THEY WERE ORDERED NOT TO PUT FLOWERS ON GRAVES.

In spite of entreaties to celebrate, for the 25 or so survivors from each regiment there was a greater necessity. However painful, they steeled themselves to revisit that beach where man and vehicle had floundered with fatal consequences in 1942. Formidable concrete defences had been strengthened further, the esplanade now fully barb-wired, the beach now thoroughly mined. Then, led by locals, they reached a plot smothered with so many fresh flowers that the plain, nameless wooden crosses were hard to discern.

On the day of the disastrous Dieppe Raid, and without being ordered by the Germans, locals removed over 900 dead raiders, burying them here where they dutifully maintained this ground. Local people situated the cemetery to overlook the beach. They were ordered not to put flowers on graves and not to erect any memento to the slain. Plans of the plot were kept clandestinely, with each deceased ID recorded to match each cross location, so that his name could be properly inscribed on his cross after the Occupation.

On Sept. 1, 1944, a strengthening onshore wind chilled the exposed hilltop cemetery. The Dieppe Raid veterans and their solemn local guides could hear comrades and other Dieppois beckoning them to join festivities in the town centre. After a time, they did exactly that. Memories of the disaster of 1942 would never be erased, but they would attempt to set them aside for a short bout of merrymaking. They had earned it.