ONE DAY IN DAVID O’KEEFE

ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA

THE UNTOLD STORY BEHIND CANADA’S TRAGEDY AT DIEPPE

AUGUST

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OPERATIONS ANKLET AND ARCHERY

Paris

Amsterdam

Brussels

London

FRANCE

BELGIUM

NETHERLANDS

Bletchley

DoverNewhaven

Oxford

Portsmouth

Southampton

Cambridge

UNITED KINGDOM

Glasgow

Le HavreDieppe

Rouen

Calais Dunkirk

Caen

Cherbourg

Brest

St-Nazaire

Achnacarry

Bayonne

BoulogneIsle of Wight Plymouth

English Channel

Deal

ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 1942

N

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X VII

prologue

August 19, 1942, 0347 hours, English Channel off Dieppe, Normandy, France

Moving swiftly across the slick deck of the drab grey British

destroyer HMS Fernie and up onto the bridge, a peacoat-clad Royal

Naval Voluntary Reserve officer from Special Branch discarded

his hand-rolled cigarette and pressed his binoculars to his eyes, adjust-

ing the focus wheel to account for the darkness. In the distance, a

series of fire-red mushroom-shaped explosions merged with the sil-

ver glow of bursting star shells and a carnival of red, orange and green

tracer fire that darted back and forth just above the ink-black water-

line. Then came the echo of staccato machine-gun and high-powered

cannon fire, punctuated at irregular intervals by the whiplash crack of

larger-calibre naval gunfire.

Straining to discern friend from foe, Commander Ian Fleming

stood among a group of Allied journalists, broadcasters and photogra-

phers and American military observers expecting to witness the suc-

cessful execution of the largest amphibious raid of the war to date,

known as Operation Jubilee. But it was now clear to all aboard that

something had gone wrong, and that the carefully synchronized raid,

planned by Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Combined Operations

Headquarters and involving a largely Canadian force, had begun sixty-

three minutes prematurely.

Ian Fleming—who a decade later would write Casino Royale and

launch his immortal James Bond dynasty—was listed innocuously on

—————————

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O N E D A Y I N A U G U S T

X VIII

the ship’s manifest that day as a “guest.” For years, historians and biog-

raphers have asserted that the normally desk-bound member of the

British Naval Intelligence Division played no role other than that of

observer, and that Fleming’s natural desire for action and adventure,

fused with an innate talent for bureaucratic machination, had landed

him a prize seat on the Fernie, the backup command ship.

But this “guest” was in fact present in an official capacity—to over-

see a critical intelligence portfolio, one of many he handled as per-

sonal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral John

Godfrey. He was on board to witness the launch of a highly special-

ized commando unit that had been created specifically to carry out

skilled and dangerous operations deemed of the greatest urgency and

importance to the war effort. Fleming’s crack commando unit was set

to make its debut under cover of this landmark raid on the coast of

German-occupied France.

With the dawn, however, came the sober realization that the raid

had gone off the rails in truly epic fashion. As the sky lightened,

Fleming could see heavy German fire coming from the hotels that

lined the beachfront and ribbons of flame flaring out from the tower-

ing clifftops. Below, the main beach—which had hosted generations

of English vacationers, including Fleming himself, who had won and

lost at the tables of its seaside casino before the war—had become a

killing field for the assaulting troops. Catching quick glimpses of the

scene through the swirling smokescreen, he could make out small

black, motionless dots on the rocky beach where countless Canadian

soldiers now lay dead and wounded, and scores of tanks and landing

craft sitting abandoned or burning alongside them. Above the town

hung an ominous black, acrid cloud, periodically pierced by German

and British fighters swooping down to search out quarry, while rapid-

firing anti-aircraft guns from both sides swept the sky with bright yel-

low and orange tracer fire. The roar of aircraft engines, the sounds of

machine-gun and cannon fire, and the explosion of artillery and

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P r o l o g u e

XIX

mortar shells shook the air, as British destroyers attempted to assist the

men pinned down on the beach, and now holding on for dear life.

