Dieppe 1942

Developing Amphibious Warfare Techniques

The previous Page was: "Jack Churchill"

Following the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, British military minds turned their attention to the - eventual - re-occupation of mainland Europe. The main aim, under the title of Combined Operations, was to develop amphibious warfare techniques in preparation for that invasion.

Pending the re-organization of the Army after Dunkirk, the War Cabinet made plans to maintain a limited offensive in order to harass the enemy occupied coasts of Northern Europe from Norway to France.

For this purpose small units, known as Independent Companies, were formed for minor raids and reconnaissances. All officers and men were volunteers.

Such raids were the very task for which the Royal Marines had always been held in readiness; either in ships or land bases. Their organisation and training had been dedicated to that end.

At the time when the need of these small units arose, the only Royal Marine assault force not afloat in H.M. ships was the Brigade which was being held as an amphibious force to meet an emergency which was expected to rise at ant moment; the invasion by Germany.

Because of this, it would have been impossible for the Corps. to have undertaken the formation of small raiding parties without breaking up the Brigade, and since the detachments afloat could not be withdrawn without depriving the ships of trained gunners, the independent units were drawn up from the remnants of the Army.

These Commandos, as they came to be called, were unique, there had been nothing quite like them before in the history of warfare; but the former Royal Marines raiding parties had come closest. Combined Operations was where sea and land forces took part in battle together landing in small craft.

By crossing the salty moat which guarded it, and land upon the other side to harass the would be invaders, was its prescribed task. But never before had a special force been created to conduct havoc and mayhem in a special manner. How it was to be fulfilled must now be considered.

It must be admitted there was still much hesitation in the High Command concerning the use of Commandos. Those who beleived in them had implicit faith in their future. But to start with they were barely used.

When the threat of the invasion had receded, then naturally, the Royal Marines would take up the mantle of the Commando, and they would retain it and fulfil its commitments long after the Armies small raiding units had faded away into obscurity.

Jack Churchill

A Technically Brilliant Idea

The Army Commanmdos increased so fast that it became necessary to administer them under a separate headquarters known as the Special Service Brigade. This was an entirely new organization under the control of Lieutenant-General Alan Bourne Royal Marines and later of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keys.

This organization became known as the Combined Operations Command, under Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Before Combined Operations Command came into being, plans were made for the inception of a small raiding force which could be held at the disposal of a naval Commander-in-Chief. It was to be known as the Royal Marine Commando, but was not to form part of the Special Service Brigade.

The Royal Marine Commando was originally allotted a special mission against the Japanese lines of communication in the Pacific under the Amercan Naval Commander-in-Chief in Far East waters. Developments in the Far East changed, and the plan was no longer feasible.

Early in 1942, the question of sending a raiding force on Dieppe was raised and referred to Combined Operations Headquarters. The Royal Marine Commando, was to be given a purely naval role: to seize the coastal craft and barges in Dieppe harbour and sail them back to England.

Events made a change of plan necessary in the initial stages of the raid, and the Commando was later detailed to land on White Beach. The centre of the assault. Its main object was to enable the planning staff of the Allies to learn how best to plan for an invasion.

A raid on a scale much larger than any yet attempted was desirable. They set to work and by the end of May had produced an elaborate plan for a daylight operation against Dieppe.

As a theoretical test a major raid had been drawn-up on a German-held French port with the aim of holding it for the duration of at least two tides - about nine hours in all - and to cause the greatest amount of destruction of enemy facilities and defences before withdrawing.

After much discussion, it was decided that the main assault should be made frontally by two battalions on the beaches of Dieppe. To protect the flanks of this attack the headlands on either side of the town were to be captured and held.

For the success of the main assault two coastal defence batteries had to be silenced. Their fire would deny the area in front of Dieppe to any ship, and therefore render the main attack too hazardous.

Dieppe Was Heavily Defended

On August 18th 1942, over 250 ships loaded with troops and equipment and escorted by destroyers sailed from southern England. In addition the force was preceded by minesweepers.

By 03:00 hours on the 19th August, on schedule, a total of 5,000 Canadians, 1,000 Commandos and 50 American Rangers were heading for their designated beaches, but some of the landing craft were headed for the wrong beaches; a lot of time was lost rectifying this.

It was then that disaster struck No.3 Army Commando. A British gunboat was unexpectedly engaged by five armed German trawlers; she was no match for them; the sound of gunfire instantly alerted the defenders.

Sailing in the darkness, the twenty-eight wooden Eureka landing craft, seaworthy but unarmed, and each carrying twenty men came under constant heavy fire; everything opened up on them. With great resolution the men fired their small-arms at the flashes on shore; it was all they could do.

By 04:45 hours it was obvious that the plan had miscarried and that it would not be possible to put the Commandos ashore. Four of the landing craft had been towed back to England with engine trouble; eight more badly damaged also had to return; six had been sunk; while only ten made the coast of France.

