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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750991735 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 05/20/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 10 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
ABSOLUTE DISASTER
Once Adolf Hitler had made himself master of western Europe, he faced the problem of how to defend 3,000 miles of coastline stretching all the way from Norway to Spain. As early as the end of 1941, when he was preoccupied by the fierce battle for Moscow, Hitler sought to tackle this challenge. He issued orders for the defence of the Atlantic coastline, designed 'ultimately to be built into a "new West Wall", in order that we can be sure of repelling any landing attempt, however strong, with the minimum number of permanently stationed troops'.
He did not give the matter any real further thought until March 1942, when he warned, 'The coastline of Europe will, in the coming months, be exposed to the danger of an enemy landing in force.' He was right, because the British and Canadians were planning their large-scale raid on Dieppe. While his long-winded directive was mainly about command and tactical responsibilities, it did form the basis for the Atlantic Wall. He stated that 'the defence of fortified areas and strongpoints by infantry' was to be treated as a priority. This task fell to Albert Speer and his troublesome deputy, Xaver Dorsch.
General Adolf Kuntzen, commanding LXXXI Corps based in Rouen on the Seine in the summer of 1942, with responsibility for the 302nd and 336th Infantry Divisions, was charged with the defence of Dieppe and the surrounding region. It would fall to Kuntzen's corps, with the assistance of the 10th Panzer Division, to counter any Allied seaborne attacks in the area. Kuntzen was an experienced panzer corps commander, having fought in Poland and on the Eastern Front, and had been sent to take charge in April 1942.
Field Marshal von Rundstedt had ensured that Dieppe was well defended. The port itself was held by Major-General Conrad Hasse's 302nd Division, which included many foreign 'volunteers'. Its equipment also included captured Czech, British and French weapons. The 302nd had a single French tank cemented into the sea wall, and French trucks were used to tow its 75mm anti-tank guns. Hasse's real strength was his artillery and coastal gun batteries on the surrounding headlands. The 1,500m-long beach at Dieppe was hemmed in by two headlands; the western one dubbed Hindenburg and the eastern one Bismarck. Both had gun emplacements, creating a murderous cross-fire. It was not a good place for the Allies to probe Hitler's defences.
The nearest German armour within striking distance belonged to the 10th Panzer Division, under General Wolfgang Fischer, stationed at Amiens 60 miles away. The 1st SS Panzer Division, under Lieutenant-General Josef 'Sepp' Dietrich, was 80 miles away north-west of Paris. Both divisions had been sent to France for refitting following heavy fighting on the Eastern Front.
Operation Jubilee, conducted on 19 August 1942, was conceived by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of British Combined Operations, and his naval advisor, Captain John Hughes-Hallet, as a way of testing German defences prior to reopening the Western Front. It was green-lighted at the most senior levels by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt. In addition to frontally assaulting Dieppe, there were to be other landings, including Pourville to the west and Berneval to the east. Tanks would only be involved in the attack on Dieppe itself. Allied preparations and training on the Isle of Wight could not be completely concealed, and by mid-June 1942 Hitler's intelligence was expecting some kind of large-scale assault on the French coast.
Supporting the 5,000 infantry of Major-General J.H. Roberts' Canadian 2nd Division, 1,000 Royal Marine Commandos and fifty US Rangers allocated to the raid, was the Canadian 14th Tank Battalion, Calgary Tank Regiment, equipped with the British Churchill tank. Three flame-thrower tanks were also earmarked for the operation. To make the tanks waterproof up to a depth of 7ft for wading purposes, disposable exhaust and trunking extensions were added.
German exercises at Dieppe proved that it was not good tank ground after the gravel on the beach clogged a panzer's tracks. The leading Canadian tanks were fitted with elementary bobbins with a rolled carpet of hessian and wooden paling strips. Also, to get the Churchills over the shingle, sappers were to unroll 4ft wide and 250ft long bundles of wired wood matting known as chespaling.
