Let´s suggest that the Germans had been drinking heavily and the operation Jubilee was a success even though some heavy losses had taken place.

Now if we consider the fate of operation Overlord would it take place in Normandy (still) or would the troops try to take cities with harbors in frontal attacks like in Jubilee??

Or would the fate of Overlord be decided during other operations?

Any opinions?

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Despite the awful losses it could still be argued that in it's overall aims Dieppe was a success. Looked at as the 'Reconnaissance in force' it was intended to be it underlined how hard an assault on the French coast could become, perhaps sending the message to America that Churchill wanted to give; that the 'second front' would not be an easy matter and could not be rushed.

There's an essential question of 'what was the point?' anyway. As the intention was to eventually withdraw with prisoners I've never been convinced that the attack was finally allowed for much other than propaganda purposes, something which signally backfired.

If it had truly succeeded rather than turning into a bloodbath it raises a variety of possibilities. I wonder if a false impression would have been gained leading to an earlier 'half-baked' DDay? As these lessons were being learnt across the world anyway this seems unlikely. Sadly I don't think a succesful Dieppe would have been worth much more than a boost to the Morale of the allied side and an 'inconvenience' for the Germans, (not unlike the magnificent St. Nazaire Raid). A hell of a price for the Canadians to pay for a potential morale-boost?
Cheers,
Adam

(Photo gallery here with some variety from the usual Dieppe shots.)

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"Now if we consider the fate of operation Overlord would it take place in Normandy (still) or would the troops try to take cities with harbors in frontal attacks like in Jubilee??"

No, Historically at least back to Greek times & probablly earlier the prefered method is to land away from the port & take it from the land. On the rare occasion ports are taken by direct assualt it is with complete suprise, and often with a supporting attack from the land. Ussualt direct attacks fail just as at Dieppe.

The US Army understood this. Staff studies & field exercises for amphibious ops in the 1930s revolved around flanking the port & attacking overland. This was the practice of the US Army in the War Between the States.

I'm not at all sure why the Brits tried it the hard way at Dieppe. One possiblity is the final plan was made up by a commanders staff with very little training or exerpience. The Dieppe plan was originally created by Mountbattens combined operations HQ, which had run many sucessfull raids on the European coast. Mountbatten was tranfered to India and for some reason the complete responsibility for the Dieppe action was handed off to another Army HQ.

In November 1942 there was a similar fiasco during operation Torch. A British naval force, with US Rangers, tried to directly sieze the port of Oran. Two Ranger battalions on two destroyers charged straight into the harbor so as to capture the docks & prevent facisit sabotage. Unfortunatlly the mission commander & staff scheduled the entry into the harbor two hours after the main US landing occured several miles up the coast. The French were of course alerted and the attackers were massacred with both ships sunk and all survivors taken prisoner. Since this was a Britsh peration its curious as to why the Brit Commandos were not available. The Rangers were ordered to join the Brits in the interest of Allied solidarity & cooperation, but I have to wonder if they thought to whole thing insane .

Even with Monty saying that the operation was doomed to fail before he was shipped to afirica they still went ahead with it!! There was never a full committment with all forces ( Air Force and the Navy). It was doomed from the start

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Facta non verba. "Deeds, not words"

It was a dreadful wast of life but we did learn one thing from it, if we were to return to Europe we we had to plan the operation out right down to the last detail.

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Regards, Richard

Monty had been a lowly corps commander to that point. One of several dozen (tho a very good one). His fame & prestige came months later. Higher ranking gnerals were betting their careers on the Canadians at Dieppe & the opinon of that chap Montgomery did not count for much that month.

If Brooke or another of that exhalted station had stepped in sanity might have prevailed.

This is almost exactly what the new "Britain at War" magazine says - it was all a propaganda ploy - not for the public but to prove to the Americans and Russians that the invasion of Europe had to be delayed until 1944. Churchill knew that the Allies weren't ready for a second front but both Roosevelt and Stalin were eager for one as soon as possible.