For No.3 The Action At Sea Was Disastrous

The little craft, packed with troops, unarmed and unarmoured, were riddled with bullets. Yet every boat that had even the smallest chance of reaching France did so.

One reached "Yellow 2" beach, near Belleville. Through the tracer lit darkness Lieutenant Buckee R.N.V.R., resolutely maintained his course. The promise of dawn was appearing on the port side. "My orders," said Buckee, "are to land even if there's only one boat."

Five minutes before zero hour the landing craft touched down and the twenty Commandos on board stepped ashore. Major Young, asked him to keep off shore as long as he could so as to take them back to England.

By joining the toggle ropes carried by each man they were able to climb the cliff face. Then dividing into three parties they advanced through the corn fields. To remind them of their position the guns at "Goebbels" roared out a short distance away.

They were firing, Young knew, at the main attack now making for the beaches at Dieppe. They made their way to Berneval cutting the telephone wire along the way. They stalked on through an orchard where they could see the battery.

There were ten times their number of Germans entrenched alert and ready to defend. the Commandos were inadequately armed to take them on. Young therefore adopted his plan to mainly intelligence gathering.

The standing corn gave his men good cover; they set about sniping the German battery; some smoke grenades enabled them to move closer through the smoke, dropping on one knee and firing before changing to another position.

The big guns were about twenty-five yards apart and well concreted. The Germans were all firing back, but they were so well dug in they couldn't be seen.

After about an hour-and-ahalf the fire from the Commandos must have had a galling effect on the Germans because they tuned one of the big guns around and fired it at them, the shells went whining overhead.

The Strange Combat Continued

The Commandos ammunition was almost exhausted, and some Germans had begun to move around their right flank; they could do no more. It was time to start heading back to the beach. They continued the fight while they were withdrawing; sending up three white Very lights to warn Buckee they were returning to the beach.

As they were retreating they came across a gully but they noticed it had been mined and they couldn't use it. Scrambling down the cliff they stumbled out to sea, where the gallant Buckee had arrived.

Young's men waded out and onto the craft, "it was," said Young, "like one of those dreams you have of trying desparately to walk and making no progress."

They made their getaway under fire from the cliffs, but soon after mid-day they were all on the quay at Newhaven, and before tea-time Young had made his report in person to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, at his headquarters in London.

The Other Nine Craft Made Yellow 1

Once these men of no.3 Army Commando were landed they made straight for the high cliffs behind the beach. They successfully negotiated a minefield and cut through a barrier of barbed wire. With so few men available the only thing they could do was to advance directly to the guns.

On the way, Corporal Halls gallantly charged and silenced a German machine-gun; but other guns hidden in well-sited positions opened up with heavy fire and casualties began to mount.

Lieutenant Wright the only unwounded officer continued the advance in the direction of the large white house, but could soon go no further. By then German mortar and machine-gun fire was firmly pinning them down.

Here they made their last stand under attacks from the ground and the air until all of their ammunition was exhausted; those who still lived had no option but to throw down their arms and surrender.

They were immediately put in irons by the Germans and within twenty-four hours all of the Commandos had undone them; the Germans tied them with ropes; but still the result was the same. They couldn't deprive the Commando of the use of his hands.

No.4 Landing Successfully

The landing on the extreme right further along the coast secured triumph, the only success of the whole operation. Behind the village of Varengeville was a formidable battery of six six-inch guns to which the code name "Hess" had been given. Like "Goebbels" battery at Berneval, they had to be destroyed before the main Force could enter Dieppe.

This task had been given to No.4 Army Commando, which set out to accomplish it, two hundred and fifty-two strong. The battery was situated in a built-up area to the west of Dieppe about eleven hundred yards from the sea, with cliffs unscalable except at one point.

Each gun of the battery was mounted on a concrete platform, and behind each position there was two anti-aircraft guns on towers. Wire surrounded the battery on three sides.

Mills-Roberts's Troops

Lovat decided to divide the Commando into two; the first would provide covering fire for the second carrying out the assault. Mills-Roberts was ordered to land on "Orange 1" beach, at a point which ran within three hundred yards of the battery.

At the top of the cliffs he was to form a bridgehead, and from it engage the battery with small arms and mortar fire; but not close it until it had been overun by Group 2. This group was to land further down the coast at a point where the river Saane enters the sea.

Here the cliff shelves down to a flat beach, but behind on the high ground covering the river valley was a network of trenches, wire and mahine-gun posts.

They observed from afar the tracers and star shells fired during the naval action which proved so disastrous to their comrades of No.3.

Mills-Roberts and his men got ashore and quickly overcame the obstacles before them, scrambled up the cliffs as fast as they could, and after searching a number of empty houses, moved through the woods and took up positions facing the battery.

