A Canadian link forever

THE people of Dieppe and the people of Canada share a long history. It can be traced back to the sixteenth century when sailors from Dieppe and Fécamp in Normandy started to fish for cod on the banks off Newfoundland, a trade that was to develop into a major industry in the nineteenth century, when salt cod acquired an important place in the many people’s diet.

Another link: in 1639, three nuns from Dieppe sailed across the Atlantic to run the Hôtel-Dieu in Quebec: the first hospital to be set up by a religious order in North America.

On 19 August 1942, nearly a thousand young Canadians died on the beach at Dieppe and nearby shores. Canadians soldiers, stationed in southern England, were the main participants in the allied army that took part in the Dieppe Raid, a spectacular and disastrous show of force against the occupying German troops.

The human cost of Operation Jubilee, which served the propaganda machines of the rival governments involved, totalled 1,380 allied troops (including 913 Canadians) killed and 1,600 wounded; and 345 Germans killed and 268 wounded. 

The raid is commemorated annually in Dieppe and Newhaven, the English port from which the raiding force sailed, and there is a Jubilee museum behind the Mercure hotel.