The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition - Hardcover

Neillands, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1845131169 ISBN 13: 9781845131166

Publisher: Aurum Pr Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

The Dieppe Raid is one of World War II's most controversial episodes. In 1942, a full two years before D-Day, thousands of men, mostly Canadian troops eager for their first taste of battle, were sent across the Channel in a raid on the French port town of Dieppe. Air supremacy was not secured; the topography - a town hemmed in by tall cliffs and reached by steep beaches - meant any invasion was improbably difficult. The result was carnage: the beaches were turned into killing grounds even as the men came ashore, and whole battalions were cut to pieces.
But why was the Raid ever mounted? What was its strategic objective? Afterwards no one appeared to have a clear answer, and neither did it appear that anyone could be held clearly accountable, but posterity has been hard on individuals like Mountbatten, who were instrumental in its planning and the decision to go. Was the whole thing, as has been darkly alleged, expected and even intended to fail, a cynical conspiracy to prove to the Americans, at the expense of so many Canadian lives, the impracticality of staging the Normandy landings for another two years?
In previous works like The Bomber War Robin Neillands has built a considerable reputation for going behind the time-honoured myths of military history to discover what really happened. In this new book he has has traced numerous surviving veterans of the Raid, in the UK and Canada, to tell the harrowing story of what actually took place, hour by hour, as disaster unfolded. He has also exhaustively explored all the archival evidence to establish as far as possible the paper trail of command, of who knew - or should have known - what was happening, and whether the whole debacle could have been prevented. The result is the definitive account of one of the Allies' darkest hours.

About this title

About the Author

Robin Neillands is "one of our most readable military historians" (Birmingham Post [UK]) and author of several acclaimed books on World War II and military history, including The Bomber War; The Conquest of the Reich; The Desert Rats; Eighth Army; The Old Contemptibles; and Battle of Normandy 1944. He lectures on military history worldwide, and is a member of the British Commission for Military History.

Review

"A valuable and gripping account by an experienced military historian, The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition illuminates leadership failure and miscalculation, and it depicts soldiers' courage in the face of certain death. It will interest a wide range of historians, as well as general readers, and students of warfare." —Sea Classics

(Sea Classics)

"... British military historian Robin Neillands tells this story of the Dieppe Raid with considerable skill, presenting a view of the operation within the context of the overall war mixed with judiciously chosen individual experiences and anecdotes.... Neillands's discussion of this engagement is first rate." —German

Edition details

• Publisher: Aurum Pr Ltd
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1845131169
• ISBN 13: 9781845131166
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320