August 19, 1942: 
The Disaster at Dieppe

 
The sun rose over France
just as the silence of dawn was broken.
Along ten miles of pebbled beach
under the shadows of the cliffs,
operation Jubilee made land.

Varangeville went well,
but further down the shore
at Pourville, at the River Scie,
the bridge became a battlefield
where many soldiers died.

At Berneval and Puys
disaster haunted dawn.
Pinned between the water and the cliffs
many soldiers charged onto the beach
and never saw the sun rise full.

And at the center of the chaos
in the wake of coastal bombing
shrouded in confusion and smoke,
two waves of troops made land
and headed for Dieppe.

Their target unobtainable,
they made a desperate retreat,
tho the gallant gunners in their tanks, 
who fired to give cover,
were fated to be prisoners in this war.

The hills along the beaches never fell,
the Germans never lost their hold.
The raid that so depended on the dawn
and made its deadline at high tide,
rained confusion and catastrophe.

Six thousand men sailed out that day,
over half did not return.
As the tide rose on the beaches,
the dead and wounded washed away,
with hundreds more as captive souls.

And Broadsword heralded the news
of the catastrophe of Jubilee,
nine hours of hell unleashed at Dieppe,
as word went back to  British shores that day
on the wings of a pigeon flying north. 



                       october 2003