The Canadian tankers were not expecting to encounter any panzers; Dieppe was only garrisoned by infantry. However, it was recognised that it was likely to be a one-way trip for some if not all of the Churchill tanks. To that end, each was equipped with nitro-glycerine bombs to prevent them falling into enemy hands intact. Adjutant Austin Stanton of the Calgarys, upon reading that it was planned to re-embark the tanks and troops from in front of Dieppe, remarked drily, 'The only thing they had forgotten to mention was that tea and cakes would be served on the beach.'
This was not the first time the Allies had attacked occupied France. Churchill's first major raids occurred at Bruneval to capture a radar and at St Nazaire to destroy the dry dock in early 1942. While both were successes, the latter saw 185 British troops killed and 200 captured from a raiding force of just 611 men. Things did not bode well for the forthcoming Dieppe raid.
This operation was a lot more ambitious and involved tanks. The Canadian 14th Tank Battalion had been mobilised on 11 February 1941, and by late June was en route to Britain. Initially, the Calgarys were equipped with the British Matilda II tank for training purposes. On 19 November 1941, the battalion's war diary recorded:
Today the battalion took over its first Mark IV Tanks (Churchills). The Mark IIA Tanks (Matildas) with which the battalion is now equipped are being turned in as Mark IVs become available. Present indications are that the changes will be made quite quickly for more and more Churchills are being made available for issue to regiments.
An inkling of the unit's role in the Dieppe attack was gained on 4 December 1941, when its diary noted, 'A special film called "Combined Operations" was shown to Officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] in the 'A' Sqn NAAFI hut. This film showed the various types of landing craft built for assaulting a hostile coast, and also the various ways in which such a coast may be attacked.' As a result, the rumour that the Second Front was about to be opened quickly spread.
Throughout December, the Canadians continued to return their Matildas to the ordnance depots at either Aldershot or Bordon Camp while drawing Churchills to replace them. Taking delivery of the new tanks turned out to be a time-consuming process; not only did each item of equipment have to be checked, but also the greatest care had to be exercised in checking the lubrication, track tension and the remainder of the suspension and hydraulic lines before it could be safely driven away. The manufacturers, Vauxhall, sent its representatives to instruct the Canadians on how to handle the engine. Once fully equipped, planning efforts turned to Dieppe.
On 16 August 1942, the Calgarys transported eighteen Churchill tanks from Seaford to Gosport ready for embarkation; the rest moved to Newhaven under their own power. The following day they were loaded onto the landing ships, and by 0300 hours on the 19th they were 8 miles off Dieppe. The assault fleet comprised eight escort destroyers, nine landing ships, thirty-nine coastal craft and 179 landing craft; in the air, sixty-seven RAF squadrons provided cover, sixty of which were fighters.
While the port was to be stormed by six infantry battalions and an armoured regiment of the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division, No. 3 Commando, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Durnford-Slater, was to silence the German Goebbels battery at Berneval to the east and No. 4 Commando, under Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Lovat, the Hess batteries to the west at Varengeville. Also, on the flanks, the Camerons and South Saskatchewans were to secure Porville and the Royal Regiment's objective was Puits. The Essex Scottish, Fusiliers Mont-Royal and Royal Marines, supported by the Calgary tanks, were to barge their way into Dieppe itself.
Sergeant George Cook of No. 4 Commando, upon hitting the beaches, got over the wire and was relieved to find the German machine-gunners in the pillboxes were firing high. After that their luck was in short supply as a mortar took out four men. Cook remembered:
Sergeant Horne and I had cut some barbed wire. He started cutting, and then I heard an 'Urgh' – and when I looked, there was Sergeant Horne, blood spurting out of his chest. He looked as though he was dead – which was a bit of a shock to me, because he was about the toughest fellow I ever knew, was Geordie Horne. Then I got hit in the face and the shoulder. That was me out of it.
No. 4 Commando scored one of the few successes at Dieppe, destroying the Varengeville battery, though it cost them twelve dead and twenty wounded. In contrast, No. 3 Commando ran into a German convoy on the run-in and only twenty men got ashore. The air cover provided by the RAF also received a rough reception. 'We were taking some Canadians to drop them on a quay at Dieppe,' recalled French seaman Albert Quesnée on the Bayonne, 'but of course the Germans were there. That was a bad day, a bad day. I've never seen so many planes come down in the water.'
