August 19, 1942 Operation Jubilee

[CaptainCrunch]

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the raid on Dieppe.


The Dieppe raid was to allow the desperate allies to gain a foothold in Europe. At the time the allies weren't strong enough for a full scale assault, instead the Dieppe raid was almost a test bed for a future land invasion of Fortress Europe. Under Lord Mountbatton the majority (5000 of the 6100 troops were Canadians). This heavy Canadian representative was caused by Canadian pressure on the British to get the Canadian's a substantial role in the war.



Operation Jubilee was a 3 beach landing with the RCR, Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Essex Scottish Regiment, Fusiliers Mount Royal, The South Scottish Regiment of Saskatchewan and the Queens own Cameron Highlanders. The 14th Tank (Calgary would provide 58 tanks as armored support using the new Churchill tanks)


From the start the operation was a disaster, Military Intelligence had very little information on the defenses, on top of that the German's were on high alert due to French double agents warning German Intelligence.


The landing commenced at 4:50 AM on August 19th and the Canadians instantly ran into heavy opposition. What made things worse were that the Tanks were ill equip for the soft beaches and bogged down, the Tanks that pushed through were confronted by heavy tank obstacles and defenses, because of that the invading infantry had no heavy fire support.


Eventually the invading force had to retreat. Out of the 5000 Canadians, 3367 were killed, wounded, captured or unaccounted for. Lord Mountbatten justified the failed raid and massive loss of life as a necessary evil that gave the Allies valuable lessons for a future invasion.


The Germans used this as a major propaganda.



They also used the Canadian prisoners as retaliation for an order by the allies to shckle their prisoners, so all Canadian POW's were shackled as well.



Now there is the theory that Operation Jubliee was a distraction raid while the British raided into Dieppe under the Command of Ian Fleming to seize new Enigma rotors and code books, but its never been proven that a separate raid of Dieppe was planned and that the capture of any intelligence was part of the main raid.




In the end Dieppe was a major military disaster especially for Canada

[bigtmac19]

Always an especially poignant day for me. I remember my father Ian F. MacDonald who was 19 years old on this day in 1942 and lived through an experience that never left him. He was captured and spent the rest of the war as a "guest of the Germans" as he always said. He never really spoke of his experiences to us, his family, but I know there was always lots of reminiscing when he would go down to the Armouries. Those shared experiences created a lasting bond.

He went on to have a family, he commanded both the Windsor Regiment and the Essex & Kent Scottish Regiment reaching the rank of Lt. Col.

At his funeral visitation, my son told me that he knew what Grandpa meant to our family, but until that time, he had no idea what he meant to the community as well, so many people came to pay respects that didn't even know him. It was very overwhelming and meant so much to us.

His picture hangs in the museum at Dieppe.

He passed away August 28, 2011, rest peacefully Dad, you earned it.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by bigtmac19

Always an especially poignant day for me. I remember my father Ian F. MacDonald who was 19 years old on this day in 1942 and lived through an experience that never left him. He was captured and spent the rest of the war as a "guest of the Germans" as he always said. He never really spoke of his experiences to us, his family, but I know there was always lots of reminiscing when he would go down to the Armouries. Those shared experiences created a lasting bond.

He went on to have a family, he commanded both the Windsor Regiment and the Essex & Kent Scottish Regiment reaching the rank of Lt. Col.

At his funeral visitation, my son told me that he knew what Grandpa meant to our family, but until that time, he had no idea what he meant to the community as well, so many people came to pay respects that didn't even know him. It was very overwhelming and meant so much to us.

His picture hangs in the museum at Dieppe.

He passed away August 28, 2011, rest peacefully Dad, you earned it.

Great story.

There should be an all-things-WWII thread.

[afc wimbledon]

My ex father in law Bruce Ashley went in with the Calgary regiment, then, luckily for him, came straight back out again.
Fought in Italy after that then went on to a sterling career with the Winnipeg fire department, was still breaking horses into his 70's

Hell of a man, only thing I regret about my divorce was not being able to spend more time with him before he passed on.

[bigtmac19]

My Dad was with Essex Scottish, landed at Red Beach.

