Operation Jubilee by Patrick Bishop

Author:Patrick Bishop [Bishop, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2021-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

In a jaunty PS he added: ‘The Canadians are 1st Class chaps; if anyone can pull it off, they will.’29

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The hammer was now cocked on the Dieppe operation. The prime minister regarded it with mixed feelings. It was an uneasy time for Churchill. The trip to America had gone well. As always he had been sparing with the truth of Britain’s real intentions. He continued to make encouraging noises about an early initiative on the continent, but was silent about the de facto decision taken by himself and the chiefs on 1 June that Sledgehammer would never happen. When he left for home on the 25th there were signs that the president was leaning towards Churchill’s cherished proposal for an Anglo-American invasion of North Africa later that year, though the American generals were still far from convinced. The visit was marred by another shocking blow to British pride and morale.

On 21 June, during a meeting with Roosevelt, a messenger arrived with an urgent telegram for the president. Without a word Roosevelt handed it to Churchill. The news was so bad that at first he did not believe it. Tobruk had surrendered to Rommel’s forces and 33,000 men had been taken prisoner. ‘This was one of the heaviest blows I can recall during the war,’ he wrote.30 ‘Not only were its military effects grievous, but it had affected the reputation of the British armies.’ It was a national and personal humiliation. ‘Defeat is one thing,’ he reflected; ‘disgrace is another.’

Churchill felt vulnerable. He was ‘politically at my weakest and without a gleam of military success’. The Germans were once again pressing forward on the Eastern Front, Rommel seemed poised to enter Egypt, the Japanese threatened India, and in the Atlantic U-boats were sending hundreds of thousands of tons of ships to the bottom every month. At home his prestige was faltering and he was bracing for a no-confidence vote in the Commons on the issue of the government’s handling of the war. The last thing he needed was another catastrophe.

On the eve of the parliamentary debate, 30 June, Churchill summoned Mountbatten, Brooke and two of his senior military advisers to an informal conference at Downing Street. According to Hughes-Hallett who was also present, the prime minister wanted ‘one final review of the outlook for the Dieppe raid [to] decide whether in the prevailing circumstances it was prudent to go on with it’.31

They met at 15.00 in the Cabinet Room and while they talked, Clementine Churchill arranged flowers in the background. The prime minister wanted reassurance. He asked whether Mountbatten could guarantee that the raid would be a success. It was an absurd question and the fact that Churchill asked it was a measure of how low his spirits had sunk. In Hughes-Hallett’s account Churchill was answered by Brooke who told him that if success could be guaranteed ‘there would indeed be no object in doing the operation’. It was ‘just because no one had the slightest idea what the outcome would be that the operation is necessary’.

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