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Jack Nissenthall- The VC Hero who never was Part 2

Jack would have loved to tell the Canadians that their terrible sacrifice had been so worthwhile, but he was sworn to secrecy. He and Tait shook hands and Jack left, tired but happy. He made his way to 27, Mattock Lane in Ealing by tube, where his mother now lived, buying a newspaper on the way. The "Daily Express" headline read, "The Great raid is over...Commandos leave Dieppe in flames...". His mother answered the door amazed at the grimy state of her eldest
son. "What happened to you?" she gasped. He handed her the newspaper, and she knew. He bathed and went to bed; within seconds he was asleep.
7.
Of the 4963 Canadians who had sailed, 907 (one fifth) were killed (half at sea) but over two fifths (2210) were back safely in England. 1840 (just under two fifths) were taken prisoner. Of the others, the British lost 14 soldiers and 31 Royal Marines, with 466 POW's; the RAF 70 killed; the Navy 75 killed but 270 missing, and 13 casualties occured among the US Rangers (on this raid, the American Col Hilsinger was the last man to be injured in the attack ;Lt Edwin Loustalot the first American to be killed in Europe; and Cpl Frank Koons the first to kill a German in Europe and win a British decoration, the MM - for bravery in action). Overall there were 4259 casualties, of whom 1 in 3 died. 33 Naval vessels were lost including the destroyer Berkeley, and 106 aircraft - 5 by friendly fire
The Germans admitted to 600 killed (but Allied estimates suggest far more), two coastal batteries destroyed, a ship sunk, 37 prisoners and over 50 aircraft shot down.
After a communal burial by the Germans at Janval,the Allied dead were exhumed and buried individually at Hautot-sur-Mer, just above the Scie valley, where they lie today, surrounded by Canadian maple trees.Two years later in summer 1944, the 2nd Canadian Division returned and liberated Dieppe.
The lessons learned from the Dieppe raid were clear - deficiencies in fire power, landing craft, harbour facilities, pre-landing bombardment by sea and air, radio communication , radar jamming and diversion landings. The correction of these resulted in the remarkably low casualties in the Normandy landings two years later.

8.
Jack's toolkit was later found by the Germans at the radar site, but its significance was never discovered. A captured Jubilee plan revealed to the Germans that an allied radar specialist had been ordered to examine the Freya, but despite interrogations of locals and POW's, no light was thrown on his role in the raid. The radar station was heavily fortified after the raid but its secrets were already out and just before D Day it was heavily bombed. In Spring 1974, the concrete section remaining fell to the foot of the eroding chalk cliffs where it remains to this day. Old gun emplacements around it still remain. Every August, Canadians return to Dieppe and the other landing sites to honour their soldiers who fought and died there as well as meet the many local people who helped them. At Pourville itself - which is little changed in over 50 years - the curator of the small War Museum related to the author in August 1996 how he had met Jack on one of his visits in August 1994.
The site of the cassino is today grassed over, the church and Hotel de la
Terrasse remain as they were. The town has several moving memorials, easy to see and visit, scattered along the streets and promenade.

9.
Jack's part in the Dieppe raid is well known in Canada and something of a legend, but it has never been recognised by the British authorities. Many Canadians he knew were decorated, including Hawkins who received the MM. Col Merritt knew very little about the importance of Jack's objective until after the war. In an interview he said that had he been properly briefed, he would have got Jack into the radar station.
Professor R V Jones - a leading adviser in Scientific Intelligence to the Government during the whole war and for decades after the war - wrote "Jack was a man who willingly went into the hard, savage clash of Dieppe, spurred by patriotism and an enthusiasm for electronics, and knowing that if things went wrong - which they did - he had a peculiarly slim chance of returning....His own deeds speak for themselves ...I only wish that I had such a tale as his to tell." Despite such praise, Jack always felt a deliberate barrier had been erected between the "professional" university scientists on the one hand and the self-made radar technician from Bow on the other, who actually outclassed them!
In private, unkind things were said about the Jew from the East End.
Lord Mountbatten said that because of what was learnt at Dieppe, for every one man killed, a dozen were saved at Normandy two years later. But he had no idea of the orders to shoot Jack if he was in danger of capture, or even that he was supposed to enter the radar station, or indeed was a radar expert. The danger that he may have been caught and tortured to give away top radar secrets known to him, horrified Mountbatten, who said that had he known the truth, Jack would not have been allowed to go, and especially as he was Jewish and in particular danger without being given a false identity. Nor did he know that Jack had returned safely; "If I had been told, he would most certainly have been
decorated on the spot.... his action may have shortened the war by two years".
However, in Nigel West's 1998 book "Counterfeit Spies", he alleges that RV Jones wrote in 1978 that the order to shoot Jack, had he been captured, had been given in error! He wrote, "Actually there was no more reason for him (Jack) to be shot than there would have been for Cox (the RAF Flght. Sgt radar expert) in the
Bruneval raid (six months before), since they knew comparable amounts about our own radar, and only as much about German radar as was necessary for dismantling captured equipment. It was a misapprehension regarding my own (possible) presence (ie Jones) on the (Dieppe) Raid that resulted in (this) dramatic order".

10.
After Dieppe Jack turned down a Commission but was sent to work on mobile radar development in the Middle East. At war's end he married Dell and then accepted a
place at the RAF College, Cranwell. There he was advised to change his name to Nissen to avoid any post-war hostility from Germans who may have discovered his role in the radar war and the effects on the bombing of German cities. In 1948 he was invited by the Smuts government to plan radar installations in South Africa, but then the incoming Nationalist government refused him a position. However, he stayed and opened a TV and hi-fi business but fell foul of the regime for teaching Black students at his training school. He faked an assembly line so when the authorities came to check, he could pretend it was a factory; when they left it became a school again. Finally he had to leave and in 1978 he went to Toronto in Canada where he lived until he died on Nov 8th 1997, survived
by his wife, daughter Linda, son Paul and 3 grandchildren.

