Churchill’s Dieppe Disaster

Churchill wanted to get back at the Germans with an invasion of northern France.
The weapon he chose to lead the attack was the tank named after him.
Tragically, as ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES reveals, it did not go to plan.

Following Operation Jubilee in the summer of 1942, the Germans found themselves in possession of two-dozen brand new British tanks named after Prime Minister Winston Churchill. They could not believe their luck in receiving such an intelligence windfall, though the Germans were not impressed with what they saw and dismissed it out of hand. In contrast, the British Army took the tank to their hearts and it subsequently evolved into a loyal workhorse. The process of Operation Jubilee—the British and Canadian raid on Dieppe—was designed to show the Germans that the Allies had the capability to launch an amphibious attack on continental Europe, but the reality would be far different...

Dire lesson
Earlier British amphibious attacks on Nazi occupied Europe were not a great success. Norway was a prime example and the hand of Winston Churchill loomed large in this fiasco. There was a fundamental failure to secure proper integration of the three services at the executive level. This ill-fated operation in mid-April 1940 was designed to head off Adolf Hitler’s iron ore imports from Sweden via Narvik in Norway. The British had no Combined Operations HQ, resulting in the Army and Royal Navy issuing independent and often contradictory orders during the campaign.
To make matters worse, Hitler had successfully pre-empted the British with Operation Weserübung, launched on 9 April 1940. German assault troops rapidly and successfully occupied Norway’s main ports and airfields, taking Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik. This effectively took the neutral Norwegian armed forces out of the equation and obstructed British and French efforts to intervene.
Even worse, the Luftwaffe quickly gained control over Norway’s coastal waters, so Hitler was able to neutralise Allied shipping. Ironically, this was the first example of a modern combined operation by land, sea and air, but the Allies were not quick to learn from it.
The Royal Navy was unable to stop the German navy or cope with the Luftwaffe. As a result, it concentrated its efforts in the north, giving the Germans a free hand in southern Norway. Command and control of the Trondheim leg of the operation had been jinxed from the start after losing two generals (one was taken ill and the second was lost in an air crash). The commitment of ground forces by the Allies was woefully inadequate. The French, anxious about a German invasion of France, sent only a demi-brigade of Alpine light infantry and the British four infantry brigades. Heavy support weapons, especially tanks were conspicuous by their absence.
Indecision over Trondheim and Narvik played straight into Hitler’s hands and completely stymied any hopes the British and French forces had of retrieving the situation. Hitler’s invasion of France sealed the fate of the operation. By 9 June, the Allies had completed their evacuation and three days later the Norwegians surrendered.
Churchill, as First Lord of the Military Co-ordination Committee, had directed the Norwegian campaign in a singularly narrow manner, dominated by a personal preference for the Royal Navy. His attitude belittled the whole process of Combined Operations. In the opening stages of the Norwegian campaign, the Royal Navy were more concerned with catching German battle cruisers, which immobilised the expeditionary force for five days after putting back to sea with all their equipment.
To make matters worse, the transport ships had been loaded economically not tactically, there were no landing craft, no infantry support weapons or snow gear. The Allies lacked coherent air support and as a result were severely harried by constant German air attack. The British force of 20,000 men suffered 2,060 casualties; of the 11,700 Frenchmen committed, they suffered 530 casualties. The Norwegians lost 4,000 men and, while the Germans lost 5,300, they had maintained control of Norway and the vital shipping lanes.
The French blamed the British. This was largely true—Churchill and his staff had learned the fundamental lessons of integrated Combined Operations the hard way and at the expense of neutral Norway. Two years later, Churchill’s first major raid on occupied France occurred at Bruneval to capture a radar and at St Nazaire to destroy the dry dock. While both were successes, the latter saw 185 British troops killed and 200 captured from a raiding force of just 611 men. Things did not bode well for the forthcoming Dieppe raid.

