The Great Deception: What Really Happened at The Dieppe Raid?

How can a deceptive narrative about an incident come to be deeply believed, even by those who may have witnessed it or participated in the event?

If you have heard of the largest commando raid of World War II, which occurred at Dieppe, France in 1942, you likely have been deceived. Let me tell you a story of this heroic event. Despite its success, people have been deceived to believe the event was a terrible disaster. And that deception goes on.

On August 19, 1942, 16 000 men supported by over 200 ships of different sizes and capacities appeared off the coast of Dieppe, France. They were an attacking force, the largest element of which was drawn from the Canadian army, primarily units from Quebec, Ontario, and Saskatchewan. They were in the center of a major offence on a German-held French port on the English Channel.

On their flanks, unobserved by the German defenders, were smaller elements of elite British Commando units. Of the 5000 Canadians who hit the main beach on time, and withdrew precisely on time several hours later, over 3300 became casualties. The Canadians landed on a beach swept by direct frontal fire in broad daylight. Amazingly, some actually made it off the beach, punched through German defences, and penetrated well into Dieppe. The seemingly absurd battle raged for hours, ending when the Canadian forces withdrew, on schedule, into landing craft, manned by Royal Navy seamen of incredible valour. The withdrawal was worse than the attack, but still the force withdrew, save for the thousands of dead and wounded lying on the beach, and those taken prisoner by the Germans when they ran out of ammunition.

Little was said of the raid back in Britain, and eventually official papers released to the media caused the conclusion to be drawn that the raid was a disaster.

Was Dieppe indeed a failure? If so, why did William Stevenson, the author of A Man Called Intrepid, call the Dieppe raid a tremendous success? Why did Lord Mountbatten, then Chief of Combined Operations, call it "The Great Deception"?

I first got a hint that there was more to the 1942 Dieppe raid than what was declared on public media when I was working as an intelligence officer in the Canadian army in 1971. Some reports seemed to indicate there had been a great deal more going on than was officially communicated. It was not until 1976, 34 years after the event, that some files were declassified, and Stevenson, who himself had been trained in aerial espionage as a British fighter pilot in the Second World War, published an amazing revelation of many of the wartime operations in his book about Sir William Stephenson (no relation to the author) whose code name was "Intrepid." The latter was the head of British Special Operations Executive.

In Chapter 41 of A Man Called Intrepid, Stevenson tells the unknown story of Dieppe. Even though the events in Stevenson's accounts are supported by both actual evidence and the comments and attestations of many including Lord Mountbatten, and Lord Lovat, the founder and leader of the British Commandos, who himself was at Dieppe, the world continues to believe Dieppe was a defeat.

Why then does he state on page 408:

"Almost all the survivors thought of the Dieppe raid as a failure. The hard decision had been made that they could not be told otherwise—but it had been a tremendous, if extravagant success."

So secret were the objectives that they had to be concealed at any cost.

So, why the need for "The Great Deception," as Mountbatten referred to it?

Early in 1942, the Russians were putting severe pressure on the British to open a western front against the Germans. The Americans, who had joined the war only after the Pearl Harbour attack, had agreed to provide heavy equipment to Britain, but some in the US did not feel the British would use it, as they seemed to be delaying invading France. While Roosevelt wanted support to go to Britain, many in America favoured directing all war effort against Japan.

At the same time, as Stevenson reveals on page 402, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, under Stalin's orders, was starting to conduct some secret negotiations with the Germans for a peace treaty, which could cede much of eastern Europe and vital oil supplies to Germany.

The British learned of this through their code-breaking service at Bletchley Park. Churchill had to do something big enough to convince the Russians and the Americans that they were not yet ready to invade. He wanted rather to build up strength until it was at a level where absolute victory would be assured.

Additionally, Codebreakers and on-the-ground intelligence learned that the Germans were designing their own new version of radar and had put their latest unit near Dieppe. It had to be studied to help prevent losses in the planned massive bombing raids that were soon to begin against Germany.

The Germans had also captured many senior leaders of the French Resistance and were holding them in a prison inside Dieppe. The loss of these men would be devastating to French resistance movements and to the organization being established by General De Gaulle from Britain.

