Operation Jubilee

19 August 1942 — Dieppe

Date
19 August 1942
Command
Fighter Command
Target
Dieppe, France
Force dispatched
2,955 aircraft
Aircraft lost
106

Narrative

The air operations over Dieppe on 19 August 1942 formed the largest single-day air battle the RAF had yet fought, mounted to cover the ill-fated Anglo-Canadian amphibious raid, Operation Jubilee, on the French port. To shield the landings and to draw the Luftwaffe into a decisive battle, Fighter Command flew some 2,950 sorties — the great majority by Spitfire squadrons, many of them Canadian — while light bombers of No. 2 Group laid smoke and attacked the coastal defences. The day cost the RAF heavily: around 106 aircraft were lost, its worst single day of the war, with scores of pilots killed or taken prisoner as the fighting raged over the beaches and the Channel. The Luftwaffe lost far fewer, perhaps 48 machines, and the hoped-for crushing air victory was not won. The raid on the ground was a bloody failure, above all for the Canadian troops, but the air fighting over Dieppe was studied hard as a lesson in the true cost of operating over a defended enemy coast — knowledge that shaped the planning for the invasion of 1944.

Sortie details (which aircraft from which squadron, which crew flew, the outcome) will populate this page once the TNA AIR 27 squadron-diary importer arrives.

The fallen

211 airmen in this archive died on 19 August 1942 or the day that followed. For a raid of this kind these are overwhelmingly the night's losses, though a death-date match is not by itself proof an individual flew this operation.

See all 211 who died on 19 August →

Source: Dieppe Raid — Wikipedia →