German defences
Operation Jubilee, conducted on 19 August 1942, was conceived as a way of testing German defences prior to reopening the Western Front. In addition to frontally assaulting Dieppe (Red and White beach), there were to be other landings, including Pourville (Green beach) to the west and Berneval (Yellow beach) to the east. Tanks would only be involved in the attack on Dieppe itself. Allied preparations and training on the Isle of Wight could not be completely concealed and by mid-June Hitler’s intelligence was expecting some kind of large-scale assault on the French coast.
Supporting the 5,000 infantry of Major General JH Robert’s Canadian 2nd Division, 1,000 Royal Marine Commandos and 50 US Rangers allocated to the raid, was the Canadian 14th Tank Battalion, Calgary Tank Regiment equipped with British Churchill Mk I, II and IIIs. Three Oke flame-thrower tanks were also earmarked for the operation. To make the tanks water proof up to a depth of seven feet, for wading purposes, disposable exhaust and trunking extensions were added.
German exercises at Dieppe proved that it was not good tank ground after the gravel on the beach clogged a panzer’s tracks. The leading tanks were fitted with elementary bobbins with a rolled carpet of hessian and wooden paling strips. To get the Churchills over the shingle, sappers were to unroll bundles of four feet wide and 250 feet long wired wood matting known as chespaling.
The Canadians were not expecting to encounter any panzers as Dieppe was only garrisoned by infantry. However, it was recognised that it was likely to be a one-way trip for some if not all of the Churchill tanks. To that end, each was equipped with nitro-glycerine bombs to prevent them falling into enemy hands intact. Adjutant Austin Stanton of the Calgary’s, on reading that it was planned to re-embark the tanks and troops from in front of Dieppe, remarked dryly: ‘the only thing they had forgotten to mention was that tea and cakes would be served on the beach.’
The nearest German armour within striking distance belonged to the 10th Panzer Division, under General Wolfgang Fischer, stationed at Amiens, 60 miles away. The 1st SS Panzer Division, under Lieutenant-General Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, was 80 miles away northwest of Paris. Both divisions had been sent to France for refitting following heavy fighting on the Eastern Front.
The Germans had ensured that the place was well defended. The port was the responsibility of Major-General Conrad Hasse’s 302nd Infantry Division (although British intelligence erroneously assessed the unit to be the 110th Infantry Division, which in fact was on the Eastern Front). It included many foreign ‘volunteers’ while its equipment comprised captured Czech, British and French weapons.
The 302nd had a single French tank cemented into the sea wall and French trucks were used to tow its’ 75mm anti-tank guns. Hasse’s real strength was his artillery and coastal gun batteries on the surrounding headlands. The 1,500-metre beach at Dieppe was hemmed in by the two headlands—the western one was dubbed Hindenburg and the eastern Bismarck. Both had gun emplacements creating a murderous cross-fire.
General der Panzertruppen Adolf Kuntzen, commander LXXXI (81st) Corps, based in Rouen on the Seine, was responsible for 302nd Infantry Division. He was charged with defending Dieppe and the surrounding area, along with the 336th Infantry Division. It would fall to Kuntzen’s Corps with the assistance of the 10th Panzer Division to confront the Allies’ Dieppe raid. Kuntzen was an experienced panzer corps commander, having fought in Poland and on the Eastern Front, and had been sent to take charge of LXXXI Corps in April 1942.

Churchill’s new tank
After Dunkirk, Churchill was left with fewer than 100 tanks for the defence of the mainland. Losses had to be swiftly replaced to repel Hitler’s anticipated invasion and the British company Vauxhall were asked to work on the A20 Infantry Tank, which was still in development, and to get it into production within a year. The A20 was a throwback to the First World War, intended to cope with heavily shelled areas and obstacles such as wide trenches.
Originally, the Belfast ship builders Harland and Wolff had been tasked to provide four mild steel prototype A20s, the first of these though showed that the design needed to be revised. A pilot model of the subsequent A22, Infantry Tank Mk IV, appeared in November 1940 and 500 were ordered, with the first 14 being delivered in mid-1941. Weighing in at 38 tons it was by far the heaviest British tank in service.
Dubbed the Churchill in honour of the Prime Minister, the A22 was built by a production group of 11 manufacturers under the direction of Vauxhall. The hull was of composite construction with the outer armour bolted or riveted on. Notably it was the first British tank to have controlled differential steering, provided by the then new Merritt-Brown four-speed gearbox. With a crew of five it had a top speed of 17mph and a range of 100 miles.
In the best traditions of the British military, the tank was understandably a rushed job—the engine was inaccessible, the petrol pump shaft tended to snap and the hydraulic tappets often broke, requiring an engine replacement—the list went on. The early A22s required constant fine-tuning until all the bugs were ironed out, gaining the tank a reputation that stuck even after it had proved itself. During 1942-43, Vauxhall engineers on secondment became familiar faces with those units issued with the tank.
Like so many British tanks, the initial model Churchill’s were woefully undergunned. The Churchill Mk I’s armament consisted of a 2pdr gun (with 150 rounds) and 7.92mm Besa machinegun in the turret and a close support 3in howitzer (with 58 rounds) in the front hull. The later was required because the 2pdr could not fire high explosive shells. This was a major shortcoming, especially in the Mk II, which was the same but with a 7.92mm Besa machinegun replacing the howitzer. These were issued to the newly raised British Army Tank Brigades and the exiled Polish Army Tank Brigade.
In 1942, the Churchill Mk III appeared with a larger turret and up gunned to a 6pdr. The post-Dunkirk emergency requirements meant the ineffective 2pdr had been kept in production way past its sell-by date. Also in 1942, the Petroleum Warfare Department developed the Churchill Oke flame-thrower tank. This comprised the Mk II with the Ronson flame-throwing system with a range of 40-50 yards, which had been designed for the Universal Carrier. Once more this was a rushed job, so that the concept of a flame-throwing tank could be tested under combat conditions at Dieppe.

