Afternoon of August 19, port of Dieppe. German infantryman inspects the results of his work.
« Second front", how much in this sound, for the heart of the Boltsevsischen merged ... or about one " special operation» August 19, 1942.
It's worth talking about Second front”in World War II, as any Soviet will tell you, it was opened too late, in the 44th year, when the fate of the Reich was already unambiguously decided. But didn't Sralin or other Soviet leaders try to force " allies»to open the Second Front a little earlier, when the fate of the war had not yet been decided? They tried, and in the 42nd year. What did they do? allies" in response to Sralin's rightly panicked demand to immediately open " Second front”and somehow weaken the monstrous pressure of the Reich in the East?
Arranged a landing at Dieppe, August 19, 1942.
English military equipment, broken by the Germans during the landing.
Only 6,000 people landed, they were opposed by only 1,500 Germans. The task of the Anglo-Canadians was to probe the soil, land an assault, destroy everything in the coastal strip, and then leave before the arrival of the main parts of the German army, demonstrating that a large-scale landing operation is possible. It goes without saying that " allies"did everything to screw up the landing - no one smiled at landing in Europe in 1942, meeting the best parts of the Wehrmacht.
Therefore, the first thing the British did was leak the landing date to the Germans. The date is a day later - the landing was originally planned for August 18, the Germans were informed about August 19. Then an invisible force in the British General Staff did everything in its power to drag out the preparations so that the landing began precisely on the 19th. Then the British made up the main part of the landing force - 5,000 people - from inexperienced Canadian conscripts (I don't feel sorry for the Canadians!), who had no combat experience, especially for such complex operations. It is characteristic that the 1000 English commandos accompanying the Canadians also failed to fulfill their combat missions, while the poor colonial infantry was shot down like chickens. But that's not all! If the British undertook to fail some business, then one cannot do without branded English humor. On August 17, the notorious newspaper The Daily Telegraph released a crossword puzzle in which " french port, five letters". Answer? Of course, Dieppe!
German soldiers and commanders are happy to pose on British tanks.
Finally, on the day of the landing, the English squadron accidentally (accidentally?) ran into a German convoy, a skirmish began, and all miserable fragments of surprise were lost. When the British landing craft reached the beaches, all the Germans were at their combat posts, dressed, clean-shaven, having a hearty breakfast and singing "... And now we will fight, fight for 7 days in a row. But we don't fight one by one, only all together».
The Germans simply demolished the first wave of those who landed with machine-gun and mortar fire. Few survivors claimed to have seen the training marks on which the Germans, shortly before landing, learned how to make mortar fire. The second wave was also taken down. Only 6 tanks were able to overcome the beaches, which, entangled without infantry on the streets of Dieppe, were abandoned by their crews. Of the 5,000 Canadians who landed, 68% were killed, wounded or captured. The units that landed simply ceased to exist. Could not fulfill their combat missions and 1000 burnt " commandos". And that day they lost more than 200 people, speaking in fact as cannon fodder. On top of that, the RAF had lost the air battle to the Luftwaffe, and the pitiful remnants of the landing force were tearing the German planes to shreds. 4 hours after the landing began, the BBC officially announced it in its French broadcast, advising the French to evacuate. " We are here a little bit landing at your side. P.S. Don't tell the Germans»!
Then, however, the BBC fell silent - and even the English press had to draw primary information about the losses from German reports. Turning the landing of the Anglo-Saxons into something unimaginable. All this was broadcast on the Eastern Front and undoubtedly reached Sralin, as if hinting that he should hold the Wehrmacht alone.
Of the 5,000 Canadians, 3,367 were killed, wounded or captured. Out of 1000 English commandos - 247 people. 1 English destroyer and 33 landing craft were destroyed, the fleet lost 550 killed and wounded. Plus, 108 aircraft were lost (with the Luftwaffe losing 18 aircraft). The Germans, fighting off this parody of the attack, lost only 591 people, everywhere (even in the work sector " commandos”) while maintaining the coastal line of defense under its control. Worse, the silence of the British media turned the already monstrous landing into an absolute PR disaster. Goebbels spent another month enthusiastically sucking on the events at Dieppe. Hitler for what he showed during the reflection of the landing " calmness and patience"donated 10 million francs to the city of Dieppe and sent home 1,500 French prisoners of war. Moreover, they said so to the freaking French, and they did not laugh: “ Werden Sie zum Hitler hören, - Sie essen Süßigkeiten"! Translated into Russian, these words will sound something like this: If you listen to Hitler, you will eat sweets»!
question about opening« Second front» was successfully closed for another 2 years.
And today " French port of five letters' is no longer customary to remember.
That is why the recent opening of "Spartak" has become a super event not only for fans of the red-and-whites, but also for millions of their eternal and irreconcilable "competitors". AiF decided to refresh the memory of the history of the "big brothers" of the Spartak stadium - the oldest and favorite arenas of the capital.
Mototrek - mistress!
Few people know that the Dynamo football team already existed in 1923, and there was nowhere for it to train (how many years Spartak!) had, except for the wasteland behind the Rizhsky (in those years - Vindavsky) station. At first, it was a grassless area with three rows of wooden benches, and the showers were located in the former mortuary (even atheists were baptized when they went in to bathe!).
Dynamo moved to a new "trump" place only when the financial situation in the club improved. At the head of the commercial department of the team stood young talented economists Lurie And Loevsky who organized artels for the production of sporting goods. Having connected to tailoring ... former homeless children, the club began to make a profit and look for a place for new arena. After much debate, Petrovsky Park was chosen. Why did they argue for a long time? Yes, because it was the most favorite place for walking the Moscow nobility. There was a platform in it, called the “fair of brides”: rich “married Muscovites” were brought here “for viewing”. There was a restaurant, a theater, even a film studio! That is why the park was protected from the "working masses". But they didn’t save it - a crowd with shovels, picks and boots burst into the “nest of the aristocracy” ...
Alexander Lagman was appointed the chief architect of the project. He designed a gigantic... bike and motor track around the stadium. For what? For love! The lady of his heart, according to rumors, was a passionate motorcycle racer ... But something went wrong with the angle of inclination, and it was impossible to accelerate on the Dynamo track. Therefore, on the days of sold-out matches, he was simply forced to use additional benches. Fun fact: at that time, the score was indicated not only on the plates. Above the stands flaunted more and air balloons. Three reds and two whites meant that the team in red shirts was leading with a score of 3: 2.
