Ron Miles describes, in his autobiography Miles Aweigh, how his flotilla was briefed to take Canadian soldiers of the Royal Regiment of Canada to the beach at Puys, east of Dieppe, then to wait off the town and at a given time to return to Puys beach to collect them and bring them home. A motor launch guided the assault landing craft from their mother ship to the landing place. On the way, they lost minutes while their destroyer escort engaged a German convoy also bound for Dieppe. The landing craft crews knew they had been seen when they arrived off the town 20 minutes later. It seemed odd that there was no gunfire.
The boats landed their passengers along the edge of the tide and the soldiers had begun to scale a narrow cleft between the cliffs when shells, mortar bombs and bullets rained down from a cliff-set pillbox and they could do nothing but run to the slight cover at the cliff base. The crew of Ron’s LCA (Assault Landing Craft) managed to drag three of the many wounded men on the beach into their craft before they withdrew to deeper water, as planned. However, one of their engines had faltered and they could not get their radio to reach their headquarters ship to ask them to fire at the pillbox. German aircraft flew round them and were shot at by a Lewis gun from the LCA. Aerial dogfights raged above. Ron dressed the wounds of the injured soldiers and draped a blanket over the most seriously hurt. Eventually, the wounded were passed to a Polish destroyer for expert medical attention.
The remaining engine of Ron’s LCA stopped and the stoker mended it under cover of a destroyer-spread smokescreen. Engines of landing craft were very vulnerable to infiltration by sand. The flotilla returned to the beach under intense enemy fire and the LCA crews shouted and waved to the soldiers who sheltered under the cliffs. It was obvious, recalls Ron, that it would have been suicide for them to have broken cover in order to re-embark, although his LCA had been brought far up the beach and remained there for some time. One of the LCAs sank having suffered a direct hit, and the beach was strewn with bodies.
Landing Craft at sea: note the barrage balloons for protection against air attack
Reluctantly, Ron and the rest of his LCA crew withdrew into the water and lay about 100 yards off the beach, still under fire, while the stoker-driver attempted to revive the engine, which again needed attention. They were glad to be towed off by another boat which then let them go, further out to sea. The stoker successfully got the engine going and they sailed slowly back to the UK when ordered to withdraw. The men’s repetitive training at HMS Northney had fitted them well for keeping their cool under fire, even with a spluttering engine, but nothing could have prepared them for their feelings of utter despondency at having to leave their soldiers behind.
Canadian Lieutenant Commander David Lewis recalls that he was pleasantly surprised to be greeted warmly by his warrant officer on the old London and Paris Hotel jetty, on his return from Dieppe: he had thought the officer had a heart of stone.
A former Royal Marine posted to the Royal Hotel fresh from initial training recalls his first job on Hayling Island was to help sort the personal effects of Royal Marines of his own flotilla killed on the Dieppe raid, and to return them to their families. It was routine to leave behind letters and photographs, when embarking on hazardous operations, in case such things gave information useful to the enemy.
From some of the accounts of D-Day, it would seem that some of the lessons of Dieppe went unnoticed by the powers that be.
Lionel Evans, born 17 March 1920, took part in the D-Day landings in June 1944. This interview was conducted in the D-Day Museum at Southsea.
“I was a regular soldier. Joined the army at 16 and was abroad at 17 and home again aged 23. I went to Normandy aged 24. It was really terrifying, especially when those heavy shells were coming towards us. They were all round us. I was in the Hampshire Regiment - infantry. We left from Southampton on D-Day, left on a LCT. I was never seasick. Quite a few were. They provided us with bags, but they didn’t go that far …
“Prior to the invasion, we had been in camps in the New Forest. Ours was at Beaulieu. There were NAAFI girls in the camp too. We were all very polite. We were in camps … not all that long really: Gorley first, then in camps for about two months.
“The D-Day embroidery, yes. You never think of it. Now and again I think of something. I lost a lot of friends. Normally … it was a young man’s war. We never met any locals. I was a front-line soldier. When they saw us coming, with guns, they kept out of the way.”
Joan Malthouse, NAAFI: Mrs Joan Malthouse remembers being under canvas in the New Forest. When Joan joined up, aged 18, in 1940, she was encouraged to join the NAAFI - the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (British) which runs canteens for service personnel and their families. Her home was in Liverpool and she served with the Royal Navy at HMS Wellesley, Burscough, Wetherby and Ariel, with the RAF at Ringway and Fazackerley, and with the Army at Cucheth, Freshfield and the Brockenhurst D-Day camps.
“We used to get drafted for a couple of years. I wanted to go overseas but my mother didn’t want me to go. The NAAFI served in all areas of war but never get included at the Royal Albert Hall or cenotaph memorial services. Pay was poor, as was most of the accommodation. There were no such things as travel warrants for free trips home. I thought to begin with that I was to join the RAF but it turned out to be the NAAFI - the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes and canteen work. We all wore the khaki uniform. We were even issued with tin helmets. During the D-Day camp period, we were advised to use trenches dug in our compound during air raids. Needless to say, sitting out in trenches during the night was not to our liking. We thought staying under our canvas beds was safe and much better.
“When a supervisor came to say, ‘Can we have some volunteers to go under canvas?’ I volunteered. I suppose they had to wait until they got enough girls. We went to a big house. I didn’t know where we were. It was so dark. It was near Brockenhurst Station, camp B-4. They had to make a path through all these woods. They were American and British boys. Soldiers, all soldiers. We were there to give them their tea and their coffee, etc. and to listen to their woes. We stayed there until the invasion. One morning we woke up and there was a skeleton staff in charge of the camp - a handful of American boys and British boys, just packing up.”
She says both American and British boys were “quite good” to the NAAFI girls. They were the only women in camp.
“You know, in the middle of one night there was an almighty scream. Next day, everyone was saying, ‘Who was that, screaming in the night?’ and one of the girls said she thought there was someone standing in the tent beside her. Maybe there was or maybe she was dreaming, but the Americans arranged a guard of four men to guard us. They really did take care of us. They arranged a guard for us to take showers, too. We were only young. So were they. They did their training every day and there was no time to talk in their break periods, but it was only in the evenings that they ever had time to talk. They talked about their mums and dads, home and girlfriends. They all liked to talk about home.
“We had the Intelligence Officer come to see us to say we were not to say where we were in letters, so I was unable to tell my mother where I was stationed. During a walk, we came across a very little old church called St Michael’s. I could only say we had visited a church. Mum wrote and said, ‘What are all these blue lines?’ But it [censorship] left very little left to say. I mean, we just wanted to write where we were and what we were doing - you know, an ordinary letter!”
She thinks the girls often forgot what the Intelligence Officer had told them. They didn’t see why they had not got to say where they were. So there were still blue lines on their letters home. She adds: “I always thought it unfair that the NAAFI