Dieppe question - tank recovery?

Discussion in 'NW Europe' started by Chris C, Dec 6, 2019.

  1. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Someone asked this on another forum and I didn't know the answer.

    Supposing the Dieppe raid had been a massive success and the force was able to withdraw without being under any fire, was there a plan to recover the Churchills used in the operation?
     
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  2. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    What would be a massive success?,the operation was not planned to be anything but an excursion into Europe with withdrawal planned on the same day.There was no plan to remain as a bridgehead.

    Not an operation which was conducive to the withdrawal of equipment such as tank or any similar vehicles...all such equipment would not be planned for recovery under any circumstances.
     
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  3. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    It was intended to test the ability to seize a port as would be needed for Sledgehammer. Presumably if this had been achieved it would have been possible to reembark any tanks still running
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2019
  4. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Sledgehammer was the US operation framed for an invasion of Europe in 1942 which was completely out of the question at the time of the Dieppe raid. Dieppe was a Combined Operations raid to which many of the British military leadership had reservations.

    What did WSC think of "Sledgehammer"...he made serious objections against its deployment in notes to Washington on two occasions,one on 8 July when he declared "Britain will not support Sledgehammer" Then on 14 July 1942.his note recorded "I am most anxious for you to know where I stand myself at the present time.I have found no one who regards "Sledgehammer" as possible.I should like you to do Torch as soon as possible and we in concert with the Russians should try for "Jupiter."Meanwhile all preparations for Roundup in 1943 should proceed at full blast,thus holding the maximum enemy forces opposite England"

    Marshall thought otherwise from a point that as chief of the US Army,there was no enemy and no military problem that could not be overcome by determination,energy and if necessary by force.On the other hand British experience of the war so far believed that the Wehrmacht could not be defeated as easily and simply as Marshall supposed.This led to a potential breakdown in the Atlantic Alliance with the possibility of the US withdrawing from the European war and concentrating on the war in the Pacific and Britain making out the best it could with US assistance in the war against Germany.The alliance survived and FDR wrote to WSC "I cannot help feeling that the past week represented a turning point in the whole war and that now we are on our way shoulder to shoulder"

    Dieppe was also an operation to placate Stalin for a show of strength in response to a plea for opening up the western front

    The conclusion was that it proved that a port could not be taken in conjunction for an invasion of Europe was made in the post assessment of the raid when people like WSC were attempting to justify the raid in good light. "My impression of Jubilee is that the results fully justified the heavy cost.The large scale air battle alone justified the raid"Hence the thinking of an alternative method of establishing an invasion force on the shores of Europe without using an established port was recognised by the military planners.

    Attempts to hold on to the port of Dieppe would have resulted in greater casualties and materiel losses than already suffered.In the circumstances there was no possibility in recovering tanks etc from a location where there would have been inadequate air cover and an uphill task to maintain a bridgehead against enemy forces freely available from occupied territory.
     
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  5. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    That may all well be but I was wondering if the contingency was considered in the plans. As in, if the town was taken, what was the evacuation plan?
     
  6. Orwell1984

    Orwell1984 Senior Member

    Robin Neillands in his book on Dieppe states the plan was for the tanks to be re-embarked from the main beach after the raid. Mark Tonner in The Churchill Tank and the Canadian Armoured Corps has training pictures that show tanks being loaded and unloaded on beaches as part of the training for Rutter, later the Dieppe Raid. I'll see if I can find other mentions in some other Dieppe titles I have.
     
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  7. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I don't know why I didn't think to check Tonner's book! I was thinking operationally.

    The second photograph on page 40 does look like a Churchill being driven onto a landing craft from a beach. I mean, it's either driving on board with the turret backwards, or backing off - and the latter seems unlikely.
     
  8. Orwell1984

    Orwell1984 Senior Member

    Here's a link to The Calgary Tanks at Dieppe by Hugh Henry in Canadian Military History:

    http://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1181&context=cmh

    See pages 62-3
    p 68
     
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  9. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Like so many other aspects of the Dieppe raid, that re-embarkation plan was badly flawed from the start.

    Dieppe 30.jpg dieppe-beach-1-copy1.jpg
     
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  10. Richelieu

    Richelieu Well-Known Member

    Hardly definitive but Lt. Col. G. C. Reeves’s remarks 28/8/42 includes:
    upload_2021-12-4_16-5-41.png
    Canadian Military Headquarters, London : T-20298 - Héritage
     
  11. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    The gravel pictures get a solid 'meh' from me.
    Can anyone name another contemporary tank other than Churchill that could've shrugged it off & mounted that wall after crossing the beach?
    David Fletcher & I are (probably) fascinated if anyone can make that case...

    Lazy history.
    Churchill was a beast, even before the re-work.

    Wdieppe-e1407793823697.jpg
     
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  12. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I'm afraid that I can't agree. Well, I do agree with your point about the Churchill, but I think it's beside the point.

    To me, it's not a criticism of the Churchill or whether a different tank could have made it up the beach, but rather that the plan was so slipshod that they had not accounted for the beach conditions.
     
  13. Wg Cdr Luddite

    Wg Cdr Luddite Well-Known Member

    I recently realised that by leaving the Churchills at Dieppe we probably gave Jerry his first working 6 pdrs.
     
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  14. DannyM

    DannyM Member

    Hi,
    They did have some idea what the beach was like.

    DSCF1196   B.jpg
    Description of the beach in the Naval Orders, July 1942

    How the losses were recorded in the Combined Report October 1942.
    DSCF5029   A.jpg DSCF5029  B.jpg

    And a bit about them from the author of Dieppe Through The Lens and The Tanks of Dieppe (1993)

    Of the 29 tanks that attempted to land, two drowned and the rest made it to shore. Of these 27, 15 crossed the seawall, although 10 ultimately returned to the beach in the area of the Casino, where one was immobilised by the chert. (21)

    The remaining 12 tanks never got off the beach; four had their tracks broken by shellfire, four by the chert and three most likely by the chert, although this is not certain. The last tank chose to stay on the beach and was mobile for the duration of the battle. (22) The tanks on the promenade drove back and forth, unable to penetrate the town because of the huge concrete road blocks, on which the tanks' puny armour-piercing shells had no effect.

    (21). Fifteen tanks across the wall is the standard figure quoted, see Stacey, Six Years of War, p.379; this is confirmed by the German document, "Report of the German C-in-C West on the Dieppe Raid, 19 August 1942," 3 September 1942, p.22 (Translated by Historical Section, CMHQ, Ottawa, November 1946), RG24, Vol.20429, File 981.013 (D6), NAC; air reconnaissance on 20 and 21 August revealed tank tracks crossing the seawall at eight places, Memorandum of interview of Major Tweedsmuir by Major J.D. Halbert, G.S.0.2, CMHQ, 27 August 1942, File 5025, The Tank Museum, Bovington, United Kingdom.


    Hugh G Henry is the author of Dieppe Through The Lens and The Tanks of Dieppe: The History of the Calgary Regiment (Tank), 1939 to August 19, 1942.

    Full article here https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1181&context=cmh

    Regards

    Danny
     
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