Heroes of the Victoria Cross - CECIL MERRITT

In August 1942, as the Dieppe Raid fell apart, a youthful Canadian CO rallied his men across a heavily defended bridge, clearing pillboxes and sacrificing his freedom to cover the Allied withdrawal

- ALEX BOWERS

News arrived by radio and runner. With first light broken across Dieppe and the surrounding area, much of the South Saskatchewan Regiment remained checked at the 24-metre bridge over the Scie River. Lieutenant-Colonel Cecil Merritt, his moustache doing little to mask his baby face, thought of the Canadian dead littering the road a short distance from HQ and, perhaps reminded of the father he had lost in the last war, recognised that something needed to be done. Mustering unimaginable courage, the 33-year-old officer left his position and headed for the men pinned down at the front.

The day – 19 August, 1942 – was turning out to be a disaster. It was one that had been months in the making, with the Soviet Union having long pressured its allies to open up a second front, to relieve German pressure to the east. The United States also wanted a chance to engage the Nazi regime on the continent. Churchill, it seemed, had little choice but to appease his allies, yet the dark shadows of Dunkirk, Singapore and, more recently, Tobruk weighed heavily on the British; their forces weren’t ready, nor were they well-equipped enough to liberate Europe. So, instead of an outright invasion, Churchill proposed a series of small-scale raids that might encourage Hitler’s armies away from the gates of Stalingrad and towards the Atlantic Wall. It would be up to Lord Louis Mountbatten, second cousin to the future Queen Elizabeth II and newly promoted chief of the Combined Operations Headquarters, to orchestrate these raids. Recalling the great success in Saint-Nazaire in March 1942, Mountbatten decided to escalate the aggressive nature of operations for the French coastal commune of Dieppe.