Research shows reporters minimized failure of Dieppe

War correspondents actively assisted the military’s public relations campaign to minimize the failure of the August 19, 1942 Dieppe raid, a recent UVic study shows. For his master’s thesis, UVic history student Tim Balzer examined how the Canadian government, the British and Canadian military and the Canadian media worked together to portray the raid as a success, despite a casualty rate of 67 per cent. “Basically, the British Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ) planned in advance to play up the raid no matter what happened,” says Balzer. “They would emphasize heroism, alleged successes and lessons learned in order to distract the public if the raid failed.”
Balzer says the Canadian army attempted to be more open than the British about the outcome of the raid, but in the end submitted to COHQ censorship of their news releases. “The probable explanation for this is that the only way for the Canadian army to stay together as a national army and see action was through raids. They did not want to alienate Lord Mountbatten who was chief of combined operations, so they went along with it.” Balzer adds that only a few newspapers were in fact critical of the Dieppe raid, although others used it to attack the reluctance of Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s government to institute conscription.
Balzer says that it was normal for journalists to accompany troops and identify closely with them, actively promoting the war effort. “The Dieppe publicity campaign had mixed results,” says Balzer. “It was clear that many Canadians were not convinced by the news reports and the level of dishonesty in the publicity contributed to that mistrust.”

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