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”
“Vickie,” should be “Dickie”
Although Eisenhower was still in Washington working under US Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall at the time of Dieppe, the book mentions the Dieppe raid in its summary of the war in Europe and Africa prior to Eisenhower's arrival in the Mediterranean Theater. It also mentions Mountbatten in connection with the planning for Dieppe.
According to David Eisenhower's book, citing "Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave Brown (1975), "Dieppe was first approved as Operation RUTTER on May 13, then cancelled on July 8, the day Churchill wired Roosevelt with what he thought would be accepted as the final British rejection of SLEDGEHAMMER. On July 15, [British Gen.] Dill cabled from Washington that [American Chief of Staff Gen.] Marshall had not given up the fight [for SLEDGEHAMMER] and would reopen the issue once he arrived in London. The Prime minister then revived Dieppe, now code-named JUBILEE. The second round of delibertions on the raid was kept within a narrow circle of planners and certain members of the War Cabinet. No minutes were kept of the meetings." David Eisenhower apparently includes Dieppe in his book becase Dieppe "would influence techniques and tactics chosen for the [Normandy invasion] plan presented to Eisenhower on January 17, 1944."
BTW, why would the IRA later kill Mountbatten? Did he have any connection to the goings-on in Ireland?