Canadian tankers
The Canadian 14th Tank Battalion was mobilised on 11 February 1941 and by 20 June was en route to Britain. Initially the Calgarys were equipped with the British Matilda II tanks for training purposes.
On 19 November 1941, the battalion’s war diary recorded: ‘Today the battalion took over its first Mark IV Tanks (Churchills). The Mark IIA Tanks (Matildas) with which the battalion is now equipped are being turned in as Mark IVs become available. Present indications are that the changes will be made quite quickly, for more and more Churchills are being made available for issue to regiments. The 12th Army Tank Battalion [Three Rivers Regiment] is also being equipped with the Churchill at the same time so that the whole brigade will shortly be armed with them.’
By the end of the month, the battalion had 13 Churchill tanks, but it was still equipped with 29 Matildas. An inkling of the unit’s role in the Dieppe attack was gained on 4 December 1941 when their diary notes read: ‘A special film called “Combined Operations” was shown to Officers and NCOs in the “A” Sqn NAAFI hut. This film showed the various types of landing craft built for assaulting a hostile coast, and also the various ways in which such a coast may be attacked.’
Throughout December, the Canadians continued to return their Matilda’s to the Ordnance Depots at either Aldershot or Bordon Camp, while drawing Churchills to replace of them. Taking delivery of the new tanks turned out to be a time consuming process. Not only did each item of equipment have to be checked but also the greatest care had to be exercised in checking the lubrication, track tension, the remainder of the suspension and hydraulic lines, before it could be safely driven away. Vauxhall also sent its representatives to instruct the Canadians on how to handle the engine. Once fully equipped, planning efforts turned to Dieppe.

Hitting the beaches
On 16 August 1942, the Calgary’s transported 18 Churchill tanks from Seaford to Gosport ready for embarkation, the rest moved to Newhaven under their own power. The following day they were loaded onto the landing ships, and by 0300 on the 19th they were eight miles off Dieppe. The assault fleet comprised eight escort destroyers, nine landing ships, 39 coastal craft and 179 landing craft; 67 RAF squadrons provided air cover, 60 of which were fighters.
While Dieppe was to be stormed by six infantry battalions and an armoured regiment of the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division, No3 Commando led by Lieutenant-Colonel Durnford-Slater was to silence the German ‘Goebbels’ battery at Berneval to the east of the port and No4 Commando under Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Lovat the ‘Hess’ batteries to the west at Varengeville. On the flanks, the Camerons and South Saskatchewans were to secure Porville and the Royal Regiment Puits. The Essex Scottish, Fusiliers Mont-Royal and Royal Marines supported by the Calgary tanks were to barge their way into Dieppe itself.
Early on the morning of 19 August, the commandos hit the beaches first. Sergeant George Cook of No4 Commando clambered over barbed wire and was relieved to find German machinegunners in the pillboxes were firing high. After that their luck was in short supply, as a mortar took out four men.
Taking up the story, Cook remembered: ‘Sergeant Horne and I had cut some barbed wire. He started cutting, and then I heard an “Urgh” – and when I looked, there was Sergeant Horne, blood spurting out of his chest. He looked as though he was dead – which was a bit of a shock to me, because he was about the toughest fellow I ever knew, was Geordie Horne. Then I got hit in the face and the shoulder. That was me out of it.’
No4 Commando scored one of the few successes at Dieppe, destroying the Varengeville battery, though it cost them 12 dead and 20 wounded. No3 Commando unfortunately ran into a German convoy on the run in and only 20 men went ashore. The air cover also received a rough reception. ‘We were taking some Canadians to drop them on a quay at Dieppe,’ recalled French seaman Albert Quesnée on the Bayoone, ‘but of course the Germans were there. That was a bad day, a bad day. I’ve never seen so many planes come down in the water.’

