Friday 19th of August marks 80 years since the ill-fated Dieppe Raid took place. Codenamed Operation Jubilee, the Raid was an amphibious assault on the German-occupied port of Dieppe on the Normandy coast. Dieppe marked the first significant military operation undertaken by the Allies on mainland Europe since the retreat from Dunkirk in Image: The port of Dieppe, target of Operation Jubilee.
Operation Jubilee was not planned as a full-scale D-Day-style assault. The Allies did not possess the military strength to launch such an endeavour at this time. Instead, Dieppe was undertaken for different strategic reasons:. Image: Wounded Canadians on the beach at Dieppe.
Very few Allied raiders made it off the beach. Of the 6, troops who took part, 3, had been killed wounded or captured in little under eight hours of fighting.
Aerial losses amounted to aircraft lost while the Navy sustained around casualties. Dieppe took an especially heavy toll on the Canadians as their infantry made up most of the raiders and thus most of the casualties.
The raid was a costly failure. However, it did provide some important lessons regarding tactics, equipment, and intelligence the Allies would later apply to the massively successful landings in Sicily in and D-Day in Eugenie Brooks is one of our regular collaborators and supporters at the Commission.
