Dieppe 1942

Dieppe, a coastal town in the Seine-inférieure department of France, is built along the long cliff that overlooks the English Channel. Scie River on the west from the town of Arques and the river flows through the city and into a medium-sized port. In 1942, the Germans had demolished some seafront buildings to aid coastal defense and had set up two large artillery batteries Berneval-le-Grand and Varengeville-sur-Mer. One important aspect of the designers was that Dieppe was within the range of a Royal Air Force fighter planes.

There is also great pressure on the Soviet government to open a second front in Western Europe. In early 1942 the Wehrmacht's Operation Barbarossa had clearly failed to destroy the Soviet Union. However, the Germans significantly less ambitious in the summer offensive launched in June was deep into southern Soviet Union, to push towards Stalingrad. Joseph Stalin himself repeatedly insisted that the Allies will create a second front in France to force the Germans to move at least part of the 40, off from the Eastern Front to remove some of the pressure of the Red Army

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After that victory the Battle of Britain in 1940 and moving to the Luftwaffe night bombing in the autumn of 1940, the day the fighters Royal Air Force Fighter Command were the words of Canadian historian Terry Copp '... air force mission". without anything else to do, day fighters RAF Fighter Command were in the spring of 1941 introduced a number of search-and-destroy functions over the French flying engaged in the fight against the Luftwaffe. When two or three fighters involved in these operations, they are known as rhubarb, and rodeos where they took part in more than three machines. the second half of 1941, the aerial offensive in France greatly enhanced, which leads to losses of 411 British and Canadian air rhubarb and rodeo attacks.

As a result, in the spring of 1942 the Luftwaffe introduced the new Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter of the airports in France. FW 190 fighters were much better than the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane used by Allied pilots and the British and Canadian losses in France rose rapidly. However, the RAF was convinced it was to win the air war, believing the loss of 259 Spitfires in France in the first six months of 1942 were justified reported the destruction of 197 German aircraft during the same period (the Luftwaffe lost 59 aircraft). A major problem was the RAF, the Luftwaffe fighters fell to engage in combat over the French coast, and instead use inland, forcing the Spitfires fly deep into France to engage in combat, and thus their fuel use, by placing the British aircraft a clear disadvantage when they finally encountered the Luftwaffe.

Thanks to intelligence provided by Ultra, the British knew that if any of the Allied strength tried to seize a port in France, the Germans could expect it to be the beginning of the attack, and that the Luftwaffe was to install an all-out effort against the Allied forces in the harbor, when it could be.

Armed with this knowledge, Fighter Command pressed strongly during the spring and summer of 1942 raided temporarily seize a French port, in order to provoke the Luftwaffe into committing most of its fighters in battle in France on the French coast, which would favor the RAF. [8] It was largely because of pressure from the RAF to fight "the greatest air battle" over the French coast that the mission Rutter / Jubilee continued

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Allied air operations in support of Operation Jubilee resulted in some of the most intense air battles since 1940. The RAF's main objectives were to throw a protective umbrella over the invasion forces and the beach opposite and also to force the Luftwaffe troops into battle attrition has allied its own terms. Some 48 fighter squadrons of Spitfires were tied eight squadrons Hurricane fighter-bombers, four squadrons of reconnaissance Mustang Mk Is and seven squadrons No. group of light-2 bombers involved. Opposing these forces were about 120 operational fighters of Jagdgeschwader 2 and 26 (JG 2 and JG 26), Dornier Do 217S of kampfgeschwader 2 and a variety of anti-shipping bomber elements III./ KG 53, II./Kampfgeschwader 40 (KG40) and I. / KG 77.

Although initially slow to react to raid the German fighters soon made their presence felt over the gate as the day went by. Although the Allied fighters were moderately successful in protecting the land and sea forces to aerial bombing, they are difficult to operate far from home bases. Spitfires in particular, were on the edge of their ranges, some of the only opportunity to spend five minutes over the control of territory. the raid on Dieppe saw a baptism of fire for the new Spitfire Mark IX, the only British fighter that was the same as the Fw 190 fighter. Six squadrons, four British and two Canadian flew a Spitfire Mark IX Dieppe. 

During the battle, the RAF flew 2500 sorties over Dieppe, and achieved a narrow victory over the Luftwaffe. A powerful air combat techniques prevented the Luftwaffe from making major attacks on either the landing or the evacuation of Allied, which therefore did not suffer very much by attacks. However, to achieve the goal of "the greatest air battle", which paralyzes the Luftwaffe in France, Operation Jubilee was less successful.

During the air battles over Dieppe, Royal Air Force lost 91 aircraft was shot down and 64 pilots (17 prisoner, the rest all killed), while the Royal Canadian Air Force lost 14 aircraft and nine pilots. In addition, the British lost six bombers Dieppe. Luftwaffe lost 48 aircraft, another 24 severely damaged 13 pilots were killed and seven wounded. However, the RAF intelligence at the time claimed that the Allies had been shot down 96 German aircraft, which is to win a great victory. In reality, the Luftwaffe in France was again at full speed for a few days raid. In the evaluation, Copp wrote that Dieppe is not registered with a knock-out blow to the Luftwaffe and the RAF sought. 

But Copp also noted that even though the Allies continued to lose an average of two machines each one of Germany's aircraft was destroyed in the rest of 1942 the superior economic productivity of the air industry in the United States, Britain and Canada, together with a better pilot training program for the Allies led to the Luftwaffe gradually lose the war of attrition in the sky France. Copp said: "The battle of air superiority won on many fronts with continuous effort and August 19, 1942 was part of this achievement."

Even though Fighter Command claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on the Luftwaffe's balance sheet was the ultimate Allied aircraft losses to be serious. The final figures are controversial; one source says that the losses were 106 enemy action: 88 fighters (including 44 Spitfires) 10 reconnaissance aircraft and eight bombers, and that 14 other RAF aircraft took off for other reasons, such as accidents.

Other sources can be assumed that as many as 28 bombers were lost, and that the requested destroyed and damaged Spitfires had 70 here, 48 Luftwaffe aircraft were lost. Included in that total were 28 bombers, of which half of the Dornier Do 217S from KG2. One of the two Jagdgeschwader, JG 2, lost 14 Fw 190S and eight pilots killed. JG 26 Fw 190S lost six of their pilots