Many lessons in how to invade France were learned during operation Jubilee, but at a frightful cost to the Canadian and British invaders. So declared Maj. Not everyone involved in the large-scale raid was so sanguine. Leslie Ellis, a corporal in the Royal Regiment of Canada, was one of the fortunate few who made it back to England alive.
We were all well-trainedโฆ. We were proud to have done it; we were soldiersโฆ. We did what we were expected to do. I was fortunate that I got over the [beach] wall and got back with a few injuries, and the Good Lord spared me. It all happened so fast. After his unit crossed the beach, it quickly came under devastating German fire, and Ellis, like many of the other troops who were pinned down and facing certain death or capture, attempted to make a hasty retreat.
Dodging bullets and exploding shells, Ellis reached a landing craft at the edge of the surf, but it was already crammed with wounded soldiers awaiting evacuation. I was heading for England! This article is not intended to refight the battle in detail, but to examine the limited successes and overwhelming failures of the raid as it contributed to larger strategic and tactical implications for future actions by the Allies in the European Theater of Operations ETO.
An endless debate has raged over whether Dieppe was unnecessary carnage or the seminal event to devise tactical and strategic efforts that led to success at Normandy in June The Allies were well aware that if the Soviets were to negotiate a settlement with Hitler, German forces would be shifted to the West in a replication of , which would likely extend the war indefinitely.
Also in , the Canadian government was exerting pressure on the Combined Chiefs of Staff CCS to utilize its troops in an offensive against the Germans because more than , troops had been training in England since the original arrival of the Canadian Division in So, unable to mount a major landing in , the Allies moved from a true second front to aid the Soviet Union to a division-sized raid to gain operational and tactical landing experience in seizing a port on the coast of France.
