The Dieppe Raid: August 19, 1942

BATTLE ACCOUNTS

     

Battle Account of Sgt. Pierre Dubuc

Fusiliers Mont-Royal

Among the FMRs who landed just west of the casino was Sgt. Pierre Dubuc. He ran 100 yards up the beach to a depression where he stayed for "a long hour." Two pillboxes set into a seawall fired continuously over his hollow. Pte. N. Daudelin crawled in beside him, dragging a smoke-making machine. At Dubuc's order, Daudelin furiously cranked the handle of the machine. Germans in the pillboxes fired, but soon smoke hid him from sight. Then Dubuc and Daudelin wriggled on their stomachs to the sides of the pillboxes, stood up and dropped grenades through the gun slits.   

 

Beckoning Daudelin to follow, Dubuc ran and crawled 150 yards to an abandoned tank, and both men vanished inside. For 20 minutes they fired the tank's 6-pounder at enemy guns on the west headland, until there was no ammunition. Now they split up. Dubuc waved to a group of Fusiliers against the western cliff face. Eleven followed him about a mile through the streets of Dieppe to the inner harbor docks, Bassin Duquesne and Bassin du Canada.

At the Bassin du Canada they found two large barges tied up alongside a quay. Four of Dubuc's men boarded the barges while the rest stood guard on the quay and fought a spirited duel with sailors firing from below decks. When ammunition was all but expended, the party withdrew to look for cover and await the arrival of Royal Marines assigned to seize German invasion barges. "Just then," Dubuc said later, "15 Germans rushed us. We had no ammunition for the automatic weapons and little for the rifles. We surrendered. We were taken into a courtyard behind a house where the Germans shouted orders we couldn't understand."

An exasperated German burst out in English: "Undress or we shoot." Dubuc, speaking French, said that as French Canadians they could never accept an order given offensively in English. One German eventually confronted Dubuc to say curtly, in French: "Undress."

The Canadians stripped to their underwear and were told to stand with their faces to a wall, their hands raised. All but one of the Germans departed, taking the clothes and equipment. The lone guard was a boy about 17. In German, Dubuc asked: "Do you speak English or French?"

"English a bit, I speak."

"I suppose you're as hot and thirsty as we are. How about a drink of water?" The German turned to look for a tap and the Canadians sprang upon him. Someone lifted a short length of iron piping. The boy died.

The Canadians ran, each man for himself, heading back to the beach. As Dubuc scampered down one street after another, Frenchmen stared, girls squealed. He ran into a German patrol, swerved around them, his heart pounding. The sight of a man galloping in his underwear convulsed the Germans no less than the French. German catcalls followed him as he vanished into another street.

There was a pause in the gun duel between Canadians in the casino and Germans in the seafront buildings as the sweating figure in white underwear sprinted across the lines of fire. Dubuc cleared the seawall and lay panting on the beach, nursing the ache in his side and dripping wet from his run. A voice said: "Who are you?" He looked up into the smoke-blackened face of an RHLI sergeant and weakly replied: "Sergeant Dubuc, FMR." - "Then where the hell have you been out of uniform?"

 

Back to Dieppe Main Page

 

   

NAVIGATION: Dieppe to Berlin Home - Dieppe - Weapons - Battles - Command - Regiments

  Dieppe to Berlin: A Nation at War  - Website established on January 20, 2002  

1
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws