By BERT WHYTE

HE year was 1942, Hitler stood
at the pinnacle of his power.
His armies reached to the gates
Of Alexandria and to the North
Cape; his crack troops were rush-
ing with ever-increasing speed
towards Stalingrad to deliver a
final knockout blow in the East.
(Berlin called the Stalingrad
campaign the road to victory: it
Proved to be. the road to doom
for the fascists.) 4
An ex-haberddsher from Mis-
SOuri smugly observed that the
Russians and Germans. were de-
Stroying each other. In London
the Colonel Blimps gave the Red
Army “a, few more weeks’ before
collapse; said casually, ‘““We’ll go
in and finish the job in our own
800d time.” ©
“United States and Cahada were
demanding the opening of a
Second Front to aid our Soviet
allies and to shorten the war.
On the morning of Wednesday,
August 19, 1942, radio listeners
in all parts of the world heard
a dramatic announcement: “Can-
adian troops have landed at
Dieppe!”
Was it the long-awaited Second

Front? Millions sat with ears
glued to radios, hoping that
Dieppe meant a two-front war

and the quick finish of Hitler.

Ilya Ehrenburg describes the

Teaction of Red Army soldiers
to the first news of Dieppe in
his great novel, The Storm.

Zarubin breaks the news:
“The Allies have landed near
the town of Dieppe.” Excit-
able Minayev goes into rap-
tures, waves his arms and
Shouts, “No, boys! You mustmn’t
‘Underrate this! The Second
Front: . .. That means, it’s
all up with the Fritzes—they
have chucked all they have
_ OVer here ,.. Pity we haven’t
S0t a map! Where is this
Dieppe? Far from Paris?”

Many Canadians felt the same
emotions as Minayev when they
heard the first flashes. I was in
& military hospital at the time
€and I remember how we turned
the radio up so that all the men
in the ward could hear the news
bulletins, :

“The Canadians have fought
their way into the center of the
town .. . tanks have landed... .”

“Tanks!? we- shouted, “That
Means it’s the Second Front, all
Tight!” And we all wondered if

the war would be ended before -

We got out of hospital and, were
ft for action aghin. . ..

Then came the disappointing,
&arbled news reports of our with-
drawal, “Fairly heavy losses,”
Said the radio, but played up the
idea that the raid had been a
Success, “German prisoners were
taken.” “Our air force shot
down 170 German planes.’ “The
Taid went according to plan.”

_ “They say the Second Front

has opened, is that right?” a
Russian major asked his colonel
that night. The colonel smiled .
ironically: “Second Front! .. -
They have cleared out already!
I don’t know what it was, a
reconnaissance, or something
Just for appearance’s sake; but
Whatever it was, one thing is
Clear, we have only ourselves
to depend upon. Nobody’s 0-
ing to save us, they may yet
48k us to save them. .. -”
om The Storm)

Last week 32 veterans of the
Dieppe raid boarded an RCAF
Plane at Montreal airport and
flew to France to attend com-
“™emoration ceremonies at Dieppe.

any fine speeches were made,
Praising the heroism of the Can-

The workers of England, the —

adians who lie beneath French
soil just outside the town. |
But the key question’ was not
raised: was Dieppe a success or
a failure? To answer this ques-
tion honestly means ruffling the

complacency of the Canadian
army brasshats who planned the
operation. Military bigwigs

never like to admit their blun-
ders.

Dieppe was a military snafu of
the first magnitude. Making al-
lowance for the fact that much
valuable information was gained
in the raid, which helped .the
landings
months later, the blunt truth is
that the top brass demonstrated
incredable stupidity in the Di-
eppe operation.

Take a look at the figures: 667

killed or dead of wounds, 218
missing, 592 wounded, 1894 pris-
oners-of-war; a total of 3871
casualties in a force of 5000
Canadians,

Blunder Number One: No

heavy bombers were used to
plaster the town and coastal
defences prior to the raid.

Blunder Number Two: No

in North Africa three ©

ships with heavy guns were on
hand to support the raiders
from the sea; only a miserable
little force of seven destroyers
there that fatal morning.
Blunder Number Three: The
raid was to have taken place

in July. When it was cancelled
because of bad weather, officers

and men who had been “brief- |

ed” on the plan were scattered
all over England for a month
before the operation was de-
clared “on” again. To maintain:
security under such conditions
was impossible, and the Ger-
mang were prepared for the
“surprise” raid when it finally
was attempted.

Chief culprit was undoubtedly
Major-General J. H. Roberts, who
commanded the 2nd Canadian
Division which staged the raid.

Was Roberts court-martialled?
No, he was kicked upstairs.

On August 31, 1944, my Univer-
.sal carrier rolled through the
streets of Rouen and headed
north for Dieppe. As part of
the 2nd Division, our regiment,
the Toronto Scottish, was slated

Man from moon

By MEL COLBY

OR one reason or another,
i probably the heat, there’s a
Canadian citizen who wants to
make a rocket trip to Venus and
Mars. The citizen in question, a
Mr. E. C. Evans, is chairman of
the Canadian Rocket Society. He
figures that the Venus-Mars ex-
pedition could be handled for a
miserable five million dollars,
which would include establishing
a base on the moon.