Finally, there was the challenge of how to plant German-speaking spies in German-occupied Europe. A large number of Sudeten Germans who had fled to Britain in 1938 were later trained in Camp X near Kingston, Ontario and given new identities, some with ranks and positions in the German army, by British intelligence. They were bravely taking on a dangerous mission, but a way had to be found to get them into German-controlled territory. A raid would serve that purpose.

The large Canadian force was actually intended to be a diversion. It was big enough to look like the British were trying to capture a port, get a beachhead and then roll troops into it to expand it. Once the attack began, all German forces in the region were mustered to focus on the Canadian assault.

Shortly after the raid commenced, unnoticed by the diverted Nazis, the British Commandos came on the flanks. To the west they landed and captured the German radar station, killing all defenders. Two scientists, one the British co-founder of radar, examined the equipment, and removed the key components. The Commandos then blew up the station, and had prearranged fighter bombers come in to give the illusion the station had been destroyed in an air attack, removing suspicion of their presence.

On the east side of town, British Commandos landed quickly and unopposed. They went around the town and captured the police station used as Gestapo HQ, killed all Gestapo members, released the French underground leaders, and shook hands and waved goodbye to a large number of Germans who were opposed to Hitler and were now implanted in Europe, some within the German forces.

Simultaneously, during the confusion of the battle, over 1000 special communications were beamed into France to resistance groups, which went largely unnoticed due to the increased radio traffic as a result of the raid.

An interesting point is that even the name of the raid was a deception. It was called Operation Jubilee. One of the planners was a German Jew, who used the name Jubilee to represent the Jubilee year, spoken of in the Bible, referencing the time when slaves were set free, and land was restored to families of original owners (found in Leviticus 25). Reports showed that some German intelligence operators interpreted that to signal that the raid was really an actual attempt to invade and seize a port, from which liberation could start to take place.

The combined results of the raid were overwhelmingly successful. Every single objective was achieved.

1. German radar secrets were revealed.
2. French resistance was re-energized and reorganized.
3. Hundreds of agents were planted inside Nazi-occupied Europe.
4. Stalin accepted Churchill's reasoning that they were really not readyfor a full invasion and halted any thought of a treaty with the Nazis.
5. Roosevelt gave the green light to pour armaments into Britain.
6. In the Canadian sector lessons were learned that helped make the invasion of Normandy so successful two years later. These included:
   1. Adding rolls of wire mesh in from of tanks enabling then to roll over pebble beaches.
   2. Flails were added on some lead tanks to clear minefields.
   3. Landing craft were redesigned.
   4. Mulberry Harbours were created. Cement casions were floated over the channel and sunk to creray artificial harbours avoiding the need to capture a defended port.
7. Hitler retained 33 Divisions of the German Army in the French ports and coastal areas, keeping them from the Russian front. Stalin was grateful.

The raid brought so much success, yet to be completely successful it had to be made to look like a defeat. Lord Louis Mountbatten, then Chief of Combined Operations, 32 years after the event stated the following:

"…Dieppe was one of the most vital operations of the whole Second World War….It was The Great Deception." (Ibid, page 397)

It was a deception so well organized that even those participants on the beeches believed it. They did not know the whole story. They believed a lie.

How could so large a deception be perpetrated long after the need to maintain the deception has gone? The answer provides a warning to a greater problem happening today.

We are seeing an imposition of cultural amnesia in our society. School systems have stopped teaching our national history and the histories of the British and European societies that were responsible for creating the infrastructure and the political, social, and religious culture that became Canada and the United States. True history, because it does not agree with the narrative of some of the social justice movements, has largely been abolished. The leaders of the past who sacrificed and worked so hard to weld these nations together are vilified, and anyone who comes to their defence, ridiculed or attacked. The young student today is denied the knowledge of the past and the ability to interconnect events of the past with those of the present. This is nothing less than child abuse in which Woke educational leaders are fully complicit.

When people are ignorant, they can be made to believe anything. A large knowledge base is vital to reasoning and analysis. Alas this is no longer a priority for the public schools of today. We have a society in which our youth are being made into the enemies of our cultural heritage and our religious heritage, which itself is the foundation of western culture.

Check out our Viewpoint: "Crisis in Western Education"