The magazine calls it a sacrifice for the greater good (and the allies did learn that the ports were as heavily defended as they feared. They also learnt that beach geology analysis had to take a greater priority).

"This is almost exactly what the new "Britain at War" magazine says - it was all a propaganda ploy - not for the public but to prove to the Americans and Russians that the invasion of Europe had to be delayed until 1944. Churchill knew that the Allies weren't ready for a second front but both Roosevelt and Stalin were eager for one as soon as possible.

The magazine calls it a sacrifice for the greater good (and the allies did learn that the ports were as heavily defended as they feared. They also learnt that beach geology analysis had to take a greater priority)."

Back in the 1970s there were some folks claiming Churchill arraigned for the Germans to know of the attack beforehand to ensure it failed. This was ascribed to:

A. A cynical effort to ensure the silly Yanks would understand invading Europe soon was impossible.

B. A cynical effort to convince the Germans they had good agents at large in Britian. This was hoped to aid the Allied deception efforts.


I'm strongly of the opinion that the thing was botched by the inexperince of the staff planning it. The errors were the sort that the more experinced people in Mountbattens group, or the US Navy had already learned. Indeed the British Army in WWI looks to me to have had a better grasp in general of the details of modern amphibious ops than the group who made the key decsions for the Dieppe raid.

What I read in the earlier mentioned book about the higher levels making the decisions for Dieppe it seems the different branches of service were represented but nobody really had the highest power to decide what really comes along leading to insufficient backup by the navy or the air force.This more or less reminds me of the WW1 until there was a commander to lead all the ops for the Allied and leading the war to victory.

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From Robin Neillands " Dieppe "

Rutter ( called off and later "renamed" Jubilee ) was commanded by a Triumvirate, with no one person directly responsible for all of it. Triumvirate control was common practice in the British Services at the time, not least because no service officer wished to place himself under the command of an officer from anoter service. Inevitably this led to " Command by committee" and presented endless opportunities for "passing the buck".

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i dont have anything on the shelf here specificlly concerning Jubilee. Can you refresh my memory? Specificlly what commanders & which HQ were involved in the execution of the mission? Particularly who did the commander of the Canadian Divsions report to?

Ok. It will take a while as I have not the book with me but I´ll bring the results ( some two pages...) on the decision making by different parties...

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Got round to reading the article Amrit refers to and it says that Montgomery was in overall charge of the Military planning for Rutter & Jubilee. It also says that most unusually for him he burnt all of his personal papers relating to the raid afterwards.
It's an interesting article, quite thought-provoking as it implies that the single most important factor in the decision to go ahead was in salving the clamour for a second front, not only from America and Russia but also from Churchills own population who were just as eager for an attack.
One very interesting remark cited is from Churchill to Stalin shortly before Dieppe telling him that he expected as many as 10,000 casualties. This is contrasted with the 8,000 men who actually participated and seems to me to be a decent piece of circumstantial evidence (combined with odd denial of Naval support, ignoring intelligence, Alanbrooke saying it taught those that called for a 2nd front a lesson etc.) that something rather Machiavellian was going on.

If it really was a rather realpolitik attempt to save more lives by demonstrating just how bloody an ill-prepared landing would be then I'd have to rethink my earlier remark that it signally failed as propaganda. As a story for the masses it was certainly bad news but if the target really was the Staffs and Politicians of the other allies then it appears most successful. The biggest problem with a grim decision like that is that nobody involved in it (and I pity the people who faced such hard choices) could ever concede that this is what happened, making confirmation of the story much harder to obtain.

None of this diminishes the personal tragedies of so many men on the beaches but it may increase the value of their sacrifice in the overall war effort?
Cheers,
Adam.

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It seems we have to handle some things on RUTTER first.

Also from Dieppe by Neillands

" Once the outline plan was approved the final plan for the attack could be prepared. To this end three " Force Commanders " were appointed by the Chiefs of Staff: A Naval Force Commander, in the case of Rutter Rear-Admiral H.T. Baillie-Grohman; and Air Force Commander, Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory; and a Ground Force Commander, Major-General Hamilton
" Ham " Roberts of the 2nd Canadian division. Their task was to draw up the final plan for the operation and be responsible for their respective Services thereafter.