Mr. Evans speaks as casually
about making a trip to the moon
as if he were talking about stroll-
ing down to the corner store for
the week’s grocery supply, al-
though the loftiness on his part
may derive from the kinship
which exists between @ present
day family food pill and the
amount he estimates will be need-
ed for an inter-planetary expedi-
tion.

As far as we're concerned there
will be no interference from this
department when Mr. Evans sets
out for the moon in 1960, as he
firmly proposes to do. We will re-
sist all attempts to have us take
part in any scurrilous whispering
campaign which suggests that Mr.

Evans dropped on his head dur-

\

ing childhood days, but at the
same time it should be pointed
out that we view the venture with
some misgivings.

Why drag the Venusians, Mar-
tians and Moonians into our po-
litical mire? We'll bet it wouldn’t
take six months before our daily
newspapers would be screaming:
headlines such as: “Martian Peace
Proposals Part of the Red Plot,”
“Suggestion That Everybody Eat
Viewed With Suspicion,” “Moon-
tain Elections Not Free Says
George Drew,” “Moonian Presi-
dent is Kremlin Hireling Says St.
Laurent.”

Of course, there’d also be de-
mands that this Moonian, that
Martian or all Venusians “go

back where they came from.” /
And its’s a foregone conclusion
that our lovable industrialists
would write sorrowful letters
-to the editor if it turned out
that the residents of other plan-
ets had a boorish antipathy to
being exploited. All in all, it
would probably end up with the
folk on the other side of the
moon viewing us with a jaun-
diced eye.
e :
As a matter of fact, we can re-

to take part in the historic “re-
turn to Dieppe.” :

But this time there was no
fighting, for the Germans pulled
out a few hours before we got
there. So we parked outside the
town overnight, near the pretty
village of Arques la Bataille, and
that evening we drank French
wine and ate 24egg¢ Normandy
omelettes and mingled with a
people delirious with joy at hav-
ing been liberated.

Next day,'in Dieppe, we saw a
less pleasant picture. Cafes
which had served the Germans
now served us. Prices of drinks
soared; an eight-franc drink at
10 a.m. cost, 24 francs three hours
later. Two brothels, which had
catered to the Nazi occupation
forces, did a roaring trade with
the Canadians for a,short time—
until military authorities locked
the doors.

Said an old Frenchman sadly:
“My boy, they cheer you today;
but there are many collaborators
in Dieppe. When your raid fail-
ed in 1942, we lost all hope.
Many, many people began to col-

laborate with the Germans from
that time on. Beware of these
well-dressed young men and wo-
men waving their flags at you!
If you want to know your true
friends, look for the poorly-
dressed workers. They are the
ones who continued to fight back
against the invaders . they
are the flower of French youth,”

All the army brass turned up
in Dieppe, and we had to shine
our shoes, clean our web and
uniforms, and put on a parade
for them. , It was the old chicken
all over again, and we were glad
to pull out of the place and get
back to the fighting.

But before we left we visited
the beaches, where so many brave
Canadians had died two years
before, and the peaceful little
cemetary, where they were bur-
ied. We were hardéned to death,
after Caen and May-sur-Orne and
Falaise, but we felt a lump in our
throats as we gazed at the neat
rows of white crosses, and I,
for one, muttered an oath at the
brasshats who had caused the
carnage by their blunders.

visits Vancouver

veal that this is already the case
with the Moonians. Mr. Evans
may not be aware of this, but a
prominent Moonian scientist has
already paid Earth a visit via
rocket ship. Incidentally, due to
modern scientific advancements,
the Moonian space-ship cost only
$36.45, a slight reduction from the
$5 million the Canadian rocket
ship society estimates it will
need.

The Moonian scientist, Moola K.

Snagsby, landed on a vacant lot
just outside Vancouver and kept
his presence a secret to all except
a few intimates. His diary, ex-
cerpts which are now published
with the permission of the copy-
right owners, reveals a hawk-like
perception’ of Earthian affairs.
@ :
MONDAY: Am coming to the
conclusion that Earthians indulge
in self-torture. They pack them-
selves into trolley cars in such a
manner as to assure bone-break-
ing and suffocation, and if such
is not accomplished on the first
trip they take another the same
day. There is a charge for this.

TUESDAY:: Earthians are in-
deed a strange people .They pro-
duce wealth on an unprecedented

scale and then permit a few of
their number to seize it for them-
selves. When I asked a corpora-
tion president about this he told
me to go back to Russia.

WEDNESDAY: One of the
most mystifying things about
Earth is the fact that somebody
is always tearing up trolley tracks.

THURSDAY: I may have dis-
covered why the Moonian life ex-
pectancy is a mere 150 yeans. Our
scientists have been ignoring the
ravages of Pink Toothbrush, Ath-
lete’s Foot, After-Shave Shadow
and the Safety Catch Zipper.

FRIDAY: Culturally, we Moon-
ians are a little different than the
Earthians. On the Moon, nothing
is permitted to interrupt’a broad-
casted symphony program; but on
Earth the symphony program is
continually allowed to break in-
to the commercials.

SATURDAY: Egad, but I find
myself slightly confused. The
newspapers here are all for peace
providing it does not interrupt
plans for war. ;

SUNDAY: They stopped tearing
up the trolley tracks today, but I
have been assured that the inter-
ruption is only temporary.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 26, 1949 — PAGE 5