Reaction to Dieppe

Interviewer: The decision was made to have a landing in France, in 1942, with the idea of, of relieving some of the pressure against Russia. And the decision was made to have that landing in Dieppe.

Yes, I know.

Interviewer: What was the reaction of the Canadian soldiers?

I was quite happy the 1st Canadian Division didn't do it. I could tell a long story about that but I'm not going to, but the, you know, if you ever went and looked at Dieppe, and then say, "How, where the hell are we gonna land a tank here on this beach? " tanks don't climb cliffs, you know. These guys were just slaughtered. And I think it was the worst, it was the worst plan, the guy who took the blame for it, you always gotta have a, what do you call it, a...

Interviewer: A patsy.

...a patsy somewhere and the guy who took, the thing for that was, oh, General Robertson or Robinson, or something. He ended up living on an island in the Channels because they said it was his fault, it was not his fault at all. Because I, as far as I can gather that thing was planned by, by Churchill...

Interviewer: Mountbatten and Montgomery.

Yeah.

Interviewer: What was the reaction of the rest of the Canadians that were not involved in the invasion? Once you knew that it was a failure did that shake your confidence?

Well, from what we heard of it after, you know, you didn't hear very much at all. I'm glad, you know, I remember when they went over there, but after they come back, the guys, all those guys getting killed, didn't make you feel very good, you'd say, " I don't want to try that," you know, but you know, carry on, we did it anyway.