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Cdn Ref's
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| Battle of
Dieppe, France, WWII |
Nautical
Disaster
Day
for Night, 1994 |
This is a reference to the
horrible raid on Dieppe, France, in World War Two. The raid took place
in the early hours of August 19, 1942. A force of roughly 6000 men
were to assault the German strong points near the town of Dieppe, and
press forward on land into the town. Of those 6000 men, 4963 were
Canadians.
The raid went terribly
wrong though. The Germans knew they were coming and rained down
machine-gun fire from the high cliffs. The Allied soldiers were forced
to retreat back to England to avoid being totally wiped out. Because
of the loss of many military boats used to transport the troops across
the English Channel, a call went out to all English boats of all kinds
to help with the rescue. In all, though, only 2210 made it back to
safety.
In the raid on Dieppe,
there were 3367 casualties, including 1946 prisoners of war - 907
Canadians lost their lives. (Although in Nautical Disaster, Gordon
Downie sings 4000 men died in the water, at the time only 2210
returned to England, so they believed that the rest of the 6000 men
did die.)
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