The Dieppe Raid: August 19, 1942

Blue Beach - Puys

Royal Regiment of Canada

MEN:                             554

CASUALTIES:              96%

COMMANDER:            LT. COL. D. E. CATTO

The Royals and the company of Black Watch were very late. They should have been on the beach before dawn and it was grey morning now. The air force, spotting our trouble, dropped a ton of smoke bombs on the headland east of Dieppe harbour. This smoke curled down to the sea and covered us temporarily for the run-in. But the smoke was spotty and the last 30 yards was in  the clear. Geysers from shells shot in out path. The German ack-ack and machine guns on the cliff were deafening.   

The men in our boat crouched low. Then the ramp went down and the first infantrymen poured out. They plunged into about two feet of water and machine-gun bullets laced into them. Bodies piled up on the ramp. Some men staggered to the beach.

I was near the stern and to one side. Looking out the open bow, I saw 60 to 70 bodies, men cut down before they could fire a shot. A dozen Canadians were running along the beach toward the 12-foot-high seawall, 100 yards long. Some fired as they ran. Some had no helmets. Some were wounded, their uniforms torn and bloody. One by one the were hit and rolled down the slope to the sea.

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Only one party of Royals even got off the beach. Twenty officers and men led by Lt. Col. D. E. Catto cut through the wire at the west end of the seawall, reached the cliff top and cleared two houses, but machine-gun fire on the gap in the wire cut them off from support. When it was obvious the raiding force had withdrawn and there was no hope of being picked up, they surrendered.

The regiment was virtually wiped out. One of every two of its 554 officers and men died on the beach or later from wounds. Only 65 Royals got back to England and of theses only 22 were unwounded.

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