English Channel Voyage to Dieppe
The Dieppe Raid
English Channel Voyage to Dieppe
Transcript
We kept on going and going. Zero hour, 4:50 in the morning. Zero
hour, 4:50 in the morning. Every man that had an army watch
synchronized it for zero hour. But before we got to zero hour,
we run into a bunch of E-boats, German E-boats. They were
patrolling the, the channel as well, because they figured there
something that looked queer to them. So, they were patrolling.
And of course they run into our ships. Well the radios were just
humming all along the coast line, “be on the look-out, something
is happening, and make sure that you’re prepared for any
eventualities that may happen.” So, nevertheless we just kept on
going. And so, at 4:50 everything was quiet and peaceful and we
stood off by the railing there looking up towards Dieppe. You
couldn’t see Dieppe because all the lights were out. Then,
exactly at 4:50 the shells started to go. The guns started to
go. There was a, quite a barrage of gunfire during the first
hour. They set, the whole city was set on fire because they, the
Air Force had already gone with a thousand bomb raid over the
city and they had just blasted the city with the, with their
bombs. Then, the next thing that came then of course were the
big guns. Now, the Germans were using the French guns which they
had buried in the foundation of the cliff, and dug up in the
cliff. And, then they built little tracks, railroad tracks with
a curve in the track. And so when they were ready to fire,
they’d load up the gun, that was way inside these fortification,
in the, in the clay fortification. And then, they would line
them all up and then, they would bring them up around the curve
and they’d bring them up until they got into the target that
they wanted to hit. And so if it was our ship, well, they picked
out the ship and they were ready to fire. So once they’d fire
well then the first one might be a miss but the second one could
be a hit. So, you had to stay well out, three miles away from
the coast line. That’s as close as we could get. So, then the
shelling and the bombing kept on going all through the morning.
And every once in awhile a little barge would pull up along side
of us. Destroyer. And we’d pull off the dead, the wounded. Some
were bleeding, some they, the hull of the ship was just red with
blood. Yeah. That was memories of Dieppe.
Interviewer: Were you men aware at that time Mr. Grand,
that the Dieppe raid had been a disaster?
Not at that stage. But we did a little later on. Well, they,
they kept on shooting back and forth all through the morning,
and as the messages were coming on the radio, “Sorry to inform
you but our signals is at an end. We’re being surrounded by
Germans. I’m blowing up this set.” And the guy would pull out
his revolver and he’d fire three or four shots in the set so it
could not be used by the Germans, or they could not trace too
much about it. Now, he was being taken poisoner,
he was one of the lucky ones.
Description
Mr. Grand describes how the ship continues to move across the English Channel toward France.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 04:37
- Person Interviewed:
- John Grand
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Europe
- Battle/Campaign:
- Dieppe
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- Royal Canadian Signals Corps
- Rank:
- Staff Sergeant
- Occupation:
- Radio Operator and Technician
- Date modified: