Dieppe vs. D-Day – Comparing Two Battles
...ad been in Africa and had involved British forces. Second, they had very little information about the layout of Dieppe. In Normandy, the Allied forces used what they had learned from their disaster in Dieppe to their advantage. This time they were very well prepared. The invasion was planned and rehearsed down to the smallest detail. A large Allied force invaded France from Britain, while a smaller force attacked from the south. The invaders rapidly worked their way inland, beginning an 11-month advance that took them through France and Belgium, towards Germany. In addition, they had managed to keep details of the attack a secret from the Germans. As a result, the landing areas on the beaches were poorly defended. A second, significant difference between the invasion of Dieppe and the invasion of Normandy was the size of the artillery support in the air, naval, and land operations. In Dieppe Canadian troops lacked artillery support, and were outgunned by the Germans. Additionally, tanks were not suited to the beach at Dieppe: rocks jammed in their tracks and left the vehicles immobile. Furthermore, almost all of the vessels waiting to ship the retreating troops out were hit and sunk. Finally, the naval and air support was weak, consisting of 237 ships across the channel and four destroyers, and 67 RAF squadrons of fighters and heavy bombers providing air cover. In Normandy, however, Allied troops had massive air and naval support, with the ability to land more than a million troops within two or three weeks of the initial landing. Naval support in Normandy consisted of 4000 crafts, 110 of which were Canadian, while air support consiste...