Dieppe: Tragedy to Triumph

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and author of
War and Peacekeeping and For Better or For Worse.

No Canadian battle continues to stir more controversy than the great and
disastrous raid on Dieppe on August 19, 1942. Was it an attempt to
impress the skeptical Soviets with Allied determination? Was it an
effort to satisfy Canadians by giving their troops a taste of action? Or
was it a cunning bit of self-aggrandizement by Mountbatten, the chief of
Combined Operations, and an operation unauthorized by the Chiefs of
Staff? All of these views have been presented at different times, the
last most recently by Brian Villa in Unauthorized Action (1989). The
Whitakers (Denis Whitaker having served at Dieppe in the Royal Hamilton
Light Infantry) have done substantial research and interviewing, and
their goal, not really achieved, is to confront Villa directly. Villa
knows the sources better, and his professional historian’s rigorous
analysis clearly outmatches the Whitakers’ more amateur enthusiasm.
Not that Villa is necessarily correct, but he emerges with most of his
argument intact. Where the Whitakers’ volume is most successful is in
its treatment of the slipshod training the Canadians received, the
woefully weak planning of the raid, and the foolish decisions that
almost guaranteed disaster. No other authors have provided this detail;
perhaps no others could. This is a useful book, but it is not yet the
last word.