Tanks attack
The tanks were to attack in four waves; the first with nine tanks supporting the assaulting infantry; the second with 12 tanks; the third with 16 tanks and the fourth with the rest of the regiment. Following a preliminary bombardment, the landings started at 0530, though a naval engagement in the Channel followed by air attack tipped the defenders off that something was going on. During the run in to Dieppe, the Tank Landing Craft (LCTs) were 15 vital minutes late leaving the infantry pinned down on the beach.
The first three LCTs, each carrying three tanks and a jeep, were met by heavy fire. Churchills bearing the names ‘Cougar’, ‘Cat’ and ‘Cheetah’ were landed near the harbour mole, but wasting more precious time their cold engines in turn stalled on the ramp. Although the first tank was hit three or four times, the armour withstood the punishment and it kept going, rolling right over the thick belt of barbed wire.
The old French tank armed with a 37mm gun and incorporated into the German defences engaged the Churchill. In a stroke of bad luck, the static tank had been unmanned until a German sentry ducked inside and proceeded to expend 185 rounds against the Canadians. ‘Cougar’ found the sea had conveniently created a pebble ramp up the sea wall and drove up onto the promenade. Behind it, ‘Cheetah’ frightened the Germans manning a nearby pillbox into flight. ‘Cat’ was finally freed from the landing craft ramp but in the confusion drove up the beach with a scout car still attached.
In the meantime, the LCT crews were suffering terribly from heavy German mortar bombardment. Bravely, the Canadian machine-gunners exposed on the decks returned fire. However, the sappers and mortar men were unable to deploy. Badly damaged LCT 2 escaped out to sea, while LCT1, after getting its Churchills ‘Company’, ‘Calgary’ and ‘Chief’ ashore in three minutes, drifted away to sink.
The three Oke flame-throwing tanks on LCT3 met an equally hot reception with mortar bombs dropping right on them. Captain Dick Eldred of the Calgary Tanks on LCT3 recalled: ‘About 200 yards out a terrific concentration of fire opened up on our craft. Most of our gunners were quickly knocked out of action and though their places were immediately taken these too became casualties.’
The first tank ‘Boar’, commanded by Captain Bill Purdy, crashed through the ramp and drowned, the LCT passing over it. When the craft hit the beach, the damaged ramp folded under it leaving a ten foot drop, however ‘Bull’ and ‘Beetle’ drove ashore, having inadvertently crushed some of their own men. One lost a track on the shoreline and was stranded, the other tore off the flame-thrower fuel container and could only be used as a gun tank.

Tanks lose tracks
At 0605 the second wave of LCTS carrying another dozen tanks arrived. Further Churchill tanks borne by LCT 4, 5 and 6 came in. Although LCT4 burst into fire 200 yards from the beach, it got tanks ‘Burns’, ‘Bolster’ and ‘Backer’ ashore. The German defenders, realising they could not pierce the Churchills’ impervious armour, switched their fire onto their vulnerable tracks.
Unfortunately, in this area of the sea front, the Germans had only recently cleared the shingle from the sea wall using a digger, forcing the Canadian tanks to veer side on. Major Page in Burns noted: ‘I gave orders to turn to the right and that’s when I was hit. I was just on the crest at the top of the trench dug by the excavator and the right track was blown off. The left one went on for a few seconds and kind of pulled me into the trench.’ The other two tanks also lost their tracks before they could clear the beach and LCT 4 was sunk.
Similarly, after ‘Buttercup’, ‘Blossom’ and ‘Bluebell’ were landed, LCT 5 was destroyed. LCT 6 took three attempts to land ‘Bert’, ‘Bob’ and ‘Bill’. The Canadian infantry, engineers and sappers had just as bad a time as the tanks and the casualties were very heavy with some men refusing to leave their craft. LCT 7 put ashore ‘Beefy’, ‘Bellicose’ and ‘Bloody’ followed by LCT 8, 9 and 10. From the third wave, only 10 tanks reached the shore and the fourth wave were not landed, as by 0900 it was clear they could achieve little.
‘We could see very little except a bloody great pall of smoke over the town,’ said RAF Squadron Leader ‘Johnny’ Johnson of 616 Squadron, ‘and lots of shelling going on down below. But we could do nothing about it because the attackers and defenders were all within a hundred yards of each other. We couldn’t help the army... we knew that the whole thing had been a disaster – but there was nothing we could do to help them.’

