Mayor to attend commemoration of Dieppe Raid

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and representatives of the federal government, Indigenous groups and the Canadian Armed Forces will gather Saturday for a special commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the ill-fated Dieppe Raid.

The ceremony will take place at Dieppe Park, formerly known as Cité-du-Havre Park, on a snippet of land jutting into the St. Lawrence River, from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

In August 1942, 916 Canadians died in the Dieppe Raid, an illconceived Allied attack on German-occupied France. Among the Canadian casualties — on top of nearly 2,000 more who were taken as prisoners of war — were 119 members of Montreal’s Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal regiment and four from the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, also based in Montreal. The public space honouring the raid, announced this year, is on the peninsula of Cité-du-Havre Park, close to the Concorde Bridge that connects to Île Ste-Hélène.

The commemorative ceremony will include an artillery salute, the performing of the Last Post, followed by two minutes of silence and an account of the Dieppe Raid by historian Béatrice Richard. The ceremony will conclude with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque.

Coderre announced in mid-April that the city would inaugurate a new space to commemorate the raid. “It was not a very positive battle; there were a lot of French-Canadian casualties,” Coderre said.

“But it’s an important battle, and we have a duty to remember it.”

It was not a very positive battle; there were a lot of French-Canadian casualties. But it’s an important battle, and we have a duty to remember it.