A fighting patrol cut the telephone cables leading to the lighthouse, others from inside some buildings they began to snipe at the German gunners from a range of two hundred and fifty yards.

They paid particular attention to one of the anti-aircraft guns, at the rear killing three crews in succession which tried to serve it. This fire soon threw the German garrison into some confusion.

They had been caught literally napping the Commando Troop had three qualified snipers who were well camouflaged and had taken cover in some bushes a hundred and fifty yards from the enemy; they fired repeatedly with deadly effect.

These three, along with three Bren gunners, silenced three enemy machine-gun positions, while Gunner T. McDonough fired no less than sixty rounds from his anti-tank rifle.

By then the mortar Troop were in position and set up. The first bomb fell short and missed, but the second landed on cordite charges and ammunition lying beside one of the guns. This blew up with a blinding flash and the battery never fired again.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lovat's Troops

Lovat was fulfilling his part, using tubular ladders they came over the cliff top, and rushed the main defences; two pill boxes killing the occupants with grenades. Again the telephone wires were cut and they had to scramble over barbed wire to avoid a minefield marked with a notice in French and German.

They advanced doubling along the bank of the Saane. The going, mostly through long grass, was heavy, for the river had overflowed its banks. They could hear the gun-fire from Group 1 engaging the enemy. Then they saw a sheet of flame flickering above the trees followed by the roar of an explosion, it encouraged them to move quicker.

The silence of the guns they were about to attack told them something had happened. Closing in on the battery they slowed making use of smoke fired by the mortar crews. They spotted and stalked a machine-gun position and silenced it.

They encountered about a thirty-five strong Stasstruppe, German assault troops, who formed part of the battery's garrison. These were forming up in the courtyard of a farmhouse with the intention of delivering a counter-attack on Mills-Roberts Group 1.

They were wiped out by Tommy gun fire. The Germans here were now fully aroused and making a vigourous resistance. Casualties mounted Company Sergeant Major W. R. Stockdale had half of one of his feet blown away, but continued to engage the enemy with his rifle, sitting on the ground.

A hundred minutes after landing Lovat gave the signal for the final assault; the battery was at once deludged in smoke; the firing stopped and both groups charged in with fixed bayonets to finish the job.

The gun crews were bombed, shot or bayoneted and during the melee some Germans were observed kicking-in the faces of the wounded Commandos lying on the ground. After this no prisoners were added to those already captured.

Two German officers carried on fighting with their pistols until they to met their end; and shortly afterwards the only living persons beside the guns were the victorious men of No.4 Army Commando.

While the demolition squads got to work blowing the breach blocks to pieces, a numbr of pill boxes were assaulted, and a number of snipers were neutralised.

When the last gun was destroyed, the bodies of those Commando soldiers who had fallen in action were lifted up and laid beneath the battery flag staff, and the Union Jack was then run up over the British dead.

The withdrawal took place under a smoke screen, with all the wounded being carried off by the German prisoners. The fighting patrols on the flanks successfully covered the retreat wiping out a German patrol and dealing effectively with snipers.

40 Commando Royal Marines In Reserve

By 07:00 hours Major-General J.H. Roberts M.C., commanding the land forces could clearly see that matters were going ill, so he decided to rectify it by reinforcing the Canadian Royal Hamilton Light Infantry.

Those couragous men had succeeded in crossing the main beach in front of Dieppe and seizing the Casino. But the well-sited German defences wrecked havoc amongst the Infantry; their actions were gradually wearing the attackers down with their sustained fire-power.

Reinforcements, Roberts thought, would enable the battalion to push forward and, by turning to the right, they could capture the western headland from which the enemy was pouring devastating fire upon the troops of the main assault.

The troops chosen to reinforce were No.40 Royal Marine Commando under Lieutenant-Colonel J. P. Phillipps, who formed part of the floating reserve, ready to go ashore wherever they might be needed. It had been hoped they would enter Dieppe after it had been mastered by the Candian troops.

Roberts Own Decision

From the start it was plain to see that the plan was not going as expected. Here No.40 Royal Marine Commando, was to fight its first action in circumstances which made success impossible and heavy casualties inevitable.

The Royal Marines had been taken to Dieppe in French "chasseurs" a type of fast motor boat, and had to be trans-shipped into assault craft.

At about 08:30 hours, covered by the fire of the gun boat "Locust", a flak landing craft, and of the "chasseurs" they moved into towards land going through a sreies of smoke screens which afforded excellent cover.

When they emerged into view, they were at once met with a mighty hail of German fire. "With a courage terrible to see," runs the official report, "the Marines went into land determined, if fortune so willed, to repeat at Dieppe what their fathers had accomplished at Zeebrugge."

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Very Few Reached Land Unwounded

Among them was Lieutenant K.W. Smale who taking cover with what remained of his platoon behind a stranded tank landing craft, fought on untill they were all killed.

