News-Info-Alerts

Re: The Raid on Dieppe

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 17, 2002

"'Bid them adieu once more'
Nationwide services for 60th anniversary of bloody Dieppe raid
 
Chris Wattie
National Post

Saturday, August 17, 2002
The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - A small knot of veterans, military and government officials held a quiet ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier yesterday, the first in a series of events across the country leading to the anniversary of the greatest military disaster in Canadian history: The raid on Dieppe.

"Today we mourn a tragedy and celebrate a triumph," Reg Pagtakhan, the Minister of Veterans' Affairs, said at the ceremony. "The tragedy is known by one word: Dieppe."

"The triumph was surely not found in a military victory -- because there would be none that day -- rather, it lies in the courage of the men who stormed French shores, full-force into a hail of enemy fire."

Yet even as Canadians from British Columbia to Dieppe, N.B., mark the anniversary with tributes and remembrance ceremonies, the controversy over the bloody battle continues.

Even veterans of the Second World War raid, carried out largely by Canadian troops, still argue about the legacy of Dieppe, where 907 Canadian soldiers were killed and 1,840 left languishing in prisoner-of-war camps.

The Aug. 19, 1942 raid on the German-occupied French port has been the subject of dozens of books, movies and conspiracy theories to explain the disaster.

Ron Beal, the president of the Dieppe Veterans and Prisoners of War Association, acknowledges the legacy of the raid is still a sensitive topic, even 60 years later.

"The reason is that so many were killed," he said after the brief wreath-laying ceremony in Ottawa, within sight of the House of Commons. "In my regiment they had something like 95% casualties. Out of 504 men we put on the beach, only 67 came back ... and only 28 of them were fit for duty the next day.

The Canadian Second Division provided the bulk of the 6,000 men participating in the amphibious assault, but only 2,210 ever returned from the nine-hour raid, which was met with a storm of machine-gun and artillery fire on the beach.

Mr. Beal, then a 25-year-old private in the Royal Regiment of Canada, was captured and spent three years in a prisoner-of-war camp.

Although he says Dieppe veterans "don't get together to rehash the battle," he admits feelings can often run high whenever the topic arises.

Many veterans insisted for years the town's German garrison had been warned of the raid in advance -- either by spies or, according to one theory, a deliberate leak by British Intelligence.

Others blamed High Command for the outright bungling that marred the raid almost from the moment it set out from Britain.

Admiral Lord Mountbatten, the overall commander for the raid, has been accused by some historians of pushing the raid forward against advice of other senior officers, to further his career.

And just last week, Cliff Chadderton, an outspoken veteran and head of the War Amps organization, issued an hour-long video about Dieppe, entitled Dieppe: Don't Call It A Failure.

He argued the raid was a valuable learning process for D-Day, the invasion of France that came almost two years later.

"There has been no end of conspiracy theories about Dieppe," says Jack Granatstein, a Canadian historian. "A lot of the veterans get very angry; they blame the British for what happened, or they blame Mountbatten."

"But in the end, much of the blame has to go to Canadians: The Canadian government and Canadian generals pushed for this raid."

A delegation of veterans is travelling to the northern French town for the 60th anniversary of the raid, on Monday, "to visit their fallen comrades ... and bid them adieu once more," Mr. Pagtakhan said.

Ceremonies are planned in Saskatoon; Dieppe, N.B., which was named in honour of the raid; and a 'Thank-you Canada' committee will visit Trois Rivieres, Que., from Belgium for the anniversary.

A totem pole will be engraved by Dieppe veterans at Quebec on Monday and the opening ceremonies of the Abbotsford air show in B.C. paid tribute to the veterans of the raid.

© Copyright  2002 National Post"