The new stadium became a whole "sports complex", it could accommodate up to 50 thousand spectators! Alas, on June 19, 1941, the last "peaceful" game was held there - the hosts accepted the Stalingrad "Tractor", and then the war began. Eyewitnesses recalled that during the last match, a flock of black crows flew onto the field and everyone felt terrible ... The stadium turned into a training center for fighters, and in 1942, young spruces were planted right on the field - this is how the arena was disguised from German pilots ...
On June 3, 1945, the era of the “Moscow football boom” began at Dynamo, when the people, hungry for spectacles, took the capital’s stadiums by storm ...
Tribunes for sorcerers
"Lokomotiv" (it was built in 1935 under the name "Stalinets") is the most mystical of all. Why do you think he was allowed to be called "Stalinist"? After all, the Secretary General did not particularly favor football. There is a version that this is because the "Stalin's bunker" was nearby. And then the name justified itself: the son of the "leader of the peoples" Vasily loved football very much and recruited players to his Air Force team at this stadium. How? He looked after a football player and ... took him to his state dacha. And there he kept until he agreed to the transition.
“Psychics adored this stadium,” said AiF. esoteric Mikhail Lamanov. - The tribunes were there for a long time in the form of ... earthen ramparts. Sitting on them, it was very convenient to accumulate the energy coming from thousands of people at the moment, for example, of a goal scored. After all, the earth is a superconductor, and emotions at such moments went off scale! At one time, Stalinets-Lokomotiv was considered the main stadium of the capital: after the war, Dynamo was closed for restoration, Luzhniki still did not smell, so all the iconic games were held here. The audience went to the matches from the terminal Sokolniki on trams, thickly sticking around the roofs as well. Moscow thieves had an unspoken rule: “do not pinch fan trams”, “because decent people go to cheer for sports” ...
Psychics from all over Moscow were "recharged" at Lokomotiv. Photo: RIA Novosti / Yuri Somov
"Toy" Furtseva
Rumor has it that Luzhniki decided to build in order to distract Furtsev from... suicide! The fact is that she once inadvertently spoke about her patron - Khrushchev and fell into "disfavor" with him. From a series of humiliations, Furtseva opened her veins (later she did this repeatedly), and Khrushchev with the words: “She has menopause, or something, she needs to occupy a woman with something,” in 1954 instructed her to oversee the construction of a super stadium. zealously set to work... The project was made and approved in 90 days, and the whole country was involved in the construction. Volunteers came from all over the Union, building materials were brought from Leningrad and Yerevan, electrical equipment and oak beams for spectator benches from Ukraine, furniture from Riga and Kaunas.
Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. 1968 Photo: RIA Novosti / Yuri Abramochkin
Luzhniki was built in record time - 450 days! Alas, the famous Trinity Church was destroyed during construction, but they are going to restore it (like the legendary stadium itself) for the 2018 World Cup, which will be held in Russia. As in the glorious times of the Olympic Bear's flight, Luzhniki will have to become the main arena of the championship, which is well deserved: this stadium is remembered by millions of people for the unique Olympic Games-80, and the last concert of the Kino group, and the formation of our best football players , and even a unique dish of work Picasso, the shape of which, they say, was inspired by ... the Luzhniki arena! (The dish, by the way, is stored in the storerooms of the stadium.) Brezhnev I came to cheer, although I didn’t like sports, - employees of the Luzhniki Sports Museum told AiF. - Sometimes he liked to sit at the games of Spartak, hockey. We kept a wide cup for tea for him. It seemed to him that his eyebrows might freeze, and a lot of steam rose from this cup.
There are other stadiums in Moscow with an interesting fate... So let's start going to them right now, without waiting for the official opening of the 2018 championship. Support for athletes, and training for us ...
A football match was held at the Dynamo stadium. He had to show that the city not only fights, but also lives, despite.
In April 1942, the Germans dropped leaflets from aircraft. They claimed that “Leningrad is the city of the dead. We are not taking it yet because we are afraid of a deadly epidemic. We wiped this city off the face of the earth."
Leningraders did not agree with this formulation. To show the lies of Nazi propaganda, on May 6, 42, the Leningrad City Executive Committee decided to hold a football match at the Dynamo stadium. The first field was pitted with craters from shells, and a vegetable garden was planted on the second, so we had to use an alternate site.
In the "match of life" the teams of "Dynamo" and the Leningrad Metal Plant (LMZ) met. Moreover, because of the secrecy, the second team of football players was called the "Team of the N-factory." For the same reasons, only graduates of the commander's courses and wounded soldiers from a nearby hospital became fans at the match. It was deadly dangerous to announce the game - the information could fall into the hands of the enemy.
For the match, many Dynamo players had to be recalled from the front - the athletes defended their hometown with weapons in their hands.
The commander of the armored boat Viktor Nabutov was sent to Leningrad from the Oranienbaum bridgehead, chief foreman Boris Oreshkin commanded a patrol boat, Dmitry Fedorov was recalled from the Karelian Isthmus, deputy political instructor of the medical unit Anatoly Viktorov and infantryman Georgy Moskovtsev arrived from Krasnoye Selo, five more athletes served in the city police detectives.
In the team of rivals from LMZ, they gathered everyone who could play football and had the strength to do so. Of course, not all the starving workers of the plant were able to go to the field. Dynamo even lost their player Ivan Smirnov to the factory workers.
It was decided to play two short halves of 30 minutes. The players moved slowly across the field.
At the very beginning of the game, Zenit midfielder Anatoly Mishuk, who played for LMZ, took the risk of taking the ball on his head and collapsed on the field. He had just been discharged from the hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe dystrophy. During the break, the athletes did not sit on the grass, as they would hardly have stood up again.
In the second half, the Germans saluted in a peculiar way, starting bombing in the area. Football players and fans had to go down to the bomb shelter.
Newsreel fragment depicting the game on May 31, 1942
Of course, Dynamo won against LMZ with big bill — 6:0.