[8 Ball]

I couldn’t imagine what those guys went through

[CaptainCrunch]

I honestly can't imagine.



WW1 was the most brutal of wars at its time with Trench Warfare, charging into machine gun fire across no mans land to gain a small distance, while disease ate you alive.


As much as we talk about the advent of the mobility war in WW2, at the end of the day seaborne invasions were just an extended version of trench war far. The Canadians, and this was badly phrased, were lucky on Juno as the German defenses were stretched and the opposition was considered to be light compared to other beaches, however crossing a heavily defended beach, running into machine fun fire and artillary is still such a crazy concept to me.



The other wars like Korea and Vietnam were brutal for different reasons, but WW1 and WW2 were literally death factories with strategies and concepts that are so alien to mans base instinct of self preservation.

[Dion]

From the August 12th letters to the editor edition of the Calgary Sun...

DATE TO REMEMBER

Just imagine, if you can, on Aug. 19 that it is 1942 and you and your best friend from Calgary are in a landing craft heading for the beach at Dieppe, France! Your mouth is so dry from fear that you could not spit if you wanted to, and soon one of you will join the 907 Canadians killed that day. Wilfred and Johnny, both from Parkhill in Calgary, signed up nearly two years previous, with the south Saskatchewan Regiment after hearing they were forming an infantry band. They were both excellent trumpet players and because of their strong Salvation Army upbringing they trained as medics and stretcher-bearers. After a few hours of what must have been hell, the order was given to withdraw. Wilfred, after seeing landing craft peppered by machine guns and blown to bits by artillery, stripped down to his army helmet and boxers and started swimming for England. Fortunately, my dad, Wilfred Honeychurch, was picked out of the channel by the British Navy. His friend Johnny Williams was not so lucky, they never found a trace of him. Of the 5,000 Canadians who took part in Operation Jubilee Aug. 19, 1942, 907 were killed, 586 wounded and 1,946 were taken prisoner! On Monday the 19th, I will be thinking of my father and all the other brave soldiers, mostly all long gone now!

DON HONEYCHURCH

[CroFlames]

We've avoided having to relearn the lessons of total war for 74 years.

Hopefully this wave of post-truth shall pass in the US and we live another 74 years in relative peace.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

We've avoided having to relearn the lessons of total war for 74 years.

Hopefully this wave of post-truth shall pass in the US and we live another 74 years in relative peace.

I don't know if I agree with you, or I'm unsure of where your going.


When I look at the causes of the previous WW1s


WW1 - Secret alliances, naval races, colonialism and the preservation of empires. Yeah we can talk about the assassination of a nobody as a flash point, but that was was going to find a way to happen. There was also no fear of war on a massive scale, it was viewed as a great bloodying of the next generation, and home by Christmas


WW2 - The rise of extremism and the desire to re-establish colonialism and the building of Empires. We also had a mess in terms of racial hatred thrown in. Again there was a lack of fear of war.


Why was there a lack of fear? Because of the weapons available at the time, while WW1 used chemical warfare it was in efficient and didn't attack civilian population centers. Even bombing campaigns of terror bombing became prevalent later on in the war, it wasn't efficient.



In WW2 we got heightened attacks on civilian centers and mass bombing campaigns, however while it was efficient compared to WW1, it wasn't supported by the weapons of the time.


Now if we get a global war involving the main super powers of the US, Russia and China, we now have a true civilization busting equation. The gentlemens agreement of you kill our cities and we kill yours comes into play. Without an effective battlefield defense or deterrent, the next major war will chances are be the end of everything that we know.


Because of this advancement in killing technologies most leaders won't take that step to a super power on super power war because frankly it will act like a vortex drawing everyone else again, and there is a huge change that a major war will involve battlefield nuclear weapons which will be followed shortly thereafter with Strategic nuclear weapons strategies. In other words, once that nuclear genie comes out of the bottle, its not going back in.


Because of that, we're seeing more regional battles which are carefully managed to avoid confrontations with other super powers.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know if I agree with you, or I'm unsure of where your going.


