A Morning in August
Updated: Aug 17
This month marks the 84th anniversary of the Dieppe raid. This was the first action for the Free French commandos; just 15 men took part, in three groups. This account is the personal testimony of Raymond Rabouhans, who, with colleagues René Taverne and François Baloche, was assigned to fight alongside British Commando No.4. Their role was to destroy the Hess battery of six 155mm cannon at Varengeville, to the west of Dieppe, which threatened the Dieppe landings.
Their’s was the only successful action of the entire Dieppe raid.
This account is transcribed from written accounts by Raymond Rabouhans, both in English and in French, and is a composite of their contents. Some details are taken from an account published in 1992 by a Dieppe newspaper. Raymond’s account was written some fifty years after the event, and some details may not correspond with other sources. There are a few minor inconsistencies in detail between this and other published accounts of Operation Cauldron. This is to be expected, because no one participant participated in more than a fraction of the total action, and with the ‘fog of war’ and the passage of time, inconsistencies are inevitable.
Testimony from Raymond Rabouhans
This is a true eyewitness account by Raymond Rabouhans, Free French Marine Commando, who took part, with No. 4 Commando, in the action against the German battery at Varengeville during the Dieppe raid on 19th August 1942.
I volunteered to join the Commandos from the Free French Navy. I was at the time a gunner on the French destroyer Léopard. In early February 1942 I was sent to Camberley where other Free French sailors and soldiers were being assembled under the leadership of Philippe Kieffer, to form the first group of Free French to be sent to the commando training centre at Achnacarry in Scotland.
Before going to Achnacarry we spent 2–3 weeks pre-training at the Royal Naval barracks HMS Royal Arthur at Skegness.Training in Achnacarry took place during April. It was certainly a place where physical endurance was stretched to the limit, and the green beret was won or lost depending on your capacity to survive the 5–6 weeks training.
After leaving Achnacarry the newly formed group of the No. 10 Inter-Allied Commando spent another month in Ayr with the No. 2 Commando, after their regrouping following the St. Nazaire raid on 27th March 1942. We left Ayr in May 1942, to be stationed for nearly a year in Criccieth, North Wales. Lt. Colonel Dudley Lister was the CO of No. 10 Inter-Allied Commando, comprising French, Belgian, Dutch, Polish, Norwegian and British. Training continued throughout the summer of 1942.
On 14th August, the 15 French Commandos chosen for the Dieppe raid left Criccieth to report to their specific assignments in the south of England. I was to be despatched with Taverne and Baloche to No. 4 Commando, at the time based in Weymouth, and commanded by Lord Lovat. On the evening of 18th August, we travelled in army trucks to Southampton to embark on the troopship HMS Prince Albert.
Except for senior officers, nobody knew where we were going; there was complete secrecy until late evening Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations came on board Prince Albert to wish us good luck, and revealed the name of our landing destination. Lord Lovat also spoke to the assembled troops on the main deck of the great importance for success of the destruction of the coastal battery 813 (Hess) at Varengeville.
The No. 4 Commando was divided into two groups, in total 253 men; one commanded by Lt. Colonel Lord Lovat, which landed at Quiberville (Orange 2), and the other by Major Mills-Roberts, which landed at Vasterival (Orange 1),
Slightly to the east of the Ailly lighthouse. Lord Lovat’s group was to undertake the final assault from the rear, whilst Mill-Roberts’ group was to attack the battery from the front, prevent their firing on ships at sea, and to protect the re-embarkation of the troops.
I was with René Taverne, attached to A Troop, commanded by Lt. Style.
Our duty was to search houses in order to find out any information about the German forces around the battery; our other duty was to fire upon the battery, to stop it opening fire out to sea on the ships getting ready to land at Dieppe.
Surprise was to play a capital role for the success of our objectives.
We left Southampton soon after sunset (at about 20:30). Most of the Commandos were on deck watching the coastline of the Isle of Wight disappear in the twilight. Then darkness fell, and all the men went inside the ship to be briefed and to have a meal. Soon after reaching the open sea, we formed into a convoy, and the full moon was shining until after midnight. Nobody really slept that night – the excitement and apprehension of what was going to happen in a few hours’ time the next day was too much for even the coolest of human beings to fall asleep.
The Prince Albert stopped about 10 miles from the French coast at about 02:30, and we were ordered to get into [our] respective LCAs. At this time it was pitch black. The crossing had been uneventful. In a few minutes all the LCAs carrying No. 4 Commando were lowered to sea, and we parted from the ship into the darkness, on our way to the two beaches chosen for the landings.