All the players left the field, embracing, without disassembling the teams. Those who were stronger helped their emaciated comrades. The city lived.
The next day at the front, repeaters broadcast a report from this match for the fighters on all radios. Dynamo forward Nikolai Svetlov, sitting in a trench, was surprised to hear: “Smirnov passes along the flank, crosses Fesenko into the penalty area - Dynamo goalkeeper Viktor Nabutov takes the ball in a brilliant jump!”
Goalkeeper of the Dynamo team, armored boat commander Viktor Nabutov (in the future - a well-known Soviet sports commentator, father of journalist Kirill Nabutov)“At first I didn’t believe it, I ran into the dugout to the radio operators, and they confirmed: it’s true, they are broadcasting football. What happened to the soldiers! It was such a fighting rise that if at that moment a signal had been given to kick the Germans out of their trenches, they would have had a bad time! ”, Nikolai Svetlov recalled after the war.
The Japanese name for Japan Nihon (日本) is made up of two parts, ni (日) and hon (本), both of which are Sinic. The first word (日) in modern Chinese is pronounced rì and means, as in Japanese, "sun" (transmitted in writing by its ideogram). The second word (本) in modern Chinese is pronounced bӗn. Its original meaning is "root", and the ideogram that conveys it is the tree ideogram mù (木) with a dash added below to indicate the root. From the meaning "root" the meaning "origin" developed, and it was in this meaning that it entered the name of Japan Nihon (日本) - "origin of the sun" > "land of the rising sun" (modern Chinese rì bӗn). In ancient Chinese, the word bӗn (本) also had the meaning of "scroll, book". In modern Chinese, it has been supplanted in this sense by the word shū (書), but remains in it as a counter for books. The Chinese word bӗn (本) was borrowed into Japanese both in the meaning of "root, origin" and in the meaning of "scroll, book", and in the form hon (本) means book in modern Japanese. The same Chinese word bӗn (本) in the meaning of "scroll, book" was also borrowed into the ancient Turkic language, where, after adding the Turkic suffix -ig to it, it acquired the form *küjnig. The Turks brought this word to Europe, where it from the language of the Danubian Turkic-speaking Bulgars in the form of a book got into the language of the Slavic-speaking Bulgarians and spread through Church Slavonic to other Slavic languages, including Russian.
Thus the Russian word book and the Japanese word hon "book" have a common root of Chinese origin, and the same root is included as the second component in Japanese name Japan Nihon.
I hope everything is clear?)))
The story of military intelligence's catastrophic failures John Hughes-Wilson
6. STUPID OPERATION. Dieppe (1942)
6. STUPID OPERATION. Dieppe (1942)
On August 19, 1942, forces from the 2nd Canadian Division, based in Sussex, England, landed at Dieppe, a small port city on the north coast of France. The landings were made just after sunrise with 30 new Churchill heavy infantry support tanks. Five hours later, the defeated raiders retreated, having suffered heavy losses: out of 5,000 people who were part of the landing force, 2,700 were killed, wounded or captured. Since only 4,000 fighters landed, this meant a loss of 60%, which exceeded the saddest "record" at that time, achieved on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The Germans were amazed at the stupidity and recklessness of their opponents. One German commentator wrote: "This adventure was contrary to all the rules of military strategy and logic." The Dieppe operation has acquired numerous myths and secrets.
For a number of Canadian nationalists, Dieppe became one of the key myths, according to which the brave Canadian soldiers were sent to certain death by hard-hearted and incompetent British generals. In the eyes of the British public, this was a sacrificial political gesture to convince Stalin that the British Empire was really trying to take some of the pressure off the USSR by opening a second front; conspiracy theorists see Dieppe as nothing less than a sly British plot to prove to American strategists in Washington, still ignorant of European wars in 1942 and demanding decisive action against the Nazis, that any premature offensive across the English Channel would inevitably end. bloody defeat.
Each of these interpretations contains some truth - but none is exhaustive. For in one very important respect Dieppe is unique: it was the only major offensive undertaken by the imperial armed forces without the official sanction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This was the only major Allied operational decision throughout World War II that was not documented. This is the secret that gave rise to all the myths about Dieppe.
A careful analysis of the evidence gives every reason to assume that the Dieppe operation was informal nature and was carried out without the consent of the relevant authorities. The assault on Dieppe was undertaken without adequate resources, lacking intelligence on many key aspects of the German defense, and, finally, it did not have the full support of the British command, which was often kept in the dark or simply ignored. Worse, the developers of the operation, on principle, did not begin to warn the official intelligence agencies about the impending landing and did not request the necessary intelligence information from them. As a result, intelligence turned out to be the most weak point operations.
It may seem strange that a certain military leader risked storming the “fortress of Europe” occupied by the Wehrmacht without an official order, but the personality, ambitions, and track record of the person responsible for the Dieppe operation, Lord Mountbatten, were also strange. At the end of 1941, Captain Lord Mountbatten was transferred from his command of a Royal Navy ship to head of joint operations, reporting to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief General Staff. By March 1942, Mountbatten was promoted at once by three titles becoming the youngest Vice Admiral in the history of the British Navy.
Mountbatten had three main things to be proud of. He proved to be a valiant destroyer captain - his last three ships were put out of action under circumstances that, in the opinion of his many critics, only testified to his recklessness and inexperience. Secondly, he was a specialist in self-promotion, presenting himself as a young and daring hero, capable of repelling the Germans and brightening up the bitterness of defeat for the British. Finally, Mountbatten had huge connections. Cousin of the King, confidant of the Prime Minister, personal friend of Noël Coward, able to easily enlist the support of friends from Hollywood and the British establishment, Mountbatten was a bright spot in the gloomy military panorama of British life in early 1942. There was even talk among Conservative politicians (almost certainly initiated by Mountbatten himself) that he should be given powers that would elevate him above other General Staff officers.
Behind the carefully cultivated legend of Mountbatten hid the unscrupulousness and ambition that often accompany great men and their success. He did not hesitate to deceive during naval exercises in order to distinguish himself from other officers, and deliberately withheld or falsified military records after the war when he felt that his carefully cultivated historical image was in danger. Even his official the biographer saw fit to mention that Mauntbatten was inclined to "rewrite history with arrogant indifference to facts".
