Canada marks 80 years since Dieppe raid
Canada is marking 80 years since the catastrophic raid on Dieppe in which a thousand Canadian soldiers were killed.
An op-ed in the Gazette says the unilingual plaque in the Parc de Dieppe is shameful. It isn’t a federal memorial but a city one, and point 1 in the city charter is that this is a French‑speaking city. It has no obligation to post anything in English.
Kevin 16:54 on 2022-08-19 Permalink
The census results this week were very careful not to talk about the city of Montreal, or to provide a good breakdown of mother tongue for the city or even the island.
Kate 19:05 on 2022-08-19 Permalink
They know it’s hot stuff.
Richard 19:47 on 2022-08-19 Permalink
Not sure “catastrophic” is the mot juste here. Their military effort might have hurt like all hell but the end result was the allied victory in Europe. ‘Heroic’ seems a more apt adjective.
Chris 20:39 on 2022-08-19 Permalink
catastrophe: “an event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering”
Sounds perfect to me.
dwgs 07:05 on 2022-08-20 Permalink
Also, the Dieppe raid didn’t have much to to with victory in Europe, it’s widely regarded as a dismal failure. You could make a case that they learned some lessons applied later on D-Day but that’s about it.
Bert 14:46 on 2022-08-20 Permalink
There has been research pointing to that it was also / in fact a raid to get access to German Navy code books and possibly even an Enigma machine. The work to break code at Bletchley Park. and the code breaking, all those manual code breakers, the machine inventors, Turing et. al., the machines, Colossus, Bombe all were helped. Breaking Enigma turned the war and shortened the war.
It is indeed sad that so many gave everything for that raid, but it was not in vain. It was not in vain.