75 years ago, almost 5,000 Canadian infantrymen were storming the Nazi defended beaches of Dieppe, France, a major port on the Normandy coast.
President of the Dieppe Military Veterans’ Association Nils Liljemark says the raid was to get information about the strength and quality of German defences.
He says the raid rapidly became a massacre for a variety of reasons, and 913 Canadians were left dead on the beaches with 586 wounded, and 1,946 captured.
“Communication wise, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force were not in communication with each other,” says Liljemark. “There were communications amongst themselves but not with each different force, so they couldn’t tell when the landing had taken place, they couldn’t tell when to strike with the air.”
Aug 19, 2017 at 3:37am PDT
Liljemark adds the command authority had not planned ahead to bomb the German defences, and this left the fearsome defences intact, and put the landing Canadians (as well as British and American soldiers) in an impossibly difficult position.
Liljemark says the research about the area around Dieppe was inaccurate and “they didn’t realize the beach was all loaded with cobblestones and the tanks couldn’t get on the beach because as soon as they started spinning and slipping in the cobblestones, the cobblestones would get in between the tracks and throw the tracks off so the tanks were just about useless.
He remarks not a single tank made it off the beach, and when they retreated the majority of the vehicles were stuck and had to be left behind, or had been destroyed by the Germans.
Liljemark says poor research also led to the soldiers being led into a practically hopeless position.
“They didn’t realize how steep the cliffs were, the cliffs were immense and there was no place for the soldiers to have any shelter or anything from the Germans shooting at them,” says Liljemark. “So that was again another point that was taken, so that when they did D-Day in 1944, they chose the proper beaches.”
He says the hardwon lessons from the Dieppe Raid saved lives in the future invasion of North Africa, and the Allied return to Normandy on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.
Liljemark says they keep the memory of this raid alive, because it’s important for the younger generations to remember their ancestors fought and died to protect the freedoms we enjoy today.
Aug 19, 2017 at 3:39am PDT
Aug 19, 2017 at 3:41am PDT
Cover Photo Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-362-2211-12 / Jörgensen / CC-BY-SA 3.0