Dieppe Showed Difficulties Of Opening Second Front

Taranaki Daily News, 24 August 1942, Page 3

Dieppe Showed Difficulties Of Opening Second Front

Lack of dive-bombers and paratroops.

Chicago Daily News Foreign News Service. Rec. 10.45 p.m. New York, Aug. 22. William Stoneman, in a copyright message from London, says the Allied serVice chiefs are studying the results of the Dieppe raid to determine what went right and what went wrong, and why. The German defences were very formidable and there is nothing to suggest that an allied invasion of western Europe will be any easier than had been thought. Except on the flanks, where the Commandos smashed isolated . gunposts, the opposition was heavy throughout the raid. The ships lying offshore were under heavy shell fire until the end. In other words, much of the opposition was never overcome! This indicates that the British, with the massed might of the Royal Air Force, just did not have the weapons. Proponents of the dive-bomber inevitably argue that pillboxes and artillery emplacements could have been knocked out if dive-bombers had been available. It is admitted that they were not knocked out, either by cannon fighters or bombers. As for the big guns farther to the rear, the fmmediate suggestion is that airborne troops could have been used as in Crete to overcome heavily defended positions behind the coast. It now seems more evident than ever that the United Nations can hope to overrun the German defences only they are heavily supplied with divebombers, paratroops and troop-carriers. Whether something is being done about this will probably be known only when the invasion is attempted. The outstanding success was the performance of the R.A.F. and the allied fighter pilots. "Canada has been thrilled by the stories of the Dieppe attack, in which Canadian units from T?ronto, Morttreal, Winnepeg, Windsor and Hamilton played a consoicuous part." says the New York Times Ottawa correspondent. "However, with the thrill of satisfaction has come the full realisation of what the United Nations' armies must face before they can make good on their promises to liberate the peoples under Nazi domination. The casualties at Dieppe and the other beaches were

heavy. It is evident that the raid failed to surprise the enemy, who were ready and made very skilful use of the intricate grourid; "The moral being drawn here from the whole adventure is therefore a sober one. There is no questioning the necessity for the attack and no criticism of the manner- in which it was carried through. It is recognised that its actual accompilishments cannot be fully appraised without more knowledge, but it is considered that it has shown that any attempt to land in France with a view to establishing permanent contact with the enemy forces will have to be made on a scale and manner very different . from that of this raiding force." An Ottawa message says the Government has released . two casualty lists since the battle of Dieope, totalling 48 killed, 23 missing and 53 wounded. According to a . Vancouver message, Lieiltenaiit-Generai Stuart, Chief of .the General Staff, said: "In the Dieppe raid we walked into the Boch's parlour through the front door at a time we chose and left the- same front door when yve wanted to • leave. We were able to test the Boche defences. test our landing arrangements under actual conditions, kill Huns and destroy what we could," The London Evening News says: "Because tanks which set out for - Dieppe were re-landed in England some people believed that we were able to re-embark some tanks which landed in France. This is not true. If we had not lost a fairly large number of landing crgft it might have been possible to get off the tanks. but it was a case of the men.beifore the tanks. There was no. room for both." The Moscow radio, quoting a Geneva report, . said that pn Wednesday njght ambulance trains with 700 German wounded passed through Paris from Dieppe. More than 3000 more German wounded are at Rouen awaiting transfer to other towns. The , Germans arrested 200 French in the Dieppe area after the raid "due to the hostile attitude of qertain French towards the German troops.-* Count de Brinon (Vichy's go-between with the Germans in Paris)- stated that the French civilian death roll at Dieppe was now 36. The raid ea used extensive material damage. Delayed, action bombs started fires in the evening. Cpynt de Brinon said that the Germans estimate that 3500 British were killed in Dieppe. A German communique claims that 2095 enemy were takcn prisoner during the raid, 617 of them wounded.