Mountbatten's vanity knew no bounds. At the height of the hostilities, he could be seen posing for the camera on the set of Where We Serve, a hagiographic propaganda film based on his personal experience, in which his close friend Noel Coward played the dashing destroyer captain. Here is what Mountbatten wrote to Coward in this regard after the Dieppe raid: “Your letter caught me on my busiest day ... but since the matter ... is urgent, I will first solve it, and then I will take up my official duties.” A normal commander in his place would visit the wounded and dying and listen to the reports of the survivors.
Beaverbrook himself, knowing that Mountbatten did not tolerate any attacks on his reputation, carefully created by himself, warned during the war: "Do not trust Mountbatten with any responsible positions." Despite Beaverbrook's warnings, the young, unprincipled, vain and ambitious aristocrat was given a seat on the country's highest military council, as well as the resources and power to attack the German-occupied coast of Europe. Mountbatten's character, combined with his newfound power and ambition, led to tragic consequences.
The Dieppe Raid of 1942 had a historical predecessor: the raid on Zeebrugge on Saint George's Day in 1918. Under the command of Admiral Roger Keyes of the Dover Patrol, a sabotage group consisting of warships, marines and soldiers stormed German submarine hangars on the Belgian coast in a desperate attempt to prevent the boats of the Kaiser fleet from going to sea. The raid was partially successful and, despite heavy casualties, lifted British morale, which had been shaken by the last German ground offensive of the First World War. The raid on Zeebrugge was touted as an example of a brilliant military operation that inflicted serious damage on the enemy at the cost of little blood - it was this kind of indirect attack that for many years was a favorite technique of British strategists.
In 1940, Keyes reappeared on the scene of hostilities, this time as Chief of the Joint Operations Staff, tasked with attacking the victorious Germans on the shores of Europe and repeating his 1918 success. It is difficult to say what prompted the British to attack the defended positions on the European coast - the Germans never felt the need to undertake such a military adventure on the coast of Britain. Be that as it may, in 1940 the new Prime Minister Churchill decided that, despite the expulsion of British troops from the continent, it was necessary to continue the offensive strategy - not only to inflict damage on the Germans, but also to encourage the suffering population of occupied Europe, who in 1941 there was no other hope for release. Apart from aerial bombardment, the offensive was the only chance.
The Joint Operations Headquarters was an unusual structure. It was an experimental headquarters for the coordination and planning of military operations, created with the aim of pooling the resources of the three branches of the armed forces. When Mountbatten succeeded Keyes in 1941 by direct order of Winston Churchill, his task, in Mountbatten's own words, was to "continue to carry out the raids so brilliantly begun by Neese, in order to maintain the offensive spirit ... Secondly, to prepare for the invasion to Europe, without which we will never win this war." In addition, according to Mountbatten, Churchill said: "I want you to turn the south coast of England from a defensive bulwark into a springboard for attack."
It was a dizzying rise for the recent 41-year-old shipmaster, whose dream was to command one of the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers. But Churchill, in his choice and appointment to the high office of the reckless Mountbatten, was guided primarily by political considerations: the Prime Minister wanted to demonstrate to the Americans, who had just entered the war and were skeptical about the combat potential of their ally, the offensive spirit of the British troops. After defeats in Norway, France, Dunkirk, Greece, Crete, Malaya and Singapore, after Rommel's victories in North Africa, culminating in the surrender of Tobruk in June 1942, the Americans had every reason to regard the combat effectiveness of the British army as low. Even Churchill could not understand why surrender followed surrender, often repeating bitterly, "Why don't our soldiers want to fight?"
Churchill made a good choice. Being aware of the charm of Mountbatten, his attractive appearance, remembering the impression desperate thugs, what he had done to the Roosevelts, especially to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the cunning Prime Minister understood that if anyone could convince high-ranking American politicians of the strength of the fighting spirit of the British, it was Mountbatten. During his visits to Washington, the new commander of joint operations won the hearts of every American he met, including the living personification of Republican military prowess and America's greatest soldier, General George W. Marshall, who became his personal friend. The young hero did a great job in the field of diplomatic "PR", this time using his brilliant abilities not only for his own benefit, but also in the interests of his compatriots. Churchill was rightly proud of his protégé. Mountbatten himself seemed to be well aware of Churchill's true intentions, boasting to one of his friends: "Winston has told me what he wants, and now I must put his plans into practice." With such powerful support, it would be difficult for even the most modest person not to acquire megalomania, and Mountbatten never suffered from excessive modesty. According to the Canadian historian and expert on Dieppe, Professor Brian Loring Villa, "If Mountbatten's head was spinning, Churchill was most to blame." If you wish, you can even consider Mountbatten as sacrifice unscrupulous Churchill, who played on the weaknesses of the young admiral for his own purposes.
After the departure of Keyes, Mountbatten wasted no time in establishing his own order in the Joint Operations Headquarters and at the same time reaping the fruits of the success of his predecessor. The headquarters was bathed in glory thanks to successful raids on the Norwegian islands of Vogsoy and the first military distinction Parachute Regiment - to the daring abduction of a German radar installation from the city of Bruneval in northern France. Even the raid on St. Nazaire on March 27, 1942, despite the losses, was considered successful (five awarded the Victoria Cross), since during it a huge dry dock was destroyed (the only one capable of servicing German warships in the Atlantic), which solved one of the big strategic problems for the British. All these operations were developed by the headquarters at the time when Keyes led it.
Mountbatten's new plans for 1942 for Joint Operations Headquarters included a vast list of attacks, from the temporary capture of Alderney, one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel, to a reckless raid on the Gestapo headquarters in Paris. The raid on Dieppe in June, code-named "Locia", was supposed to be the crown number. (Rutter). The goals of the Dieppe operation, despite later claims that it was an unsuccessful attempt at a large-scale invasion of Europe or some kind of deception to disorientate the Germans and support the French Resistance fighters, were in fact the following: to check whether it was possible to capture and hold a major port in for a limited period of time; obtain intelligence from prisoners, as well as seize documents and equipment; evaluate the reaction of the Germans to a major "false" attack on the French coast.
