August 19, 1942 stands as the most traumatic day of Canadian military history. In popular Canadian military history Canada has never lost a battle apart from Hong Kong (in which the Canadians formed only a small part of a British garrison), in which the under trained and inexperienced Canadians displayed many fine heroics. No, in popular Canadian history, from the defeat of the invading American armies at Quebec in 1775, defeating the Americans again in the War of 1812-14, in the Boer War and World War I, Canadian soldiers commanded by Canadian officers did not lose battles ... until Dieppe.

Despite the wealth of material written about Dieppe (as much has been written about Dieppe as about D-Day), it seems to most Canadians that very little attention is paid to it outside of Canada. Indeed, most other nationalities seem to wonder what the fuss is all about. This stems from a lack of perspective about the war. By August of 1942, every major ally of Britain had placed troops in combat and suffered heavy casualties, except Canada. By August of 1942 every major Dominion had at least one division with a year's worth of combat experience, except Canada. While Canadians are justly proud of their contribution to the victory in the Second World War (Canada committed a greater percentage of manpower and GNP to the war than did the United States), they are woefully ignorant of how late that contribution came in relation to the other Dominions, or how late and little their losses were compared to the other major allies.

For the British, with their proud naval tradition, there was a constant stream of heavy one day losses. On September 17, 1939, the aircraft carrier Courageous was sunk with 518 lost. On October 14, 1939, the battleship Royal Oak was sunk with the loss of 833 lives. On June 8, 1940 three ships were sunk with the loss of 1,515 lives. By August 17 of 1940 the British had lost 8,266 sailors, 4,400 soldiers, 3,851 pilots and aircrew were missing in action, and 729 civilians had been killed. On April 16, 1941 London saw 2,300 of her citizens killed in a bombing raid.

The losses to the Dominions were no less severe. 1941 was the year that New Zealanders and Australians suffered defeat in Greece and on Crete. In the defence of Tobruk that year the Australians had 832 killed and 7,000 taken prisoner. When Singapore surrendered, 32,000 Indian troops, 16,000 British, and 14,000 Australians were in captivity. When Java fell in March of 1942 5,000 British and American airmen were made POWs and a further 8,000 British and Australian troops joined them. Perhaps the most crippling blow, at least in Churchill's mind and performance before the Americans was the loss of Tobruk, where over 33,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were surrendered.

Even the Americans who were reluctant entrants into the war saw over 2300 killed at Pearl Harbour. By the time the raid on Dieppe took place the Americans had already fought the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the Battle of Midway and had just begun the Battle of Guadalcanal.

None of this lessens the trauma of Dieppe on the Canadian psyche. It may help to explain the seeming indifference of many historians but it makes the indifference no more palatable. The people of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, with their losses would understand what the loss of 4,000 men meant to a country the size of Canada. It was not just that an entire graduating class had become casualties, but that every man of military age in town had become a casualty. And this was the realization of many towns in Canada following that fateful raid. One in two thousand Canadians took part in the Dieppe raid, over 1 in 4,000 became a casualty.

For Canadians this has led to a constant questioning about Dieppe, a force of Canadian soldiers led by Canadian officers had never lost a battle before this (not entirely true, but such losses had been infrequent enough that they were conveniently forgotten), and they would not lose one afterward, not in Sicily, Italy, North-West Europe, or Korea. For a nation whose popular history did not know the word retreat, defeat stood out as something brought about by someone else. And so the finger pointing began, Mountbatten pressed the raid against the advice of those who knew better, Montgomery failed in his usually meticulous planning, the RAF did not provide proper bomber support, the Royal Navy was too afraid to provide proper bombardment. Someone, someone other than the Canadians had to be at fault, and this could be no ordinary fault, for the Canadian had often succeeded where the British had failed, and where the British had expected them to fail. No, this defeat had to be a planned defeat. Such were and are the accusations that remain constant in the debate over Dieppe.

In looking at Dieppe as part of the whole war effort, however, another view comes to light. That the Allied war effort as a whole was inconsistent and amateurish. That victories came because the Germans lost their battles more often than we won ours. When battle, not just the battle, but battle is placed under a microscope, and the tactics, and weapons, and individuals are considered, we learn of the fog of war, the friction of war. And when all things are considered, when Dieppe is placed in the perspective of Allied efforts of WWII, what we learn is that the young men who died, and were wounded, and went into captivity on that traumatic day were not the casualties of someone's ego, or inefficiency (although that contributes to the truth), or some diabolical planned defeat, but that rather, on that day, they became the casualties of war.
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