The Dieppe Raid: August 19, 1942

White Beach - Dieppe West

Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (RHLI)

MEN:                             582

RETURNED:                 37%

COMMANDER:            LT. COL. ROBERT LABBATT

On White Beach Lt. Col. Robert Labatt of the RHLI came out of his boat and slithered over a ridge of pebbles 25 yards to the left of the casino. To each side his companies were spreading out, blasting their way through the first wire. Men in a hollow ahead of Labatt fired at a pillbox on the left corner of the casino and at the windows protected by the barbed wire, and Labatt was transfixed at the sight of a soldier crawling under the lower strands. All sense of personal danger vanished. He ached to shout encouragement.

Only at the casino were the Canadians able to launch any real attacks. Capt. Denny Whitaker and one section of RHLI stormed the building. They stopped, hugging the walls of the entrance, blinking to adjust their eyes from sunlight to sudden shade. A rifle fired and one soldier collapsed fatally wounded. Pte. T. W. Graham, knowing he would be silhouetted against the light outside, moved quickly from the wall, throwing grenades in rapid succession. When the swirling smoke receded, five Germans had their hands in the air. Rifle fire from upstairs chipped the paneling near Whitaker's head and the stalking began, down long, narrow corridors, across balconies, from room to room.

Pte. A. W. Oldfield and three other soldiers started up a wide, circular staircase met four Germans running down. The enemy turned in sudden flight. Grenades blew them to pieces. Oldfield found a sniper and went after him with his bayonet. For the first time in his life he killed a man while looking into his face, watching him die, trying to free the bayonet before he vomited over the victim's face.

The casino was never quite cleared of the enemy. More than 100 RHLI, FMR, engineers and signalers occupied the first two floors, although enemy snipers continued to fire from the third floor and the roof. But the ground floor was available for sections trying to get through to the town.

Engineer Sgt. George Hickson, with 18 men, used that route to attempt to destroy a telephone exchange. In the Rue de la Martiniere snipers and machine guns pinned them against buildings and it seemed they were trapped. Most French civilians in the vicinity wore an insignia like a swastika. "We watched for some time before deciding these 'civilians' were really collaborators giving away our positions to the Germans", said Hickson. A Bren gunner aimed a long burst. The "civilians" scattered, running, the slower ones bowled over by bullets.

The sniper fire grew erratic and the Canadians retreated toward a cinema - but they didn't get far. Fifty yards away a German patrol occupied a house they would have to pass. The only way to do so would be to storm the place. They rushed the house, broke down the door, sprayed the hall with tommy guns, threw grenades and plunged into the clouds of smoke and dust with bayonets ready. A dozen Germans attacked with bayonets as the Canadians came upstairs. When the fight ended every German was dead, every Canadian wounded.

Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal (FMR)

MEN:                             584

RETURNED:                 21%

COMMANDER:            LT. COL. DOLLARD MENARD

The FMR, under Lt. Col. Dollard Menard, landed strung out along the beach most of them so far to the west that even White Beach was to their left. Nearly 200 reached the base of the west headland and huddled under the overhang against the face of the cliff. They were so far west they had found a beach of their own, a new one bared by the ebbing tide and on the right fringe of the battle.

Calgary Tank Regiment

MEN:                            417

RETURNED:                 59%

COMMANDER:            LT. COL. ANDREWS

When the Calgary Regiment and its Churchill tanks came in late, they found a beach where already 200 soldiers lay dad or wounded.

Twenty-nine tanks left their land craft. Two were "drowned" in deep water. The rest, due to a navigation error by the destroyer leading their landing craft in, reached the beaches ten minutes late. The infantry, instead of having tanks land simultaneously to cover them over the esplanade, went ashore alone. When the tanks did land, many were stopped by the seawall or bogged down in sand and stones. Some got around the low ends of the wall onto the esplanade, but none could get past the concrete obstacles the Germans had erected to bar the way into the streets of Dieppe. Nor could the engineers destroy the obstacles. But the Churchills remained in action nonetheless, firing on German positions and providing protection for the infantrymen pinned down on the beach.

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