The Canadian tanks were to attack in four waves; the first with nine tanks supporting the assaulting infantry; the second with twelve tanks; the third with sixteen tanks; and the fourth with the rest of the regiment. Following a preliminary bombardment, the landings started at 0530 hours, though a naval engagement in the Channel followed by an air attack tipped off the Germans that something was going on. During the run-in to Dieppe, the Tank Landing Craft (LCTs) were 15 vital minutes late, leaving the infantry pinned down on the beach.
The first three LCTs, each carrying three tanks and a jeep, were met by heavy fire. Churchills bearing the names Cougar, Cat and Cheetah were landed near the harbour mole, but, wasting more precious time, their cold engines in turn stalled on the ramp. Although the first tank was hit three or four times, the armour withstood the punishment and it kept going, rolling right over the thick belt of barbed wire.
The old French tank armed with a 37mm gun and incorporated into the German defences engaged the Churchill. In a stroke of bad luck, the static tank had been unmanned until a German sentry ducked inside and proceeded to expend 185 rounds against the Canadians. Cougar found the sea had conveniently created a pebble ramp up the sea wall, and drove up onto the promenade. Behind it, Cheetah frightened the Germans manning a nearby pillbox into flight. Cat was finally freed from the landing craft ramp, but in the confusion drove up the beach with a scout car still attached.
In the meantime, the LCT crews were suffering terribly from heavy German mortar bombardment. Bravely, the Canadian machine-gunners exposed on the decks returned fire. However, the sappers and mortar men were unable to deploy. Badly damaged, LCT 2 escaped out to sea; LCT 1, after getting its Churchills – Company, Calgary and Chief – ashore in three minutes, drifted away to sink.
The three flame-throwing tanks on LCT 3 met an equally hot reception, with mortar bombs dropping right on them. 'About 200 yards out a terrific concentration of fire opened up on our craft,' said Captain Dick Eldred of the Calgarys on LCT 3. 'Most of our gunners were quickly knocked out of action and though their places were immediately taken these too became casualties.'
The first tank, Boar, commanded by Captain Bill Purdy, crashed through the ramp and drowned, the LCT passing over it. When the craft hit the beach, the damaged ramp folded under it, leaving a 10ft drop; however, Bull and Beetle drove ashore, having inadvertently crushed some of their own men. One lost a track on the shoreline and was stranded, while the other tore off the flame-flower fuel container and could only be used as a gun tank.
At 0605 hours the second wave of LCTs, carrying another dozen tanks, arrived. Further Churchill tanks borne by LCT 4, 5 and 6 now came in; although 4 burst into fire 200 yards from the beach and sank, it got tanks Burns, Bolster and Backer ashore. The German defenders, realising they could not pierce the Churchills' impervious armour, switched their fire onto the vulnerable tracks.
In this area of the sea front, unfortunately for the Canadian tankers, the Germans had only recently cleared the shingle from the sea wall using a digger, forcing the tanks to veer side-on. Major Page in Burns noted, 'I gave orders to turn to the right and that's when I was hit. I was just on the crest at the top of the trench dug by the excavator and the right track was blown off. The left one went on for a few seconds and kind of pulled me into the trench.'
The other two tanks also lost their tracks before they could clear the beach.
Similarly, after Buttercup, Blossom and Bluebell were landed, LCT 5 was destroyed. LCT 6 took three attempts to land Bert, Bob and Bill. The Canadian infantry and sappers had just as bad a time as the tanks and the casualties were very heavy, with some men refusing to leave their craft. LCT 7 put ashore Beefy, Bellicose and Bloody, followed by LCT 8, 9 and 10. Only ten tanks reached the shore from the third wave, and the fourth wave were not landed, as by 0900 hours it was clear they could achieve little.
