One Day in August: The Untold Story Behind Canada's Tragedy at Dieppe

One of crucial Canadian non-fiction books we've released: the groundbreaking, exciting, ultra-secret tale in the back of certainly one of WWII's so much enduring mysteries, which essentially adjustments our figuring out of this sorrowful occasion in Canada's past.
     The Dieppe Raid--the darkest day in Canadian army history--has been the most difficult mysteries of WWII, whilst nearly 4,000 Canadian amphibious troops stormed the small French port city, basically to be ambushed by way of the ready Germans, slaughtered, wounded or captured. This disaster, coupled with the 7 decades-long secret surrounding the cause of the operation, left a legacy of bitterness and recriminations and debatable fees starting from incompetence to conspiracy. O'Keefe's detective-like examine over 15 years within the Intelligence documents of five nations now unearths that it used to be a vitally mystery "pinch raid," prepared by means of British Naval Intelligence and the Joint Intelligence Committee. The challenge: below conceal of a raid to secretly thieve the German code books that might free up the Enigma cipher desktop that held the major to the German excessive Command's plans. one of many key figures in the back of the undertaking, in addition to Mountbatten and Churchill, used to be Commander Ian Fleming, ready in a boat off-shore for the code books that will have kept numerous lives and shortened the warfare by means of a few years.

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With British towns ablaze, civilians loss of life or uprooted, the nation’s young ones and a few of its cultural treasures evacuated inland or in a foreign country, and the spectre of an impending German invasion looming over England, the destiny of falling into British palms used to be no longer the popular alternative for any enemy team of workers. On board the bomber, the team of 5 ready to “pancake” the wounded “bird” simply because the moment engine reduce out, leaving the aircraft gliding silently in an everlasting yet light descent in the direction of the water. At one thousand toes, one member threw warning apart and, forsaking the standard coded technique, dispatched a misery name in undeniable German to any vessel within the zone. A German patrol boat rapidly seemed. Crashing in the course of the waves, it ploughed in the direction of a place quite a few hundred yards from what it anticipated may be the landing aspect of the falling bomber. Breaking the close to silence, calls to “hang on tight” joined the whistle of the wind snaking in the course of the bullet-riddled fuselage and the cracked panes of the nostril cover. The aircraft bounced as soon as at the water and spun clockwise virtually 90 levels in a slow-motion pirouette earlier than settling with its nostril pointing in the direction of the oncoming rescue craft, simply fifteen hundred toes away and shutting in quick. very quickly, it appeared, the workforce regained their senses and, with clockwork precision, following the drill that they had rehearsed in education, popped off the canopy of the get away hatch and deployed the tiny dinghy. Clad in rules khaki Luftwaffe flight matches, carrying cumbersome yellow Mae West–style flotation units, and with flight goggles hung round their necks, their wedge caps changed via bloodied bandages, the lads rowed tough in the direction of their rescuers, waving frantically, shouting words in excited German clipped through the wind. The Räumboote, or R-boat, group spoke back with the compulsory toss of a towline to attract them to the rescue craft. simply as their deliverance appeared whole, a siren blared, summoning the R-boat team to motion stations, by means of shouts of “Jabo! Jabo! ” (for Jagdbomber, fighter bomber) and the ripping sound of 20 mm and 37 mm flak weapons at the aft deck discharging shells skywards. The emerging flow of yellow tracers picked out a tiny black speck descending quickly from 4 thousand toes above, revealing inside of seconds the precise mono-winged form of an RAF Lysander reconnaissance plane making directly for the scene, firing the entire whereas. With the eye of the R-boat group absolutely engaged in fending it off because it swooped down, the Lysander without warning banked left to drop its bomb load hundreds of thousands of yards from its meant mark. At that second the “German” bomber workforce sprang into motion to release their malicious program ploy. Pulling out guns hidden at the rubber dinghy and tucked into their Luftwaffe flight fits, the British commandos boarded the R-boat, wonderful the staff of seventeen and killing or shooting so much within the first few seconds. After a cursory seek of the boat to make sure that they had subdued all people on board, they positioned and seized their objective: a three-rotor model of a German naval Enigma computing device with its linked code books and environment sheets.

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