Blazing away
At 0625, the 10th Panzer and 1st SS Panzer Divisions had been put on alert to move. The Dieppe Naval Semaphore station signalled HQ at 0640: ‘The enemy continues to land at Dieppe. Destroyers making smoke along the coast. Until now 12 tanks have been landed, of which one is on fire.’ The 10th Panzer headed north at 0900. Lacking adequate maps and with worn out vehicles, its progress was far from proficient and the Luftwaffe was equally slow off the mark to react.
The German defences at Dieppe were such that the Churchills found themselves hemmed in and could not penetrate the town, where they could have created havoc. From a force of 29 tanks landed during Operation Jubilee, two drowned and 12 never got off the beach. Although the remaining 15 got onto the esplanade, they could not pierce the anti-tank obstacles the Germans had erected.
‘Bill’ did attempt to navigate a gap in Rue de Sygogne but lost a tack and blocked the approach to the street. ‘Bellicose’ was more successful in assisting with the attack on the Casino building, though got no further. Frustrated, the men of the Calgary Tank Regiment could only drive up and down blazing away until their ammunition ran out. The defenders’ 37mm anti-tank guns had little effect on the Churchill, and 75mm rounds penetrated only two tanks. According to a subsequent German military report, 24 tanks were put out of action by artillery in the area of the beach and only five made it to the roadway
Following the Allied evacuation order at 1100, the tank crews were instructed to destroy their vehicles with the nitro-glycerine bombs. The crews in those tanks trapped on the beach, once they had run out of ammunition remained inside, rather than risk the murderous German fire raking their hulls. Also, some crews had left these highly dangerous devices behind or dumped them overboard on the way over. From the Calgarys landed, only one man got back to Britain. That evening, the Luftwaffe chivalrously dropped photos on their barracks at Seaford, showing those who had survived.
At 1215, the German HQ issued orders stating: ‘the 10th Panzer Division, tanks and artillery should immediately go forward. Every weapon available must now contribute to the total destruction of the enemy.’ Fischer’s 10th Panzer arrived at Dieppe just as the survivors were surrendering at 1308. The Germans bombastically noted: ‘Our rapid intervention and the powerful aspect of the panzer division made a great impression on the populace.’ At 1640, senior panzertruppen were ordered immediately to examine the captured Churchill tanks.

Captured Churchills
When the smoke had cleared, the Germans salvaged six Churchill Mk Is, seven Churchill Mk IIs and ten Churchill Mk IIIs. Most of these were badly damaged but one of each type was sent to the German Army Weapons Office at Kummersdorf for technical analysis. Amongst those still functioning were ‘Beetle’, a Mk II formerly commanded by Lieutenant G. Drysdale, whose engine and drive train were still working, and ‘Blondie’, a Mk III formerly commanded by Corporal Jordan; this was photographed being driven by panzertruppen.
The Germans also captured seven scout cars and a truck. While they were impressed by the Canadian fighting spirit, their maps and the smoke screen laid on the beach, they were less than impressed by the manufacturing, metallurgical and technical aspects of the Churchill tank. Likewise, they thought the gun, armour and tracks were poor. Their verdict was that the Churchill was easy to fight and the performance of the German anti-tank gunners was exonerated because they had been firing at long distance.
The Germans could not understand why armour had not been used to support the flanking landing at Pourville, nor could they believe that a raid would employ so many tanks. ‘With the reserves afloat were 28 tanks, certainly of the same type as those landed,’ noted the German 7th Army HQ. ‘Now the employment of altogether 58 similar tanks cannot be connected with a brief sabotage operation. Although operational orders have also fallen into our hands, it is not possible to deduce whether it was a question of an operation of local character, or—in case of success—if it would form the initial stage of “invasion.”’
Many senior German officers assessed that if the Allies had achieved a successful lodgement at Dieppe, it would have heralded a full-scale invasion, although Field Marshal von Rundstedt did not share this view. What the German commanders did not know was where the main weight of the Allied assault or schwerpunkt might fall, which meant any initial landings were likely to be considered diversionary.

