The Dieppe Raid: August 19, 1942

Red Beach - Dieppe East

Essex Scottish Regiment

MEN:                             553

RETURNED:                 9%

COMMANDER:            LT. COL. FRED JASPERSON

The Germans had razed buildings to give their guns unobstructed fields of fire. Hotels had been transformed into sandbagged machine-gun nests and sniper hideouts. Even the casino had been partly demolished and concrete pillboxes built among the debris. Halfway up the sloping beach was barbed wire six to ten feet thick; more was strung along the top of the seawall and still more crisscrossed the esplanade.    

The harbor entrance at the east end of the beach - the Essex Scottish end - consisted of two large piers or moles 300 yards long. It lay under the shadow of the east headland, which was pitted with caves. On both headlands guns the attackers knew about enfiladed the entire beach; other weapons they knew nothing about were concealed in the caves: anti-tank guns, machine guns and light artillery which could be run out to fire and withdrawn in the face of bombardment.

Particularly dangerous were the big funs on the headlands, the machine-gun emplacements in the battlements of an old castle on the west end, a tank cemented into a harbor mole and a fortified tobacco factory facing the beach.

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Pined along the seawall, Colonel Jasperson realized the Essex Scottish were in a trap from which few could escape. But CSM. Cornelius Stapleton exploded a Bangalore torpedo under the wire on the seawall, let out a mighty battle cry, and charged through the gap with about 15 men at his heels. They crossed the Boulevard Marйchal Foch, made a crouching, zigzag dash for more than 100 yards across the promenade and stormed over the Boulevard Verdun, throwing grenades at the windows of buildings facing them, firing guns from their hips and bellowing their hate. At the seawall a section of men, shouting encouragement, stood up and fired incendiary grenades, attempting to cover the charge by setting fire to the buildings. The tobacco factory exploded into flames as Stapleton and his men broke into a building east of it, blowing down doors, blowing out shuttered windows and leaping into smoke-filled infernos of their own creation.

Some of the group splintered off to another building, exacting terrible retribution for the slaughter on the beach. A third party reached the east end of the boulevard and mowed down enemy troops debussing from trucks. Their ammunition all but expended, the tattered party rejoined the housecleaning group, then raced across that fire-filled esplanade.

Almost 30 minutes after their exodus from behind the seawall, Stapleton was back. His brief foray would greatly influence the operation. Shortly after 6 a.m. Jasperson had used the only walkie-talkie still working to inform RHLI: "Twelve of our men in the buildings. Have not heard from them for some time." Calpe (the headquarters destroyer) intercepted this signal. Placed in the context of reports from elsewhere, it suggested occupation of buildings facing Red Beach and partial consolidation of the beach itself. General Roberts wanted the east headland. At 6:10 the intercepted message was reinforced by solid evidence that he might get it via Red Beach.

At 6:15 his hopes were given further encouragement when Labatt reported the RHLI were at the casino. Five minutes later Roberts received a distorted signal from the naval beachmaster with the Royal Regiment at Puys: "Impossible land troops." The words "any more" preceding "troops" had been omitted. After a brief conference with Hughes-Hallett, Roberts decided to commit the Royals - whom he now thought to be lying off Puys in assault boats - to Red Beach, from where they might still assault the east headland. In fact, the Royals had already been decimated. The FMR, Roberts' reserve battalion, still had not been committed.

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