When I look at the causes of the previous WW1s


WW1 - Secret alliances, naval races, colonialism and the preservation of empires. Yeah we can talk about the assassination of a nobody as a flash point, but that was was going to find a way to happen. There was also no fear of war on a massive scale, it was viewed as a great bloodying of the next generation, and home by Christmas


WW2 - The rise of extremism and the desire to re-establish colonialism and the building of Empires. We also had a mess in terms of racial hatred thrown in. Again there was a lack of fear of war.


Why was there a lack of fear? Because of the weapons available at the time, while WW1 used chemical warfare it was in efficient and didn't attack civilian population centers. Even bombing campaigns of terror bombing became prevalent later on in the war, it wasn't efficient.



In WW2 we got heightened attacks on civilian centers and mass bombing campaigns, however while it was efficient compared to WW1, it wasn't supported by the weapons of the time.


Now if we get a global war involving the main super powers of the US, Russia and China, we now have a true civilization busting equation. The gentlemens agreement of you kill our cities and we kill yours comes into play. Without an effective battlefield defense or deterrent, the next major war will chances are be the end of everything that we know.


Because of this advancement in killing technologies most leaders won't take that step to a super power on super power war because frankly it will act like a vortex drawing everyone else again, and there is a huge change that a major war will involve battlefield nuclear weapons which will be followed shortly thereafter with Strategic nuclear weapons strategies. In other words, once that nuclear genie comes out of the bottle, its not going back in.


Because of that, we're seeing more regional battles which are carefully managed to avoid confrontations with other super powers.

I think extremism is on the rise in the USA because of the post truth era where anything the leader wants you to believe you believe. This particular leader is so ignorant to history and obviously diplomacy, he may in fact be interested in superpower on superpower warfare. He might launch a nuke on N Korea if Kim says Trump has a little dick. This of course leads to everything you described.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I think extremism is on the rise in the USA because of the post truth era where anything the leader wants you to believe you believe. This particular leader is so ignorant to history and obviously diplomacy, he may in fact be interested in superpower on superpower warfare. He might launch a nuke on N Korea if Kim says Trump has a little dick. This of course leads to everything you described.

Please don't make me defend Trump, I'm not sure I'd be good at it. However my sense is that he isn't interested in Superpower on Superpower war at all. He's interesting in pushing bluffs, but I doubt that he'd pull the trigger on it, and we've kind of seen that so far with him. Also in terms of nuclear launch processes, it would be difficult for him to launch any kind of attack without justification in terms of an attack on the US or one of its allies using a WMD.


If you look at US Nuclear Launch procedures, its important to note a few things.


The first step of a launch order is the confirmation that the US itself is under attack. In order to convene a conference the threat has to be confirmed as a medium to high confidence of threat. At that point the conference is called with the President and his advisors.


Its important to note that the US does not have a "No first use" policy when it comes to Nuclear Weapons.



The Conference includes the Sec Defense, Sec State, NSA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Commander of Strategic Forces (Omaha).


The Commander will brief the President and his staff on options and consequences. This briefing is kept to 30 seconds under an imminent attack, but can go longer for first use.


The clock does start ticking here, under a attack threat, the President has 6 minutes to consider. Under a per-emptive launch, there is no clock.


The President will then decide on his options and SIOP if necessary and issue the order, at that point he has to authenticate using his pres elected Gold Code.


At that point the launch message is formated and sent out to the various commands, this launch order goes to the Silo/battlefield/submarine commanders. The message contains preprogrammed codes and it becomes a key turning operation as the launch computers already have their firing requirements and targets which are fed to the missiles.


This whole episode is supposed to take less then two minutes.


There is certainly need to reform the nuclear launch process ie have to have a declaration of war from Congress.



There is also a study of adding the Sec Def and Head of the Joint Chiefs to force a vote on any launch.



Right now while there's not a check or balance, Trump just can't push a button and send missiles into the air. If the order is un lawful or unrequired the process can be stopped. IE the Commander of Strategic Forces (Omaha) could refuse the order to launch and the process would stop right there. Any of his cabinet members ie Sec Def, Joint Chiefs, could declare the order to be illegal, and at that point the process would have to stop and there would be a Congressional investigation.