DIEPPE 1942 The Jubilee Disaster: Operation Jubilee and the raid that failed

THE CLASSIC EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE DIEPPE RAID

‘Vivid with eye-witness accounts, probing sensibly and impartially into the claims, confusions and recriminations, this book is a model of its kind’ The Observer

In the summer of 1942, with Stalin demanding a second front and no invasion of France remotely possible, Churchill needed something to offer his allies. What he offered was Dieppe.

On 19 August some 6,000 men — the great majority Canadians, with British Commandos and a small detachment of American Rangers — were put ashore at the German-held Channel port, to seize a defended town in daylight and withdraw on a single tide. Nine hours later it was over. Of the 5,000 Canadians who sailed, 3,367 were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The RAF lost 106 aircraft, its heaviest single day of the war. The recriminations have never entirely subsided.

Ronald Atkin wrote this account while the men who fought at Dieppe were still living, and it rests on interviews with some fifty of them: Canadian infantrymen, Lord Lovat’s Commandos, the German officers who took their surrender, the townspeople who buried the dead. He reconstructs the operation hour by hour and beach by beach, weighing the claims later made for the raid against what happened on the shingle.

PRAISE FOR DIEPPE 1942:

‘ A starkly evocative picture of a landmark of carnage which was later described as ‘one of the great failures of history ’ Daily Mail

‘ Well researched and very readable . . . Mr Atkin is of the Cornelius Ryan school of historian, bringing his canvas to life by innumerable interviews with participators ’ Daily Telegraph

‘ Within a sensible framework of fact, a litany of the lost and the lucky who lived . . . a plain tale, blood-drenched by survivors’ memories ’ The Times

‘ A thoroughly researched piece of work with a keen eye for the human and humorous aspects ’ Birmingham Post