RAF Squadron Leader 'Johnny' Johnson of 616 Squadron said:
We could see very little except a bloody great pall of smoke over the town, and lots of shelling going on down below. But we could do nothing about it because the attackers and defenders were all within a hundred yards of each other. We couldn't help the army ... we knew that the whole thing had been a disaster – but there was nothing we could do to help them.
At 0625 hours, the two German panzer divisions had been put on alert to move. Some 15 minutes later, the Dieppe German Naval Semaphore station signalled headquarters, 'The enemy continues to land at Dieppe. Destroyers making smoke along the coast. Up till now 12 tanks have been landed, of which one is on fire.' The 10th Panzer headed north at 0900 but, lacking adequate maps and with worn-out vehicles, its progress was far from proficient, and the Luftwaffe was equally slow off the mark to react.
At Dieppe, General Hasse's defences were such that the Churchills found themselves hemmed in and could not penetrate the town, where they could have created havoc. From a force of twenty-nine tanks landed during Operation Jubilee, two drowned and twelve never got off the beach. Although the remaining fifteen got onto the esplanade, they could not pierce the anti-tank obstacles the Germans had erected.
Bill did attempt to navigate a gap in the Rue de Sygogne, but lost a track and blocked the approach to the street. Bellicose was more successful in assisting with the attack on the Casino building, though got no further. Frustrated, the men of the Calgarys could only drive up and down, blazing away until their ammunition ran out. The defenders' 37mm anti-tank guns had little effect on the Churchills' armour, and 75mm rounds penetrated only two tanks. According to a subsequent German military report, twenty-four tanks were put out of action by artillery in the area of the beach and only five made it to the roadway.
Following the Allies' evacuation order at 1100 hours, the tank crews were instructed to destroy their vehicles with the nitro-glycerine bombs. The crews in those tanks trapped on the beach, once they had run out of ammunition, remained inside rather than risk the murderous German fire raking their hulls. Also, some crews had left these highly dangerous devices behind or dumped them overboard on the way over. 'I flew over Dieppe four times on 19 August 1942,' recalled Squadron Leader Johnson, 'but I didn't realise what an impossible tactical situation it was.' From the Calgarys landed, only one man got back to Britain. That evening the Luftwaffe chivalrously dropped photos on the Canadians' barracks at Seaford in Sussex showing those who had survived.
At 1215 hours, German headquarters issued orders stating, '[T]he 10th Panzer Division, tanks and artillery should immediately go forward. Every weapon available must now contribute to the total destruction of the enemy.' Fischer's panzers arrived at Dieppe just as the survivors were surrendering at 1308 hours. The Germans bombastically noted, 'Our rapid intervention and the powerful aspect of the panzer division made a great impression on the populace.' At 1640, senior panzertruppen were ordered immediately to examine the captured Churchill tanks.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "1944 D-Day"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Anthony Tucker-Jones.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Half-Man, Half-Beast,
1 Absolute Disaster,
2 Pouring Concrete,
3 A Pleasant Chateau,
4 The European Tour,
5 The Fanatic,
6 Get Monty,
7 Weird & Wonderful,
8 Send the Engineers,
9 A Nice Lunch,
10 Blinding the Enemy,
11 The Weatherman,
12 Broken Cricket,
13 Orne Bound,
14 Ashore with the 'Funnies',
15 Touch & Go,
16 Smashing the Mulberries,
17 Cherbourg Captured,
18 Caen Linchpin,
19 Cobra Strikes,
20 Going for Broke,
21 Total Destruction,
22 De Gaulle Pulls It Off,
23 Hitler's Great Escape,
24 Novel Mechanical Contrivances,
Appendices,
79th Armoured Division 'The Funnies',
Royal Marines Armoured Support Group,
Principal D-Day Training Facilities,
Force Mulberry,
Allied Order of Battle,
British and Canadian Forces,
European Allies,
American Forces,
Allied Expeditionary Air Force,
Allied Strategic Air Force,
Allied Naval Forces,
German Order of Battle,
Notes & References,
Bibliography,
Acknowledgements,