In addition to these purely military objectives, three other less clearly defined objectives were set. First, the Air Force headquarters wanted to engage the Luftwaffe in the West in a massive air battle and inflict serious damage on the German air force based in France; the second, purely political goal: to demonstrate to the USSR that Britain was determined to take the Germans by the throat; third, and the most obscure of all: the desire of the Canadian government to take a more active part in the war.
The first of these subsequently played into the hands of Mountbatgen. Although the Royal Navy and Army were wary of committing too many forces to Operation Pilot, Chief of the Air Staff Marshal Portal was keenly interested in demonstrating the power of the rapidly growing fighter fleet in 1942 and engaging the German Air Force in the fighting in the hope of inflicting a crushing defeat on the Germans. . The action to destroy ground targets in the port, located at a close distance from the airfields of southern England, was supposed to "cause a backlash from the Luftwaffe." As a result, the RAF became a staunch supporter of the plan, while the other two branches of the armed forces were rather cool about it.
Churchill's political difficulties in the spring and summer of 1942 were largely due to his support for Operation Pilot in particular and the activities of the Joint Operations Headquarters in general. Any British victory in the West would be an important trump card in the complex political game between the allies. The need for decisive action became even more evident after Stalin's speech in February 1942, in which he dropped an indirect allusion to the possibility of a separate peace with Hitler. From the point of view of the seriously alarmed British Foreign Office, this speech could be either the first step towards a truce, or an attempt to shift a significant part of the burden of the war onto the shoulders of the British in order to lighten the burden on the Russians. In any case, it was necessary to convince the USSR that Great Britain was determined to fight. Large-scale offensives in the West would confirm this determination, regardless of their outcome.
The summer began under the sign of embarrassing defeats in the desert and British dissatisfaction with the actions of their prime minister. Churchill became increasingly depressed and desperate for success - any success. With the fall of Tobruk on 21 June 1942, the political volcano in Westminster and Whitehall threw up a lava of dissatisfaction with Churchill's wartime leadership: the Prime Minister and his government were subjected to fierce criticism in political circles and the press. A no-confidence vote was passed in the House of Commons, and although its outcome (obviously orchestrated) was in favor of Churchill (475 votes to 25), the prime minister experienced a severe shock. He later confessed that "the only thing he ever feared was the House of Commons in the midst of debate."
To survive as a politician, Churchill needed military success. And he knew it. Now he had to wage a political struggle not only with the Germans and his strategic allies Roosevelt and Stalin, but also with a skeptical parliament and Whitehall. Cautious and pragmatic chiefs of staff considered most of his military adventures premature, content with the gradual build-up of British military power. Churchill, a politician who understood perfectly well that in a democracy one should appease the crowd, needed some momentary success. Only the bomber force under the cocky Harris and the Joint Operations Headquarters, led by the desperate Lord Louis Mountbatten, shared his values and were ready to face off against the enemy in the summer of 1942.
The third objective of Operation Lotia was the least practical of all. It consisted in the desire of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, after two and a half years of inactivity, to take part in the battles. From the start of the war, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King had publicly voiced strong support for Canada's entry into the war, but was slow to send her troops to the front. Given the aggressiveness and traditionally high morale of the Canadians, such a policy was inevitably doomed to failure. Despite the fact that thousands of Canadians signed up to volunteer, Mackenzie King understood that conscription for overseas service would lead to political problems, especially in French-speaking Canada, and did everything to keep Canada's participation in the fighting on the front lines to a minimum.
Divisions were growing among politicians in Ottawa. Having created a large, well-trained and well-equipped army and sent it to the English county of Sussex to prepare for battle, Canadian politicians found that their war machine began to work on its own. The commanders of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in England, McNaughton, Crearar and Roberts, tired of two years of inactivity, were looking for an opportunity to take a more active part in the war, if only to give their bored soldiers something to do. As usual, boredom manifested itself in the fall of discipline. Canadians stole, drank, fought and had promiscuity, which is natural for any large group of healthy young people who are away from home and do not know what to do, but surrounded by many available single women.
The Canadian propaganda machine tried in vain to convince the public that the crime rate in the Canadian army was no higher than in others. Until August 1942, 3,238 Canadian soldiers in Sussex were court martialed and fed up with their antics locals it was hoped that the fighting would soon divert the attention of their overly perky guests to other things. Lord Woof Woof mockingly prophesied from Berlin: “If you want to occupy Berlin, give every Canadian soldier a motorcycle and a bottle of whiskey. Then declare Berlin closed to the public. Canadian soldiers will be there in 48 hours and the war will be over." In 1942, the Canadian army in Britain was the most trained but the least combatant. The Canadians and their commanders were eager to fight. When Lieutenant General Harry Crearar, commander of the 1st Canadian Corps, was called to the headquarters of Montgomery, Chief of the South East Command, on April 27, 1942, he was asked if Canadian soldiers were ready to take part in a large raid on the French coast. The answer was short: “Sure!”
On May 13, 1942, the chiefs of staff approved the plan for Operation Lotsia. The plan called for a frontal offensive along the entire coast of Dieppe, supported by commando flank attacks to destroy the coastal batteries covering the approaches to the port. A thousand sorties were planned to take control of the airspace and ensure complete air superiority. The navy was supposed to bombard the city from the coastal zone. The plan "Lotsia" could not be called successful. In the last stages of planning, attacking forces had to be significantly reduced, as the navy refused to provide battleships and other large vessels for fire support, and the Air Force, in order to avoid losses among French civilians, reduced plans for an intensive bombardment of the Dieppe coastline to a series of fighter-bomber raids and strafing attacks. The 2nd Canadian Division was to lead the offensive and temporarily capture the radar station and airfield at the city of Ark, five kilometers from the coast.
On July 5 and 6, Canadian troops boarded landing craft, but the weather began to deteriorate and they were ordered to remain at anchor. While the soldiers were seasick in the cramped landing barges, two German bombers appeared in the skies over the Isle of Wight and bombarded the flotilla - without significant results. The strong wind over the Channel did not let up, and on July 7 the operation was canceled, and the soldiers landed, flooding the pubs and streets of the cities of southern England, where they talked about the failed raid and the horrors they experienced in cramped landing barges during the storm. Everyone believed that the Dieppe operation had failed and now would never take place.
