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Canada's darkest day in the Second World War was August 19, 1942. That day a large amphibious force, comprised mostly of Canadian troops, corssed the English Channel to test the German defenses in occupied France at the coast city of Dieppe. The raid was a fiasco. The beaches were horribly unsuited for landing craft and amphibious vehicles. The Germans were well entreched on high ground. In nine hours more than 800 Canadians died and another 2100 were wounded or captured. The raid is still controversial today. Some see it as a total waste of human life. Others say the lessons learned from the Dieppe debacle were put to good use on D-Day two years later.
Tags:
Dieppe
Raid
Second
World
War
Added: 13th April 2009
Views: 1696
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
 
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In the spring of 1944 the Allies were poised to land in German-occupied France. The only uncertainty was where and when. Tight security over the enormous operation was paramount. (One American general was demoted and sent back to the Unites States for merely speculating on an invasion date at a social gathering.) Accordingly, British Intelligence was aghast when several key code names linked to the D-Day invasion began appearing as answers in the Daily Telegraph crossword puzzles in the month before the June 6 invasion. The code names of all five beaches (Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha, Utah), the portable harbors (Mulberry), the naval support (Neptune), and the entire operation (Overlord) appeared! Agents questioned Leonard Dawe, a 54-year-old local schoolmaster, who had submitted the puzzles. Dawe didn't know what the fuss was about. He told the agents the words simply fit the puzzles. For years the incident was regarded as a remarkable coincidence. However, in 1984, one of Dawe's former students at the Strand School shed more light on the subject. Ronald French, who was 14 in 1944, said Dawe routinely had his students fill in crossword grids as a mental exercise. Dawe kept the especially good grids, wrote accompanying clues, and submitted them to the Daily Telegraph. The boys often socialized with the Allied troops stationed nearby and likely acquired the words by overhearing their conversations. There is no evidence that Dawe was a German agent, nor is there any evidence that the Germans benefitted from this odd security breach.
Tags:
crossword
puzzle
D-Day
WWII
security
Added: 25th November 2009
Views: 4328
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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On June 10, 1944, four days after the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy, German SS troops descended on a small, peaceful French village, Oradour-Sur-Glane, in which about 700 people lived. In a matter of a few hours, Oradour-Sur-Glane ceased to exist. Virtually every person who lived there was indiscriminately shot or burned alive. Every building was also destroyed. After the war, the French government decided to leave Oradour-Sur-Glane's ruins as they stood as a solemn reminder of the horrors of war.
Tags:
Second
World
War
massacre
Oradour-Sur
Glane
Added: 7th November 2012
Views: 3810
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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I might as well post the best Canadian commercial ever made: a Bell Canada spot that aired in the 1990s. A young man surprises his grandfather back home in Canada by phoning him from Dieppe. (It might need some explaining to non-Canadians unfamiliar with the Dieppe Raid during the Second World War. Nearly two full years before D-Day, on August 19, 1942, more than 6,000 Allied troops--the vast majority Canadian--were sent on an ill-conceived mission across the English Channel to the French coastal city of Dieppe. They landed on a beach with high tides, baseball-sized rocks that inhibited vehicles, and high cliffs heavily fortified by German machine guns. Their mission was to destroy enemy defenses and communications. It was an unmitigated disaster. Of the 6,086 troops who landed, 3,623 were either killed or captured. Historians argue about the raid's value to this day. Some claim it was a total waste of human life. Others say the costly lessons of Dieppe led to the successful Allied amphibious landings later in the war in North Africa and Normandy.)
Tags:
Bell
Canada
Dieppe
commercial
Added: 6th July 2013
Views: 1929
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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