That's quite true. American histories of WWII don't mention Dieppe very much, if at all. But then again, I don't imagine Canadians to be all that knowledgeable about Pearl Harbor.
The spry 90-year-old Calgarian fought the battle from inside one of the Allied forces new Churchill tanks, which he says was just not designed to handle the round stones of "White" beach.
It wasn't just the tanks named for Churchill that failed at Dieppe. Sadly, the blame for the failure of the mission has to be placed on the shoulders of Prime Minister himself, where the buck stopped in the planning of the operation. It was strictly a British Commonwealth initiative without any direct American participation.
The buck does stop at Churchill , he did appoint Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was ultimately responsible as Chief of Combined Operations. Known to his friends as “Vickie,” Mountbatten was vain and ambitious. It was often said that the truth, in his hands, was swiftly converted from what it was to what it should have been.
After the raid at Dieppe Mountbatten reported , lied would be a better word, to Churchill that,
“The raid had gone off very satisfactorily. The planning had been excellent, air support faultless, and naval losses extremely light. Of the 6,000 men involved, two thirds returned to Britain and all I have seen are in great form.”
Records show that 3,623 of the 6,086 men who made it ashore were killed, wounded or captured – a loss rate of almost 60 percent.
The IRA blew Mountbatten’s boat up in 1979, Killing him.
Canadians know a lot about Pearl Harbour, generally the older generations who remember it or where taught about it back when schools actually taught history.
While Dieppe maybe relatively unknown in the US , how many in either country know of the Canadian fight for Ortona. A fight dubbed “Little Stalingrad”
No, there was token American participation for propaganda purposes.