It looked like the truth. Neither the commander of the army, Montgomery, nor the commander of the fleet at Portsmouth, Sir William James, believed in the feasibility of the plan. The further the development of Operation Pilot progressed, the greater their fears became. Montgomery, as commander of the army, did not like the idea of a frontal offensive by infantry without proper bombing by aircraft of the Air Force in order to weaken the enemy, and the head of bomber aviation was not ready for such an operation. Bernard Law Montgomery fought in the First World War and understood perfectly well that a poorly prepared frontal offensive without proper fire support was doomed to failure.
In turn, the commander of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth and the admiral, who was at the head of the amphibious forces, remembered well the fate of the British Navy ships Prince of Wales and Ripalo, sunk six months ago in Malaya. They were not going to risk their battleships by allowing them to get more than five miles closer to the enemy-occupied coast, where they could easily be bombarded by the German air force. The first sea lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, was in full agreement with them. The professional military understood that the raid on Dieppe was poorly thought out, not provided with adequate fire support and not coordinated. Now that the operation had failed, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
What followed the cancellation of Operation Locia marked the beginning of the Dieppe mystery. The cancellation of the long-cherished plan brought public attention to its developers. Having taken on the fire of criticism both for the overly bloated structure of the Joint Operations Headquarters and for the "botched" planning of Operation Pilot, Mountbatten decided to act independently: on July 8 and 11, he held meetings of the main headquarters involved in the planning of the initial operation, and turned to them for support in organizing a new raid. However, he was refused.
During the second meeting, on July 11, Mountbatten quietly asked several of his supporters to stay after the main critics of his plan (such as Rear Admiral Bailey-Gromann, appointed commander of the fleet forces in Operation Pilot) left the premises. No one knows exactly what happened at the private meeting that followed, but after that, Mountbatten and his senior staff officer, Navy Captain John Hughes-Hallett, immediately set about developing a new operation to replace the Lotion. It will be called "Jubilee", and its target will again be Dieppe.
Any major operation involving an attack on the European continent required the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In July, one of the most curious episodes in the history of the Second World War occurred: the Chief of the Joint Operations Staff, protege of the Prime Minister and darling of the media, Lord Louis Mountbatten, set out to fool the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the apparatus that coordinated the actions of the intelligence services that command armed forces and most of the officers of their own staff. Mountbatten decided to launch a new attack on Dieppe under a different name and without official approval from his superiors. In his declining years in a little-known TV interview air force 1972, he noted: "I made the unusual and, I believe, quite a bold decision to try once more to storm Dieppe."
Even Captain Hughes-Hallett, Mountbatten's closest officer and staunch supporter of his plan for a new attack on Dieppe, was troubled by the lack of approval from above. He emphasized that, as a senior officer of the Joint Operations Headquarters, he would need to refer to the instructions of some official authority in all headquarters documents and written requests. In this regard, on July 17, the Chief of the Joint Operations Staff sent a formal request to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the adoption of the following resolution: "The Chief of the Joint Operations Staff is instructed to organize a new emergency operation to replace the Pilot ... using the same troops." The chiefs of staff began to doubt, and the resolution was not included in the minutes of the meeting.
Mountbatten grew increasingly impatient. On July 25 and 26, he sent new requests to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this time asking for unlimited authority to carry out large-scale raids without having to specify the targets of offensives each time. Envying Mountbatten's rapid rise and privileged access to the top, and extremely suspicious of his ambitions and motives, the chiefs of staff did not meet him halfway. On July 27, they passed a resolution slightly expanding his planning powers, but emphasizing the need for official permission to organize any new operation.
Mountbatten did not expect more. He was glad that he had the opportunity to do something and gave the order to Captain Hughes-Hallett and several trusted officers of his staff to immediately get down to business. It is not known what he said to Hughes-Hallett, but there is little doubt that he deceived him. Perhaps he presented the case in such a way that the resolution of July 27, which expanded his powers in planning, actually implied the agreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a new plan called "Jubilee". Hughes-Hallett was his faithful ally and sincerely believed everything that his charismatic boss, who was in close contact with prime ministers, movie stars and chiefs of staff, said. For a senior staff officer, such an attitude towards his superior was quite natural.
On July 28, for the information of a limited circle of officers of the Joint Operations Headquarters, an order was issued to resume Operation Pilot under the leadership of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and under the code name "Jubilee". On July 31, the headquarters of the sabotage forces received new operational orders, and all parties involved urgently began planning a second operation. On August 12, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed to planning a new raid instead of the canceled "Lotsiya". Dieppe as the target of the operation was not mentioned or discussed.
To the end of his days, Mountbatten referred to these broadly formulated decisions to give the impression that his second raid on Dieppe had been officially approved. However, neither the testimonies of his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff nor the cabinet documents say a word in favor of this version. Even Churchill could not remember the decisions regarding the raid on Dieppe when he was working on his own history of the war, The Noose of Fate, in 1950. In the end, seeing no other way out, he accepted Mountbatten's interpretation and took responsibility, but we know from his correspondence that Churchill did so solely because neither he nor anyone else could find any government documents. , which would indicate the opposite.
The truth is that there was simply no special approval for a new attack on Dieppe, and Mountbatten was well aware of this. He solved the problem with the troops by advising the Canadian military leaders to keep the details of the new operation under wraps "in the interest of security". A limited number of staff officers began planning Operation Jubilee in the strictest secrecy. But not everyone was informed. Under the guise of "security" (that priceless mantra of the military trying to hide the unpleasant truth), several key departments were deliberately kept in the dark. The intractable Admiral of the Fleet, Bailey-Gromann, was not included among the initiates, and at Mountbatten's request, Captain Hughes-Hallett took over his duties. Bypassing Montgomery's headquarters, Ma-untbatten secretly kept in touch directly with the senior commanders of the Canadian army. Most dangerous of all, neither Mountbatten's own chief of staff, nor the high-ranking intelligence liaison officer, nor his official deputy, Major General Haydon, were informed of the new plan for the raid on Dieppe. In the realm of commerce, this would be tantamount to the fact that the chairman of the board of the UK branch of the company Ford decided to produce a new car model in the UK and would not inform the company's US headquarters, the company's sales and marketing director, or its financial director about this. One can only guess how Mountbatten was going to get out of this situation. Most likely, he was betting on the success of the raid, knowing that "the winners are not judged."