Just seven hundred yards offshore, Fleming watched helplessly as his

fledgling commando unit headed through the heavy smokescreen in

their landing craft towards the deadly maelstrom. Tragically, what was

about to occur was not simply the final act in the darkest day in

Canadian military history but the beginning of one of the most contro-

versial episodes of the entire Second World War. This one day in

August—August 19, 1942—would haunt the survivors and leave the

country struggling to understand why its young men had been sent to

such a slaughter on Dieppe’s beaches.

But what was known only to the young Commander Ian Fleming

and a few others was that the raid on this seemingly unimportant

French port had at its heart a potentially war-changing mission—one

whose extreme secrecy and security ensured that its purpose would

remain among the great mysteries of the Second World War. Fleming’s

presence on board the Fernie connected the deadly Dieppe Raid with

the top-secret British intelligence-gathering operation dubbed “Ultra,”

one of the most closely guarded secrets of wartime Britain. And under-

standing exactly why Ian Fleming was on board the Fernie that day was

a key that helped me finally to unravel the mystery behind the raid.

Over almost two decades I combed through nearly 150,000 pages of

historical documents and interviewed participants in the raid (as well

as filming them for the documentary Dieppe Uncovered, aired simultane-

ously in England and Canada on August 19, 2012). The pieces of the jig-

saw puzzle are at last largely in place.

Locked away until now in dusty archives, the story unfolded and

took shape over time as intelligence agencies and archive facilities in

Britain, the United States and Canada released long-classified docu-

ments withheld for seven decades from public view. Slowly, each piece

was added to the puzzle until, at the end of my journey, I found a story

that rivalled a Tom Clancy or a James Bond thriller—although this saga

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O N E D A Y I N A U G U S T

X X

was all too true. And this stunning discovery, kept under wraps until

now, necessitates a reconsideration of this phase of the Second World

War and a reassessment of the painful legacy of Dieppe.

As Ron Beal, a Dieppe veteran, said to me after I laid out the story

for him: “Now I can die in peace. Now I know what my friends died

for . . .”

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PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA

Copyright © 2013 David O’Keefe

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part

of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,

including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from

the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in

2013 by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited.

www.randomhouse.ca

Knopf Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

Pages 452–457 constitute a continuation of the copyright page.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

O’Keefe, David R., 1967– , author

One day in August : the untold story behind Canada’s tragedy in Dieppe / David O’Keefe.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-345-80769-4

1. Dieppe Raid, 1942. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Cryptography. 3. World War, 1939–

1945—Military intelligence. 4. Canada. Canadian Army—History—World War, 1939–

1945. I. Title.

D756.5.D5O54 2013 940.54'21425 C2013-901551-5

Text, maps and cover design by Andrew Roberts

Printed and bound in the United States of America

2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

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One Day in August

The Untold Story Behind Canada's Tragedy at Dieppe

By David O'Keefe

In a narrative as powerful and moving as it is authoritative, David O’Keefe rewrites history, connecting Canada’s tragedy at Dieppe with an extraordinary and colourful cast of characters—from the young Commander Ian Fleming, later to become the creator of the James Bond novels, and his team of crack

commandos to the code-breaking scientists of Bletchley Park (the closely guarded heart of Britain’s wartime Intelligence and code-breaking work) to those responsible for the planning and conduct of the Dieppe Raid—Admiral John Godfrey, Lord Louis Mountbatten, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and others. The astonishing story critically changes what we thought we knew. For seven decades, the objective for the raid has been one of the most perplexing mysteries of WWII. In less than six hours on August 19, 1942, nearly one thousand Canadians—as well as British and Americans—lay dead or dying on the beaches around the French seaside town, with over two thousand other Canadians wounded or captured. These awful losses have left a legacy of bitterness, recrimination and controversy. In the absence of concrete reasons for the raid, myriad theories ranging from incompetence to conspiracy developed. Over almost two decades of research, sifting through countless recently declassified Intelligence documents, David O’Keefe skillfully pieces together the story like a jigsaw puzzle to reveal the prime reason behind the raid: a highly secret mission designed, in one of Britain’s darkest times, to redress the balance of the war. One Day in August provides a thrilling, multi-layered story that fundamentally changes our understanding of this most tragic and pivotal chapter in Canada’s history.

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