大象传媒

There are some of us who survived the raid which the admiralty would rather forget. The Canadians who survived, will not forget.

We assembled at 4am and HMS Garth was assigned to lead one column of a variety of assault craft and guide them to their ultimate destination. The sea was quiet and the weather was good, mild and dry, as we steered around marker vessels to keep us from wandering all over the Channel.

When we sighted Dieppe I was surprised to see Hurricane fighter planes diving down and attacking. They were busy waking the enemy for our reception, I thought.

Later on, I heard a German state, "Ve knew you ver coming."

So it wasn't a surprise to them after all.

We closed in to the shore and started to look for targets. Our 4 inch guns would not make any deep impression on the gun batteries but we may as well try.

I had tried to turn my searchlight platform into a small fortress. In the past, I had a rifle which I had scrounged and a box of hand grenades for close quarters. Now with two twin machine guns installed I felt I could hit back. They were a present from the Captain, Jack Scatchard.

The pair were loaded with 3 to 1 tracer so I could see where my shots were going. All the pans containing the ammunition were full so I felt ready to make a hole in something or somebody. It felt good to have something to hit back with.

It was still dark when we arrived but things were popping ashore. All the assault boats were moving in but I couldn't see much.

I was hoping the Canadians were OK.

Most of them spent time aboard us back in England. I remember them sitting at our mess table priming their grenades with detonators and thought I hope they know what they're doing as we'll be on jam for breakfast.

They were a good bunch and one sergeant was enormous. I heard later he hit the beach carrying a bren gun like a pistol and blazing away at anything that moved.

Jerry up on the cliffs was throwing down potato mashers (stick grenade).

Our 4 inch guns were poking a few rounds in wherever they could help. They talk of the "longest day," well, time dragged on for us on the boats too.

At 11am a fanny of tea came round and while I was chewing a cornbeef sandwich I saw an aircraft take off further up the coast, a dornier 215. I watched his activity with interest as he flew out towards England then turned left towards the Atlantic and when he reached the air corridor our aircraft were using he turned towards us. So I waited until he was in range then opened up on him with the twin machine guns, thinking to myself, "You're trying to sneak in the back door!" I noticed that nobody else was firing and felt a bit embarrassed as the multiple pom pom gun was only yards away from me. I continued to fire aiming at the nose and hoping to hit the pilot. He must have got mad because the bomb door opened and he released 3 bombs which dropped amongst the assault craft but didn't hit anyone. That did it. The whole harbour erupted. Streams of tracer poured up in reply.

He came down in smoke behind Dieppe.

From the bridge an RAF officer came running along the iron deck. He shouted up to me, "I'm crediting you with that one," he yelled. So I leant over the rail and said, "Thanks."

On the mess deck later nobody mentioned it so I took care not to say anything as most of the mess were gunnery types and I was a torpedoman so the pride must have been wounded.

Still, I didn't get told off about "fire without permission," so I wasn't bothered.

It was on the way home that HMS Berkley L17 got bombed and lost. She was in company with us escorting landing craft. I saw the German fighter bomber dive and the bomb go under the bow of HMS Berkley.

Our skipper, Jack Scatchard, was getting frustrated so he arranged to do a bit against the enemy. He roared off along the coast making maximum smoke. He laid a smoke screen along the coast to blind the batteries which were poking out rounds at the assault boats. Now a long a smoke screen lay along the coast and he would dive through it, blaze away at the batteries with the 4 inch and then dive back behind the screen before they could get a bead on him. This cat and mouse operation worked effectively until the Germans realised what the game was and then the trick was to work out where he would appear next and send a few rounds over us. They had a certain amount of success because it was when a couple of shells burst over us and I dived for the deck. When one burst overhead I got a smack on the ass. I felt around and found I'd got a piece of steel in the right side of my bottom. I pulled it out and said to myself, "I'll get a purple heart for this." As an afterthought, I said,"No, you're in the wrong navy!"

Not long after, a shell hit the pom pom training handle and a large lump of brass whistled passed my head and buried itself in the splinter mat and while I was not operating the gun I dug it out and retain it to this day. I decided to keep it as a souvenir of a lucky escape.

It was obvious that we could have done with some heavy weapons to blow the batteries off the Dieppe cliffs.

I remember watching the Jaime II, an old Spanish battleship, blow the batteries off Spanish cliffs near Gibraltar. The right tool for the job.

The Canadians were taking a pasting on the beach and in some of the areas under the cliffs were getting grenades tossed down by the Germans situated on the clifftop.

The beach had bodies laying about and the Canadians were paying a price. Our 4 inch were trying to give them cover. Occasionally, the pom pom could do a bit towards the cover and keep the German's heads down from the action area. We took about four landing craft away from the area and whilst we were doing so a fighter bomber which must have been stalking us above the clouds, made a swift dive and slipped a bomb under HMS Berkley. A motor launch ran alongside her and took off her ship's company as she was moving in a slow circle and eventually she sank.

We carried on escorting the landing craft back to England.

We finish up with the skipper cursing the fact that the newspaper he'd been given had not spelt his name right again. It was not a successful raid but we felt we had a good go and gained experience.

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