Lambs to the slaughter: the fiasco of the Dieppe Raid, August 1942

In carefree days which now seem so distant we used occasionally to take the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry. Docking after a long lunch, I would try to imagine the port during the infamous Dieppe Raid of August 1942. It is so clearly a natural defensive position that I could never work out how they expected to take it or, more importantly, why. This book sets out to answer both questions and, thanks to the release of previously classified wartime files, largely succeeds. It also throws new light on Ian Fleming, who was there.

Dieppe in those days was intensively fortified by the Germans, flanked by heavy guns on the cliffs. Just about every inch of the docks was covered by concealed machine guns and cannon, including a captured French tank. It was designed to repel exactly the sort of full-frontal attack the Allies — overwhelmingly Canadian, with British commandos and a sprinkling of Poles, Free French, Belgians, Norwegians and Americans — obligingly mounted.