Canada Ping!
Posted on 08/20/2012 10:28:10 AM PDT by the scotsman
Research indicates soldiers used cover of battle to try to steal code machine from Germans
'In a disastrous raid on the German-occupied French port by an Allied force of 300 ships, 800 aircraft and more than 6,000 Allied assault troops - most of them Canadian - close to 2,000 of the attackers were taken prisoner and more than 900 lay dead within hours. Less than half the soldiers who took part, many among them wounded, made it back onto the ships for the retreat.
But now, after decades of unanswered questions and only guesses as to why the mission was launched and to what purpose the Dieppe slaughter served, comes newly unearthed evidence putting the mission in a completely different light.
Could the single-biggest raid of the war simply have been a diversion for the real objective - a commando "pinch" operation to steal German naval codes and encryption machines? And playing a leading role in the top-secret mission was legendary spymaster Ian Fleming, who would later gain fame as author of the James Bond book series.'
(Excerpt) Read more at vancouversun.com ...
Canada Ping!
Hoser’s done good.
Nobody can organize military disasters as well as do the Brits.
Yawn.
Yes, 300 ships and 6000 Soldiers is the best way to sneak in and grab a code machine.
This was posted a few days ago...with a YouTube link. When I followed the YT link, it also led to a ret’d general’s discussion & slideshow of the Russian-German portion of WW2.
Frankly, the casualties and expenditure of war effort of all but the very largest US-Cana-UK allies were almost nothing compared to the tribulations of the Russian-German conflict. I only bring this up as a point of reference, not to denigrate any country’s contribution.
The Russians lost the entire casualty count of the US in a good number of 1-2-3-10 day battles-—about 35-40 times.
Dieppe - I’m not convenced that the raid was solely to acquire the German codes based upon this article; but having it as one of several reasons for the mission does make sense. I think the need to draw German forces from the Eastern Front is the major reason.
I stand corrected, after referencing a book on Dieppe written by a Canadian infantry captain who was on the main beach at Dieppe during the attack. Although delayed the initial attack was earlier, by 8AM most of the fighting was over.
I don’t know what the real purpose was, but in order to draw German forces from their Eastern Front, the Dieppe raid would have had to establish a perimeter and hold it for some considerable time.
In the battle of Smolensk in early July, 1941 the German Army captured some 600,000 Russians in a three-day period.
That happens when soldiers are considered expendable. Half the Russian machine guns were pointed at their own soldiers.
From what I have read....The Nazi war machine, was all over Europe, and no one was capable of opposing, the media continued to report the advances of the Nazi hoard....and so Churchill and others, needed to redirect the media....hence the attacking force, was thrown together; with a logical result....I haven’t read: did they secure the code machine?
In keeping alive or creating the threat of an invasion/future invasion as a possibility would have caused the diversion of some troops. The key thing was showing Stalin that the western allies were doing something...whether or not Stalin would have thought it as ‘enough’ is hard to know for sure.
“Nobody can organize military disasters as well as do the Brits.”
Don’t be so modest. The Dieppe raid doesn’t even compare to the magnitude of Pearl Harbour or Vietnam.
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