The real danger to the renewed operation lay in the field of intelligence. Although it is impossible to keep a secret for a long time about the logistics of any upcoming military operation, it is by no means always possible to determine from them location operations. When it comes to information support, the secret inevitably emerges: Mountbetten needed maps, plans, photographs and other information about Dieppe. Mountbatten's secret plans were threatened by two dangers: he had to keep his revised operational plan secret not only from the Germans, but also, if possible, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The task seemed almost impossible, but Mountbatten badly needed intelligence - a lot of intelligence - to organize a successful offensive against a protected port in occupied Europe.
The British have for years demonstrated mastery in leading and coordinating intelligence operations at the highest level. Learning from their mistakes and experience, by the end of 1941 they had perfected the fundamental principle: all operations notify the Interagency Security Council (Inter-Services Security Board - ISSB). The purpose of such a bureaucratic measure was simple, but extremely important: ISSB was the coordinating center of measures to mislead the enemy and, in particular, coordinated the activities LCS- the British Secret Service, whose activities are described in chapter 2. In addition, ISSB ensured the security of operations: only it knew which of the secrets leaked to the Germans in the course of various counterintelligence and distraction operations were genuine and which were fake, only it could assess the overall degree of risk that threatened the security of a particular operation.
Mountbatten chose not to inform the Inter-Services Security Council about Operation Jubilee. The official work "British intelligence during the Second World War" does not say a word about this. Moreover, Mountbatten did not turn to any of the leading intelligence organizations such as the Secret Intelligence Service (SJS) for help, relying on intelligence gathered for Operation Pilot. He updated this basic information with a series of low-level reconnaissance missions assigned to tactical aerial photographic reconnaissance squads and special small communications units that could be called directly without having to answer uncomfortable questions.
This neglect of intelligence was fraught with serious dangers. First, Mountbatten risked being left without the latest intelligence after his troops landed. Secondly, he was deprived of the opportunity to find out how the Germans were aware of his plans. Dieppe had by then been seriously discredited as a target. Six thousand soldiers had been talking about the canceled July 7 raid by the Locia across southern England from the day they landed from the landing craft. Who could stop them? For them, it was history. Everything connected with the raid on Dieppe has long ceased to be a secret. And on top of all the trouble LCS(about which Mountbatten knew almost nothing) was busy relaying carefully selected bits of information about old raid on Dieppe to their "colleagues" from the German intelligence services. With the abolition of "Lotsiya" it was possible to supply the enemy with more or less valuable information about this operation without fear in order to increase his confidence in the agents МІ5, embedded in the Abwehr.
German intelligence disinformation operation conducted by the British "Double Cross" committee using recruited agents МІ5, in the summer of 1942 bore fruit. The German intelligence service received at least four warnings about the Dieppe raid from their alleged agents in the UK. Thus, the Germans were excellently informed. So much so that some commentators seriously believed that the second Dieppe operation was a deceitful maneuver undertaken at the cost of great bloodshed for the sole purpose of strengthening the reputation of agents МІ5 in Abwehr. This version is clearly far-fetched. The most likely explanation is that the Interdepartmental Security Council gave permission for the transfer of minor secrets to the Abwehr after the cancellation of "Lotsia". The only problem was that the secrets were not insignificant: Dieppe was indeed going to be attacked, but Mountbatten chose not to inform the Inter-Services Security Council about the resumption of the operation. Mountbatgen's troops were at great risk.
As is often the case in war, everything was decided by chance - the German intelligence service in Paris did not convey their warnings to the troops defending Dieppe. Although on August 17 and 18, 1942, a drill was announced on the French coast, and Hitler and the German commander in the West, von Rundstedt, warned of possible raids on the French coast, there is no evidence that all this had to do with a specific attack in the area. Dieppe. There is no evidence that the Germans received reinforcements and prepared an ambush for the Canadians. But neither Mountbatgen's intelligence nor Canadian intelligence could know this. Mountbatten was lucky.
The reconnaissance tasks in preparation for Operation Jubilee were relatively simple. To attack a defended coast, operational headquarters must have four types of information: the topography of the battlefield (the steepness of the coastline, the direction of currents, etc.); data on the number and deployment of enemy troops; data on guns, their location and potential; and finally, information about the enemy's response plans - to fight, wait for reinforcements or retreat.
In theory, all this seems easy, but obtaining such information requires access to the entire "pantheon" of intelligence sources and agencies. For example, information about the coastline can be found in books published before the war, but since time and tides inevitably make their own adjustments, it is important that reconnaissance divers carefully recheck the topography of the coast as close to the start of the raid as possible. Information about the number, disposition and morale of the enemy can be collected piece by piece with the help of aerial photographic reconnaissance, agent reports, electronic intelligence and from publicly available sources. It is more difficult to collect information about enemy guns and ammunition depots: after revealing their location by means of aerial photographic reconnaissance, information from local agents or prisoners of war or electronic intelligence data is required to specify the images obtained. Finally, the plans and intentions of the enemy can only be learned from the reports of agents, captured documents, and electronic intelligence data.
The fact is that in order to conduct a successful operation of such a scale as the Dieppe raid, the entire huge arsenal of information gathering tools available to British intelligence was needed. He was available and could answer any questions, but if Mountbatten had turned to the Joint Intelligence Committee for full information support of the raid (Joint Intelligence Committee - JIC) Great Britain, he would certainly have warned the Cabinet Office and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of his intention to resume the raid, and they would have stopped him. Therefore, deciding to bypass the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mountbatten was forced to bypass the intelligence agencies.
By ignoring the intelligence community, Mountbatten risked leaving his troops in the dark about vital important information. The fact that he did not use all available sources of intelligence led to senseless losses. Here are two simple but convincing examples: the coast at Dieppe turned out to be too steep and rocky for tanks with lightweight tracks; secondly, artillery pieces were hidden in coastal grottoes. On the day of the operation, ignorance of these two facts would have killed many Canadians. Both problems could easily be solved by the Joint Intelligence Committee with the intelligence at its disposal, but Mountbatten did not dare to turn to an outside higher agency for help. He wanted to keep his desire for personal glory secret.
