the Commandos ashore in Dieppe harbour from HMS Locust.

I am neither going to confirm or dismiss the claim, that an attempt was made to "seize" Enigma material during the Dieppe Raid, because I wasn't there but I can see how it could have been done and I can see how it could have fitted in neatly with the main Dieppe Raid.

As my late Grandmother put it "the "Canadians" had a rough time at Dieppe" but so too did all those at Dieppe from all nations present during the battle.

[vykkagur]

According to the claim in the documentary it was British Commandos who were tasked with attempting to "seize" the Enigma material during the Dieppe Raid and a number of attempts, according to the claim, were made to put the Commandos ashore in Dieppe harbour from HMS Locust.

I am neither going to confirm or dismiss the claim, that an attempt was made to "seize" Enigma material during the Dieppe Raid, because I wasn't there but I can see how it could have been done and I can see how it could have fitted in neatly with the main Dieppe Raid.

As my late Grandmother put it "the "Canadians" had a rough time at Dieppe" but so too did all those at Dieppe from all nations present during the battle.

Very true indeed.

[Surpmil]

The lessons supposedly learned at Dieppe could just as easily have been learned by experiments and exercises on UK beaches. What the Armies had for experiments and research in combined operations I don't know, but the Admiralty had a thriving Department of Miscellaneous Weapon Development, headed by a Canadian as a matter of fact: Cmdr. Goodeve. They came up with weapons like the Hedgehog.

As in WWI where the Navy with Churchill as 1st Lord, pioneered the tank regardless of the Army's lack of interest, so in WWII. For example, Goodeve & Co. got to Churchill through his daughter and once WSC saw a demonstration of Hedgehog, he got on the phone to Dudley Pound and suddenly the Admiralty was all in, despite their previous lack of interest and the obstruction of the Directorate of Naval Ordnance.

But in 1942 what was needed was a good flop to show Stalin and the Americans it wasn't as easy as they thought and to get them both to back off.

Now, they say we should not ascribe to malfeasance what can be explained by mere stupidity, and we saw enough of that in both wars, but the curious violations of security and numerous other odd oversights lead me to suspect that "disaster" was a prospect not viewed with, shall we say, any great concern in the highest quarters.

This was total war, a game played for high stakes and sacrifices must be made, sometimes large ones.

The only rub comes in who is asked to make them, and whether they are truly necessary or merely convenient?

And as for the Ultra aspect, the only possible course that would have made sense was to quickly examine and photograph a machine, ensuring there were no German or French witnesses who might notice any interest, and then to leave it strictly as found, as though it had been overlooked completely or was unrecognized.

Of course, to send a group of commandos to attack such a facility as a special sub-raid would immediately indicate what their objective in such an attack was, unless some other piece of technology such as a radar installation was in the same immediate area and could be made to look like the real target.

The supposed commando "snatch" raid on the local Kriegsmarine HQ would have been completely obvious to the Germans as having a specific target, and blowing up some rooms or buildings would immediately raise the question of why they were specially targeted and what was being hidden by the demolitions, to say nothing of whether the wrecked machine was found in the debris or not.

Consider: we have a sudden drop in Uboat sinkings when the fourth rotor is introduced - that perhaps could be hidden by other countermeasures and increased efforts to sink Uboats and so make up the difference, but a specific raid targeting an Enigma facility would be very liable to blow the cover of the greatest intelligence coup in history. Fleming may have written good stories, but would anyone have been allowed to gamble with THE WHOLE Ultra Secret in 1942? Nonsense IMHO. Easy to leave a few bits of paper around in the archives later for someone to find though. Heaven knows, enough paper has been taken out of archives without any one much noticing!

One has to remember that a year earlier Crete was allowed to fall rather than tell Freyberg that we had ironclad "Ultra" intelligence of German plans and positions. He was told the information was from an agent in the German HQ in Greece IIRC, and he chose to disregard it as a result.

Lastly, it was only thanks to Churchill bucking the Army "club" that Hobart was brought back from the Chipping Camden Home Guard where he was serving as a corporal. He then trained IIRC the 11th Armoured Division - as he had trained the 7th in Egypt in 1939-40. However, the old boys club wasn't done with him yet, and found every possible excuse to prevent him from actually taking the Division to North Africa and getting a chance to prove himself and his ideas in combat. So he ended up with the 79th Armd. Div. and the "funnies". That much he was allowed to do, with Churchill's help.

That sort of petty vendetta was more important to the Club than the war itself, to say nothing of the lives of their subordinates. They had seen what the Germans had done, but since they weren't competent to do it themselves, they damned well weren't going to let anyone else, least of all 'one of those damn tank fanatics' they'd been squabbling with and obstructing ever since WWI.

[Flying10uk]

If the claim is true whatever action was necessary would have been taken, I am sure, to ensure that the Germans were not aware that Enigma material had been seized at Dieppe, even if that meant not using the seized material for a period of time. In the event the commandos didn't manage to seize Enigma material at Dieppe.

I am neither going to dismiss nor confirm the claim that an attempt was made to seize Enigma material at Dieppe,because I wasn't there, but I can see how it could have been done in a way not obvious to the Germans.

[Paul S.]

The lessons supposedly learned at Dieppe could just as easily have been learned by experiments and exercises on UK beaches. What the Armies had for experiments and research in combined operations I don't know, but the Admiralty had a thriving Department of Miscellaneous Weapon Development, headed by a Canadian as a matter of fact: Cmdr. Goodeve. They came up with weapons like the Hedgehog.

I would offer that this is not true. While military training exercises try to replicate what will be done and what will happen when the 'real thing' comes, it can not and does not contain those unexpected events that occur in real warfare. One only needs to look at the Tarawa landings or even D-day examples.

As for your contention that Dieppe was intentioned to fail for political reasons, I would offer in reply that the entire operation was an on again, off again, and on again affair in which operation security was thrown to the winds. One can not plan an operation of that scale, brief the decision makers and commanders, and then leave it to be executed virtually unchanged at a later date without 'word getting around'.

[Flying10uk]

One has to remember that certain things that happened during WW2 are still covered by the UK Official Secrets Act and those most sensitive matters will be under a 100 year classification. In theory there should be some very, very interesting material released into the public domain in 20 to 25 years time. How much material material "mysteriously gets lost" before it is released remains to be seen. I would imagine that not all material currently covered by the Official Secrets Act will be released even after 100 years if it is felt to be too embarrassing or damaging to the UK's national interests.

[Surpmil]

I would offer that this is not true. While military training exercises try to replicate what will be done and what will happen when the 'real thing' comes, it can not and does not contain those unexpected events that occur in real warfare. One only needs to look at the Tarawa landings or even D-day examples.

As for your contention that Dieppe was intentioned to fail for political reasons, I would offer in reply that the entire operation was an on again, off again, and on again affair in which operation security was thrown to the winds. One can not plan an operation of that scale, brief the decision makers and commanders, and then leave it to be executed virtually unchanged at a later date without 'word getting around'.

Was there ever a training exercise that could reveal "those unexpected events that occur in real warfare"? Training is not "real warfare".

Tarawa was another piece of carelessness wasn't it? Why weren't the reefs detected and provided for in planning? It's not like air photos couldn't have been taken and studied. Probably they were, but unwelcome news is often ignored once egos and careers get involved.

The "on again, off again" nature of Operation Jubilee was indeed one in which operational security was "thrown to the winds".

That's not normal procedure is it? Therefore, when it happens one has to ask "why?"