[Ian B]

ONE DAY IN AUGUST - The Untold Story Behind Canada’s Tragedy At Dieppe
By: David O’Keefe.
Pub. Alfred A Knopf, 2013. ISBN 9780345807694. CAD$35.00

On August 19, 1943, the largest Allied raid up to that date took place on the French coast. At that time, two Canadian Infantry Brigades, supported by Canadian Armour, British Royal Marine Commandos, American Rangers, ships of the Royal Navy and planes of the Royal Air Force began an all out assault on Hitler’s Fortress Europe. For Canadians, this battle has painful significance because, much like the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War, this charge resulted in horrendous casualties, seemed to accomplish nothing and in the ensuing years led writers and historians to question the official reasons given for the operation. Theories abound as to who was responsible for this debacle. The ground forces commander, Canadian Major General H. Roberts, Commander of the 2nd Canadian Division, would see his career stalled and find himself shunted out of combat to a training position. In 1995, with the release of declassified wartime documents, the author stumbled on a reference to Dieppe in relation to Signals Intelligence work done by a special unit, 30 Commando/30 Assault Unit. This was the unit formed by Commander Ian Fleming of the Royal Navy’s Naval Intelligence Division and ‘James Bond’ fame. Since then, the author has poured over tens of thousands of pages of released documents and put together a new view of Dieppe and the reasons behind Operation JUBILEE, as it was known. His research now reveals that, like other operations undertaken in Norway and France, the driving motive was to steal or “pinch” German naval codes, ‘Enigma’ coding machines and related signals material under the cover of a general raid. This stolen material would allow the cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park, Britain’s wartime code breaking centre, to read orders to German naval units, particularly U-boats, operating in the North Atlantic. After initial breaking these codes, the introduction of a better Enigma machine reduced the English ability to read and react to German intentions to nothing. Convoy losses soared and the fear was that England would be reduced to submission without the supplies to continue the fight. This information was the famed ULTRA intelligence that only the highest levels of government and military had access to. As a result, anything to do with ULTRA was closely guarded until acknowledged by the U.K. in the 1970’s. The author lays out all the pieces in order from the start of the war until the raid and its aftermath in a very readable style and the book is well illustrated with pictures and maps. It is highly recommended for those interested in WW II or Canadian military history, cryptography history or Commando operations.

(Can't recall seeing a review of this book in the old thread, so I thought I'd post one that I wrote last year for another collector journal)
(Checked Amazon. They have copies available; hard back,new&used-$23 to $44 and paperback,new&used-$23 to $39)