Some of the other intelligence errors in Dieppe bordered on farce. According to data obtained by the intelligence department of the Joint Operations Headquarters - and military intelligence - the Dieppe area was defended by the 110th division of the Wehrmacht. Of course, the soldiers of the 110th division would have been glad to be there, but it was impossible: in those days they wandered wearily across Russia, almost four thousand kilometers from the scene, pursuing Soviet soldiers retreating to the east in the endless steppe.
In fact, the military unit that enjoyed the delicious wine and French girls in Dieppe was the 571st Infantry Regiment of the 302nd Division, a second category division made up of mostly middle-aged Poles and ethnic Germans and equipped with a mixed bag of horses, motorcycles, captured Czech and French weapons and other ammunition, which the quartermaster service at the headquarters of the Western Group of German Forces in Paris was able to beg from Berlin. Lacking weapons, ammunition, and trained manpower, the commander of the 302nd Division prudently decided to concentrate his resources on covering the enemy's most likely offensive site: the rocky coast at Dieppe. Just as prudent was his order not to place the guns in pre-prepared firing positions, where they could be seen and attacked from the air. Scouring the coast during tactical reconnaissance flights on behalf of the Joint Operations Headquarters, the pilots, with all their desire, could not look inside the grottoes in the coastal cliffs of Dieppe. The wisdom of Major General Konrad Haase's simple but effective defensive plan became apparent to the defenders at the moment when flanking fire from assorted guns hidden in the grottoes and a captured French tank built into the dam began to mow down the Canadians climbing the steep rocky slope.
Since Mountbatten neglected the services SIS and a network of agents of the Office of Special Operations (Special Operations Executive - SOE) in France, his headquarters decided to use the services of electronic intelligence - if not on a strategic level (in this case it would have to deal with the Joint Intelligence Committee), then at least on a tactical level. The experience gained during the spring raid on St. Nazaire testified in favor of this measure. If the operational group of the headquarters could hear how the enemy reacts and what orders he receives directly during the battle, the military commanders of the Joint Operations Headquarters could act "with open eyes." This clever tactic worked much better during the raid on St. Nazaire than anyone at Cheadle (the headquarters of the radio interception service) could have imagined. Ironically, during the Dieppe operation, the air was overflowing with information, and the radio interception service of the Joint Operations Headquarters simply could not cope with the timely transmission of data to the air commander during the battle. However, the idea itself was reasonable.
As the day of the attack approached, concern grew over the success of Operation Jubilee and its secrecy. Secrecy was a major concern; after the cancellation of the first attack, this might have seemed pointless, but several leaks of information and loss of documents increased the need to keep the preparations for the operation secret - at least from the Joint Intelligence Committee. Even enthusiastic Canadians had doubts. Major General Roberts, commander of the infantry division, was uneasy about the whole plan, but the cheerful assurances of Mountbatten and the staff of the Joint Operations Headquarters somewhat reassured him. After all, he reasoned, they were experienced staff officers, no match for me. His concern, however, was shared by many Canadians.
Captain Austin Stanton, adjutant of the Calgary Tank Regiment, admitted: "In my opinion, the operation had no chance." He was so pessimistic that on the day of the operation he dressed in all new in case he was taken prisoner, which greatly angered his commander. Be that as it may, on the night of August 18, the Calgary Tank Regiment embarked on a new 60-meter tank landing ship (TDK) in Newhaven in full view of a silent crowd of civilians. “When we stood in line at the entrance to the docks,” Stanton recalled, “there was an ominous silence.” Along with 4,963 other members of Operation Jubilee boarding 237 ships, the alarmed adjutant of the Canadian Armored Regiment sailed out to face the battle.
The attack failed from the start. The German navy carried out regular patrols to supervise maritime commercial shipping along the French coastline. This fact, including the schedule of patrol convoys, was well known in Dover and Portsmouth, where coastal surface radars were located. However, more precise details about the convoys were kept secret at the request of senior management, as they came from confidential strategic sources, such as the Enigma message decryption team. No one from Mountbatgen's intelligence headquarters asked for details about German movements in the English Channel on 18 and 19 August. To make such a request would be to inform the Joint Intelligence Committee, and with it the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the operation.
The result was predictable. Early on the morning of 19 August, as the vessels carrying the personnel of the 3rd Commando Battalion approached the cliffs at Belleville and Berneval east of Dieppe, their escort stumbled upon a coastal German convoy in the darkness. Despite two clear signals at 01.27 and 02.44 by Royal Navy radar from England to the commander of the troops aboard the destroyer Culp with the exact position of the German convoy, the warning did not reach the escort on the eastern flank. The plan of the Joint Operations Headquarters began to falter from the first steps.
The participants in Operation Jubilee only became aware of the German convoy when an illuminating shell flashed over their heads and, in its cold, false light, the German escort opened fire, which disabled gunboat No. 5, which provided direct cover for the landing craft on the eastern flank. As other Royal Navy escorts approached, a fierce exchange of fire broke out with tracer shells flying in all directions "like fireworks". As a result, the Germans were forced to retreat with heavy losses. Operation Jubilee lost the element of surprise. At dawn, the ships of the eastern flank with the paratroopers on board, who did not have time to recover from surprise, approached the shore in an alarming silence. According to one of the sergeants of the 3rd Commando Battalion, "Through the binoculars you could see the damned Germans watching through their binoculars how we landed on the beach."
With the first rays of the sun, several attacks began at once. To the east, on the left flank, the 3rd Commando Battalion, under the command of the formidable Peter Young (who watched the night firefight from its very epicenter), broke through the barriers from barbed wire, "which the Hans diligently entangled the whole cliff - probably in order to make it easier for us to climb," and carried out a successful attack that silenced the Goebbels artillery battery. By noon, Young was back in New Haven with his field uniform torn to shreds and his hands torn to shreds. On the extreme western flank at Varengeville, the disciplined 4th Commando Battalion under Lord Lovat destroyed the Hess Battery's guns in an exemplary double envelopment maneuver.
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