Seeing the condition of the beach which, far from being cleared as had been erroneously assumed, was under heavy and concentrated fire and strewn with the dead and wounded of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry.

Colonel Phillipps realized immediately that the landing must be halted if the entire Commando were not to be wiped out. His landing craft was by then close in to the shore.

Pulling on a pair of white gloves so that his hands could be more easily seen, he jumped on the foredeck and gave the signal to withdraw. It was seen and the remaining craft put about just as Colonel Phillipps fell, shot through the head. His gallant sacrifice had saved some two hundred men from certain and useless death; entering the field of fire would have proved mortal to them.

However, Sergeant T.J. Badlan R.M. of the Provost Beach Party, won the D.S.M., by taking charge of a landing craft when all the Marine crew had been killed or wounded; he then took it off the beach and sailed it back to the safety of the Fleet.

A Royal Marine officer, Lieutenant-Colonel R.G. Parks-Smith, who was moratlly wounded at Dieppe while in command of the Beach Provost Party, was one of the pioneers of parachute descents in World War II.

Some hours after the withdrawal a solitary Marine was seen in the water about a mile from shore swimming towards England. In front of him was his Mae West, upon which lay his rifle, for, when forced ro retreat, it is not the custom of the Royal Marines to abandon their arms.

He was picked up by a motor gun boat, and on reaching her deck, collapsed. At that moment an air attack developed and no one on board had time to look at him. When the attack was over, the Marine was discovered seated near the bridge cleaning his rifle.

The Landing craft that managed to land their tanks were all destroyed along with all of the tanks. Canadian Royal Engineers tried to help the tanks but without success, fore they suffered 60 per cent casualties.

With many of the beach commanders being killed little meaningful intelligence was reaching "H.M.S. Calpe" from the invading force.

The cost of this largely unsuccessful raid was horrific; of the 6,050 men landed 4,384 died or were captured; all guns, tanks and other equipment was lost; the Navy lost 550 men and 34 ships while the RAF lost 106 aircraft.

Such were the three actions fought by the three Commando Units which took part in the raid on Dieppe. The last was a gallant failure and should never have taken place.

That undertaken by No.3 Army Commando was saved from complete miscarriage by the well-trained courage of Young and his men. That fought by Lovat and No.4 Army Commando will remain the pattern that will be unrivalled for all future seaborne assaults.

In spite of the appalling loss of life, many vital lessons were learnt at Dieppe; as a result plans for the future invasions incorporated more flexibility, sufficient support, better equipment and a greater attention to detail would be made.

The Winkle Barges At Dieppe

Closely associated with the Commandos, and operating under Combined Operations Command, are the landing craft whose armament is entirely manned by Royal Marines. Their task is to accompany the first flight of a landing force, to close the beach, and to destroy at close range the enemy's forward positons and lighter guns.

Behind them come the assault craft carrying the infantry, followed by the tanks, and then by landing craft flak, which put up a close range-range barrage over the whole party. Other craft are available to tackle the defences in rear, or any targets which prove too formidable for the assault craft.

Then come the barges with the main body of the infantry, and other barges with heavier armament, with the cruisers and battleships covering the invading force from off shore.

Each support craft is commanded by a Sub-Lieutenant, R.N.V.R., with an engineman and four ratings. The armament, which may be a 2-pounder and an Oerlikon, is manned by a corporal and six or seven sea-service Marines.

Landing Craft Flak

The landing craft flak carry an R.N.V.R., officer as navigator, also an engineer and deck ratings; and two Royal Marine officers and some 45 Marines, who man the armament.

These flak ships or "winkle barges" as they are affectionately called, went into action for the first time at Dieppe, where they proved their worth by covering the small assault craft and "Buzzing up and down the beaches," as one of their officers described it, giving close-range fire to troops as they landed or after they were ashore by shelling pill boxes and machine-gun posts.

They destroyed a number of German aircraft, one alone accounting for no less than eight. Another flak ship, having shot down two Ju.88 came out of a smoke-screen 400 yards from one of the beaches, was attacked by heavy machine-gun fire from the shore when nine German fighters flying low in close formation joined in.

"It was a most unnerving moment," wrote the Royal Marine officer in command, "to see the tracer coming straight at you: it appeared to come so slowly and yet went past so fast. But the guns' crews stood up to it magnificently and let go right in the middle of them, and although I did not see one crash they could not face our barrage and broke off in all directions."

During the raid, and after the troops had been withdrawn, the flak ships picked up a number of survivors from the water, many of them wounded. Some were from the Royal Marine Commando. "One Marine still had his Bren gun," wrote the officer, "and he was no sooner on board when he demanded oil and flannel, and lighting a cigarette began to clean his Bren."

No greater compliment could have been given to the Royal Marine Corps. than to entrust them with the great responsibilties they beard then, and to this day, still do.

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