Another rock; another beach

I wonder how big this beach rock was before that fateful 19th of August, 1942. Before it was blasted into the sky time and time again by German mortars; before it was chiseled and spun and skipped along the beach by German machine gun and rifle fire; before it was kicked by leather Canadian boots or crushed by Canadian tanks?

Dieppe. Jesus Christ, who sent the men into that hell!! A stony beach; a break wall; concrete tank defenses; towering cliffs on either side of the beach; German machine guns sighted in on every inch of the shoreline.

Before the landing craft could hit the beach German artillery and mortars were splashing, crashing and bursting around and into the assault craft. Some men were blown out of their landing craft, picked up by another and blown out of that one. Almost as many dead and wounded arrived on the beach as did the living.

Machine guns chattering from the cliffs; raking the swarms of infantry men as they hit the shore. To make it to the wall was nothing more than sheer luck, egged on by guts and or fear.

Rocks jamming tank bogey wheels. Tracks thrown off. Tank crews swept by machine gun fire as they were escaping their vehicles. Some tanks made it into the villages. None came back.

Operation ‘Jubilee’ it was named. No jubilation that day!

Pinned down; the ‘zip’, ‘zip’, ‘zip’ of Mauser and machine gun bullets above the din of mortar explosions. Rocks, pebbles, sand and bodies hurled into the air; the rocks to fall back to the beach; the bodies to eternity.
Men of the Canadian 4th Infantry Brigade: Royal Regiment of Canada, Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Essex Scottish Regiment. The Canadian 6th Infantry Brigade: Fusiliers Mont Royal, Cameron Highlanders of Canada, South Saskatchewan Regiment, Canadian 14th Tank Battalion (Calgary Regiment) – 907 of them joined in the Regiment of the Dead. Nearly 600 hundred of them wounded. Almost 2,000 made prisoner.
The raid was called a reconnaissance in force. The men would later call it suicide.

Acts of heroism – plenty!
Self sacrifice? Plenty!
Sheer stupidity? Only in the planning rooms back in England.

We have Dieppe towns and villages. Dieppe streets and schools. Do many people know where the name of their town, village, school or street came from? Probably not. Do many of them care? Probably not.

Such is Canada.

Lest We Forget

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