Unauthorized Action: Mountbatten and the Dieppe Raid

By Brian Loring Villa

Book Overview

On August 19, 1942, a mainly Canadian force left England in an attempt to seize the German-occupied French port of Dieppe--a mission that has been described as the largest raid in history. The result... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195410610
• ISBN13: 9780195410617
• Release Date: December 1994
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 1.1"

Customer Reviews

Chilling

An excellent book with a chilling additional chapter in the updated edition. Very scholarly work, examines in detail the supposition that Mountbatten launched the Dieppe Raid without permission or authorization. The claim is supported by evidence, though it may take several readings to fully grasp the intricacies of the argument being presented. Focusses entirely on politics and thus will not satisfy those looking for the military details of this action, nor the planning issues. A well focussed, well written, and - if one reads the final chapter added to the first edition - chilling story of how this disastrous raid came into being and who may have been finally responsible.

An incisive study of Governments at war

I was prepared not to like this book. I say this at the beginning to give the reader of this review warning: I'm a convert, somewhat, to the author's point of view. The Dieppe Raid is one of the puzzles of WW2. Why the British persisted in launching it when it had already been cancelled once, and was obviously a precarious proposition at best, has never been satisfactorily explained. My worry was that Villa, being a Canadian, would take an explicitly anti-British point of view, with which I would take issue. He doesn't. Instead, the book focuses on the decision-making process, and the way governments launch operations in wartime. This part of the book is fascinating, and enlightening. His premise (that Mountbatten launched the raid himself, as Combined Operations head, without the required approval of the Chiefs of Staff) is a bit of a stretch, but by the end of the book, I was willing to say I needed to see an alternative explanation before I believed otherwise. The book's style is rather formal, and there's little attempt at humor or levity, but the writing is clear and incisive. The author has obviously done his homework. There are separate chapters on the navy and RAF, both of which display knowledge of the overall context of the period of the war in which Dieppe took place, and the circumstances under which the decision was made. All of this strongly adds to the book itself, and the author's thesis. All in all a very good book.