High cost
While the Dieppe Raid provided vital lessons in amphibious warfare and Combined Operations, they were gained at an appallingly high cost. The Calgary Tank Regiment suffered 13 deaths, 33 wounded and 138 men taken prisoner along with the loss of all their tanks. In total, the Canadians lost 906 killed, the Commandos 270 killed, wounded and captured, and the Royal Navy 550, as well as losing a destroyer and numerous landing craft. The RAF lost 106 aircraft and 153 aircrew. In mopping up, the Germans took 2,195 prisoners. The Germans admitted to losing 591 casualties and 48 aircraft.
Following Dieppe, the German Captured Tank Company 81 found itself the recipient of some of the repaired Churchill IIIs. At the end of the year, the unit became Panzer Regiment 100 and two of the Churchills remained in service until the close of 1943. That year, one of the tanks was photographed at the Yvetot railroad yards loaded onto a train. They were then passed on to Captured Tank Unit 205, where they ended up being used for target practice due to a lack of spares and ammunition.
On their return to Britain, the remaining Calgarys were re-equipped with Shermans and became the 14th Canadian Armoured Regiment. With the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade, they took part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943. Eventually, they joined the 1st Canadian Army in Holland in early 1945 where they ended the war. The unit never forgot its bloody debut at Dieppe with the Churchill tank.
Subsequent successful landings in North Africa were against ill-equipped French forces that had been in a state of political disarray, while those on Sicily and the Italian mainland were against the Italian Army, which was largely a spent force. Striking Hitler’s Festung Europa was an entirely different matter, even if the German forces were in some cases second rate, reconstituting or recuperating.

Very bitter
The Churchill tank in various guises was later to play a highly specialised engineering role in the D-Day Landings on 6 June 1944. By the end of the war, 5,640 Churchills had been built and a variant armed with the powerful 17pdr, known as the ‘Black Prince’ was developed, though it never went into production.
Britain sent some Churchill Mk I, II and IIIs to Russia and three Mk IIIs fought at El Alamein with the 8th Army. However, the Germans next properly came up against the Churchill tank in Tunisia where it served with the British 1st Army, most notably with the 142nd Royal Tank Regiment at the Battle of Medjez el-Bab in March 1943. Production was to have stopped, but its success in Tunisia meant it continued to be built and was employed in the Italian campaign.
Kuntzen’s LXXXI Corps control of an armoured division was short-lived and by June 1944 its subordinate units consisted of the 245th and 711th Infantry Divisions and the 17th Luftwaffe Field Division. For the Avranches counter-attack in early August 1944, although the 9th Panzer along with the 708th Infantry Division were placed under Kuntzen’s direction, they were simply instructed to protect the flank of 7th Army at Domfront-Mayenne north of Montsurs and to prevent an American armoured attack in the Alençon area. Kuntzen’s LXXXI Corps including 9th Panzer, Panzer Lehr and 708th Infantry Division were tasked to take part in the aborted Alençon counter-attack on 13 August, though in reality Kuntzen’s only effective force was a small combat group from Panzer Lehr.
Major Pat Porteous, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his role in successfully destroying the Varengeville battery, was scathing of the whole sorry affair: ‘My feeling is that it was an absolute disaster. It should never have taken place. A great deal has been made about the lessons learned from the raid which were put into good use for the main landings in Italy and later on in Normandy. But my feeling was that 90 per cent of those lessons could have been learned training in Britain on the beach at Weymouth or anywhere else. But as it was, they had something like 1,000 killed and 2,000 taken prisoner – and what did they achieve? Absolutely nothing... I’m very, very bitter about it, and I think most Canadians are too, who were thrown into it.’
Porteous received news of his VC while in a German prison camp. The most embarrassing aspect of the raid, after the high casualty rate, was the fact that Churchill’s namesake tanks lay strewn across the landing beaches like so much junk •