Dieppe Raid Aug 19 1942

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

I can’t say there is any one book that stands out above all the others. Some are more focused on the overall higher level planning, some are more about individual soldiers or specific units. There was a really good French only one done by Hemidal that was very heavy on pictures. David Okeef wrote one a few years ago proposing a new theory that the raid was a cover for a british enigma snatch plot. Then there is books about the British commandos part. Mark Zuelkhe wrote Tragedy at Dieppe. I found it gives a pretty good mix of overall strategy and individual soldier view points.

I think it really depends on what type you are looking for

I second David O'Keefe's work. The problem with the earliest books is their authors had limited sourcing, and felt they needed to tell a human story of brave regiments and tough combat, sent to the battle by an incompetent Mountbatten. It reinforced the victim myth. Those narratives prevailed for a long time. O'Keefe could have revisited all those, but chose to use newly declassified and previously well-hidden material to highlight the role of the commandos to capture the RADAR installations. The big raid was a distraction, which served a list of other purposes.

[Tony]

Yes , I saw an interview with David about that and it put the raid in more of a positive perseprctive .

[Jordan Baker]

The book Green Beach is another good read. It mostly follows one “soldier” and his mission to get into a radar installation just off the beach. However he wasn’t actually a soldier but a radar tech with an escort team to cover him but also shoot him if he was going to be captured.