More than 6,000 men crossed the Channel for what should have been a surprise raid, yet fewer than 2,500 escaped unscathed. Gavin Mortimer remembers the 1942 debacle some call a necessary precursor to D-Day

Dieppe is considered one of the worst disasters in Canadian military history; this sea of abandoned helmets attests as to why

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Captain Pat Porteous was 24 years old and, like nearly all of his fellow commandos, had yet to see action with his elite unit. For 18 months they had done nothing but train; now, finally, they were about to be blooded.

On 18 August 1942, they travelled from their base in Weymouth to a transit camp in Southampton. Later that evening, the 252 soldiers of No 4 Commando filed onto a converted Belgian ferry called the Prins Albert, departing amid a flotilla of troopships, destroyers and minesweepers.

Porteous dozed off for a couple of hours, as the minesweepers cleared a gap through the explosive-laden middle reaches of the English Channel. On waking, he and the other commandos were given a bowl of hot stew before being instructed to make their way to the lower decks ready to embark into the eight landing vessels secured to the ship’s exterior. “Everyone was ready, grenades primed, magazines filled; everything was ready,” Porteous later recalled. “As soon as we got to the lowering position, we were lowered away.”

Waiting to escort the commandos was a steam gunboat and an armed motor launch. Porteous, thankful that the sea was calm, was struck by the peacefulness of the scene as they chugged the remaining ten miles to the still-invisible French coast.

His reverie was shattered by a powerful explosion away to their east. A boom, and another, then the thump-thump-thump of a heavy machine gun. The night sky was illuminated like a firework display. Porteous turned his face towards the shore and prayed his luck would hold as they headed towards Dieppe.

The Normandy coastal resort of Dieppe had been a popular haunt for British holidaymakers since the mid 19th century. It had dramatic cli s, an expansive shingle beach and a well-maintained port, all of which the Germans had put to good use following their conquest of France in 1940. To guard their own ships at anchor, they had sited gun batteries on the cli tops and built elaborate defensive positions on the pebble shore.

The landing craft (inset) were subjected to a dive-bombing barrage – 33 of the 179 were sunk, as was one of the escorting destroyers

DID YOU KNOW?

Only one unit that took part in this raid was French-Canadian the Fusiliers Mont-Royal from Montreal. Of its 584 soldiers who landed, only 125 made it back to safety.

LOSING ON ALL FRONTS

Spring 1942 had seen Germany in a dominant position, its armies making gains in Russia and North Africa. In the Far East, Britain was fairing poorly, having been dispossessed of Burma, Singapore and Hong Kong by Japan. Winston Churchill needed a morale booster, something to lift the British people and prove to his allies that there was still plenty of bite left in the bulldog. And so it was decided to launch a large-scale raid on Dieppe, which would also act as a trial run for an invasion proper, whenever that day might come.