In August 1967 Jack returned to Pourville for the 25th anniversary of the landings and met many old and decorated friends, including Les Thrussel. Les had always told friends the story of how he had orders to shoot a top British scientist on the raid had he been in danger of capture, but nobody believed him.
Now he met Jack and told him to tell Les's friends the truth!
In a cafe in Dieppe that evening Jack sat reminiscing with the three VC's of the raid - Merritt, Porteous and Foote. There was a loud knocking on the door and several young Canadian soldiers serving with NATO walked in. "We heard Jack Nissen was here and we want to shake his hand". Jack recalled afterward, "There I was sitting with three VC's and these young men wanted to shake ME by the hand. I was in tears. This was my reward and the highlight of my life".

EPILOGUE
In 1991 the first re-union of WW2 radar personnel was held in Coventry. Jack Nissenthall was an honoured guest, but he did not even rate a mention in the souvenir programme which marked the event, and few even saw the presentation made to him - a replica of the precious avometer his father gave him for his Barmitzvah, and that he lost in his toolkit on the Dieppe raid.
Ken Dearson, who was a member of the Mountbatten briefing team for the raid and
presented the replica to Jack, has always been aware of his outstanding courage and remarkable achievment at Pourville, and for several years has been campaigning to get Jack the VC. Jack went to Dieppe " under a sentence of death", he wrote. Mountbatten had personally told Dearson after the War that Jack should have been given the VC. But this means overturning a 1949 directive
ending the issue of WW2 medals. Dearson argues that some events, however, were so secret that little could be known about them till many years later. Jack's
identity has been concealed for years by the Official Secret's Act, and only
recently have Mountbatten's archives and other documents been released for public scrutiny, revealing Jack's crucial achievement. In fact it was Mountbatten's Publicity section which put out the story that a scientist called "Prof. Wendall" had been on the raid; this was in fact Jack.
Appeals to Prime Minister John Major and the Honours Committee in 1991 and again
in 1997 were fruitless, and to this day Jack Nissenthall's deeds remain officially unrecognised. His daughter Linda who lives in North London with her family says this is scandalous. Jack said his main reward was helping to destroy Hitler; "I still feel that way" he said. Actors Michael Caine and Roger Moore have both said they would like to have played him in a movie and such a film has been long contemplated.
At his funeral in the Jewish cemetery in Toronto on the "11th of the 11th" 1997,
there was a huge escort of Ex-Servicemen from the Jewish and Canadian Legions, and many young people. Jack had been a legend in his own lifetime there - truly the unknown hero of Dieppe.


AFTERWORD
In July 1997, the author spoke to Jack's daughter who described how after the war Mountbatten and Prince Phillip wrote to Jack expressing their admiration for his achievments at Dieppe, Mountbatten agreeing that a gallantry award should be made. Both Prince Phillp and Prince Charles have also met Jack at Dieppe reunions asking to speak to him privately after the official proceedings and repeating their praise for his work and great courage on the raid.
After the war, Jack met the German Engineering Officer who had been in charge of the Pourville radar station - Willy Weber - and they became friends. It was
Weber who had first spotted the invasion flotilla at Dieppe but had been told he
was imagining it! Weber also discovered the wires cut by Jack after the raid but
reported it was shell damage. Little did he know! At one reunion at the Canadian
cemetery Weber was refused entry because he was a German. Jack saw him, however, and personnally brought him in and stood next to him during the ceremony.
Sadly, Ken Dearson died in 1995 but the struggle to get Jack his award goes on - even though Jack himself remained indifferent. Canadian Ex-servicemen,British
MP's and former MP'S and the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX) have continued to press for recognition for him!
After the war, Dearson continued working for Mountbatten and when ever any failure occurred in the communications system, The First Sea Lord would shout, "Send for Nissenthall!"

Sources
1. "Green Beach" by James Leasor (Heinemann 1975) - contains many references to other sources but is based on several personal interviews with veterans and especially Jack Nissenthall.
2. Saga Holiday Magazine - Folkestone - 1991.
3. "The man who went back" - Lucien Dumais (Leo Cooper 1975)
4. Jewish Chronicle - Aug 1991; Feb. 1992
5. "Battlefields of Northern France" by Michael Glover (Michael Joseph 1987)
6. Ville de Dieppe information leaflet.
7. "The War of the Landing Craft" - P Lund and H Ludlum (Foulsham 1976)
8. "Commando Gallantry Awards of WW2" - George A Brown (London Stamp Exchange -
1991).
9. Article (1987/88) of the New Cambridge and Bethnal Green Old Boys Club Report, by D Roxan.
10 "The Radar War" - Nissenthall and Cockerill - R Hale, 1989.
11. "Counterfeit Spies" Nigel West, St Ermin's Press, 1998.
12.My deep thanks to Linda Samuels (nee Nissenthall), whose many anecdotes about
her father's life were passed on to me from Jack himself,and have never before been published, and to Cyril Silvertown, historian, for their help.Jack's
decorations are the 1939-45, Africa and Italy Stars, Defence and War Medals
Jack is commemorated not only at the Pourville Museum, AJEX Museum and Combined
Operations Museum at Inverary (Scotland), but also on the RAF Hope Cove/Bolt Head memorial near Marlborough village, Salcomb, in Devon.

Martin Sugarman

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