Another new release from Flames of War is this boxed Churchill Platoon set.
Though designed for Cassino, it should also be suitable for the Normandy campaign, though I did think it might be handy for a game based on the Dieppe raid in 1942.
I awakened to a stab of early morning sunlight searing my eyelids. My batman, Corporal Mino, peered through the tent flap. “Sir wake up! Admiral Mountbatten has ordered you to attend a debriefing in London two hours from now.”
I sat up groggily. Christ, I was a mess. I was still wearing my battledress, filthy, streaked in grime and dried blood.
“They said you were the only officer of the whole brigade who came back from the beaches. You’re all that’s left.”
Captain Denis Whitaker, Royal Hamilton Light Infantry
August 19th 1942 was a date that many Canadians would never forget. On that day, three thousand Canadian infantry troops (out of an initial total of five thousand) were killed, wounded or taken prisoner on the beaches of Dieppe on the French coast. The Royal Navy lost boats and personnel, the RAF and RCAF had one hundred and eight planes shot down with sixty pilots lost. The Allies had raided a heavily fortified port and had paid the price, a heavy price.
In 1942, Aldof Hitler and his armed forces held most of Europe and was probing deep into Russia. Stalin called on his allies to open a second front.
The allies knew that if they were to liberate France than they would need a port, logistics is what wins wars, not necessarily better weapons The Dieppe raid was conceived as a precursor to a larger landing in France at some later date.
Many lessons were learnt on that day, but just under two years later on the 6th June 1944, the allies landed on the beaches of Normandy, D-Day was the beginning of the end of the Nazi occupation of Europe. D-Day saw the use of “funnies”, tanks specially designed to overcome beach obstacles, mulberry harbours and a wide range of other new equipment.
The Churchill Platoon set is out on the 30th July.
Sorry James, you can’t use them for Dieppe: they make up as Mks IV, V or VI, whereas the Dieppe Churchills were Mks I, II and III. Very similar, but different turrets – welded not cast.