....

The theory ( Triumvirate system ) was that since a Combined Operation involved all three Services, each Service should have a say in the planning, provide the necessary espertise and ensure that the operation got the necessary amount of support. This seems reasonable , but the snag was that the three Force Commanders had split loyalties and were inevitably concerned not simply with Combined Operations and the task in hand, but also with their own Service interests.

For example when it became apparent that the land forces at Dieppe needed a capital ship, an 8-in-gun cruiser or a battle ship for bombardment purposes, Rear-Admiral Baillie-Grohman was tasked to obtain one from Admiral Sir William James, the naval officer in charge. The Admiral quickly told him that the RN had no intention whatsoever of sending a capital ship into Mid-Channel in broad daylight where it could be sunk by the Luftwaffe. As a loyal naval officer Baillie-Grohman was obliged to accept the decision.
To his credit, Mountbatten, who was closely involved in the planning, did not give up on the need for a heavy-gun warship, went in person to see the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, and asked for a battle ship. He got the same answer.

Much the same situation affected AIr Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory.Here again, the landing forces needed a heavy air bombardment of the port and the headlands before the troops landed- and especially if they were to be denied the support of heavy naval guns - but for various reasons, not least the threat to French civilian lives, Leigh-Mallory was told by his superiors that, following a directive from the PM office, a heavy raid on Dieppe by RAF Bomber Command would not be permitted.Leigh-mallory accepted this decision and sold it to his colleagues.

On 7 July, the operation RUTTER was cancelled. Less than two weeks later Operation Rutter, now codenamed JUBILEE, was back on again.

According to the book, Montgomery was out of the operation planning once Rutter was cancelled, as well as the Naval Force commander Baillie-Grothman, replaced by Captain John Hughes-Hallett.

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Seems possible that after the Rutter operation was compromised (by an air attack on the prepared force and weather conditions) that Montgomery almost washed his hands of it. I think they imply His overall responsibility for both operations because the plan was not changed sufficiently to really differentiate between the two.

Another quote from the article is a conversation he had with CinC home forces at the time of Jubilee's instatement.
"If another raid was mounted... the objective should be anywhere but Dieppe because of German foreknowledge", this based on the air observation and the fact that fully briefed forces had been, as the article says; "stood down and allowed to mix with the Civilian community" .

Bearing in mind that Montgomery was an absolute golden boy in Alanbrooke's eyes, definitely one of his proteges. It seems even more peculiar that that most sensible of CIGS would disregard a forthright military opinion that he absolutely trusted and respected for almost the entire course of the war from field command in France 1940 & onwards...
It's the case that Montgomery went to Africa 6 days before Dieppe but the thought occurs (and it is only a thought); Though Africa was obviously important and he was due to go anyway, was he sent at that immediate time because of the real operational need? or perhaps even allowed to jump away from association with inevitable disaster at Dieppe by the almost doting Alanbrooke?

Cheers,
Adam.

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Quick quote from Montgomery's somewhat self serving memoirs, I'd take almost everything in the book with a pinch of salt but it is interesting nonetheless:
Whenever he says 'I' in that somewhat imperious manner I always wonder who the 'we' involved actually were. Top bloke in my opinion but undeniably (perhaps justifiably) somewhat arrogant.

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Also the German defence was not considered a real danger....

Also from Neillands´" Dieppe raid "

However, general impression gained from studying the various planning meeting minutes is one of optimism: the German defenders were a poor lot, not expected to put up much resistance, and where defences could not be seen it was assumed they did not exist. Indeed, the final plan for Rutter, sent to the CCS on 9 May, blithely comments : " Dieppe is not heavily defended and some of the beaches in the vicinity are suitable for landing infantry and armoured fighting vehicles."

Seems like nothing changed or could be changed for Jubilee.

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