Soon after we left the Prince Albert, whilst proceeding in good formation order, the lighthouse at Ailly started to illuminate the entrance to Dieppe harbour, and a little later, about 03:30, to the north-east of Dieppe, the sky started to be ablaze with tracer bullets and rockets. We were most astonished to see these fireworks going on, but it lasted only 3–4 minutes. We moved forward, guided by the lighthouse until just before one mile from the coast, where the two groups separated, Lovat heading for Quiberville, and Mills-Roberts for Vasterival.
It was 04:53, the dawn was just breaking as the LCA beached quietly at high tide on the pebble shore of Vasterival. I got out of the boat without even getting my feet wet, and I think most of us did the same. It was a perfect timing and landing – just 3 minutes behind schedule. We had a few feet to walk from the water’s edge to reach cover under the overhang of the cliff. Absolute silence prevailed for our unopposed landing. Waiting with our backs to the cliff was the most anxious moment, as we did not know whether we had been spotted coming ashore or not.
Lt. Style was in charge of two Bangalore torpedoes, which he had to use to open a passage in the entanglement of barbed wire which blocked the access to the gully, before we could proceed. The other very anxious moment was the noise caused by the explosion of the Bangalore torpedoes – fortunately another precise timing in the planning was the arrival of 3 RAF Hurricanes to strafe the lighthouse and battery as the Bangalores exploded. Therefore, our own noise was masked by the noise of the planes.
Then we proceeded very carefully in two columns, one each side of the gully amongst the bracken and undergrowth. I was in Lt. Style’s section. I saw a Commando climb a telegraph post to cut the wires, which linked the gun battery to an observation post at the Ailly lighthouse.
Then we came to the first house on the right side of the gully; the shutters were closed. I remember very well entering the courtyard of a small farm. The farmer was milking a cow. His wife and a little girl were in the kitchen. Taverne was with me and we asked the farmer if he know of any Germans around his farm, but he was very frightened of our appearance, and told us to move away, fearing for the safety of his family.
Up to this time no firing had taken place between Mills-Roberts group and the battery. It was now almost daylight, and the battery started to open fire on the ships gathering in front of Dieppe. Immediately the order came from Mills-Roberts to abandon searching the houses, and to take up positions to open fire on the battery. It was at this time that a German sniper hiding in a farm building shot a British Commando in the shoulder just behind me, the last man in line as we took up position by an old barn about 150 yards from the battery. A field of wheat or oats separated us from the battery. During the next 20 minutes the mortar section of Mills-Roberts, and Lt. Style’s section with machine guns and automatic weapons, opened a barrage of fire on the battery.
I saw during this action two–three Germans try to leave the battery; they were immediately shot by our section. The battery stopped firing on the ships at sea. At about 06:20 a squadron of Spitfires came to deliver a final blow to the battery. This was the signal for Lord Lovat to launch his attack on the battery. The group of Mills-Roberts had stopped firing on the battery, once Lovat had reached his position behind the battery, and just before the RAF strike. Things then moved very quickly. The assault on the battery and the destruction of the guns with explosives took only a few minutes.
I think I fired about 20 rounds with my rifle across the corn towards the battery; whether I killed any Germans I do not know. The grenades I had with me were not used; I did not have the occasion for doing so. I saw only one dead German soldier, half way down the road leading to Vasterival.
The complete No. 4 Commando withdrew down to Vasterival, where the LCAs were waiting for us, albeit at some distance from the cliff, as it was now low tide, and German snipers attempted to disrupt the re-embarkation with mortar and machine gun fire, but were silenced. We took 4 German prisoners, who were used to carry wounded commandos back to the beach on makeshift stretchers.
The Germans at the Ailly lighthouse had no communication with the battery, did not know what was happening around them, and did not respond. This was certainly a point in our favour.
On our way down to the beach, at the Varengeville–Dieppe crossroads in Ste. Marguerite, we met an elderly man on a bicycle, with a basket full of eggs. He was very cheerful and pleased to talk to us, and wanted to know what was going on. We told him, and he kindly offered to us (a group of 10 men) an egg each. He was on his way to the market in Dieppe. So we told him to go back home.
We had to wade up to our necks to embark. I was one of the last, with Lord Lovat, to leave Vasterival at about 08:30. Just four minutes after leaving Vasterival beach a plane was shot down, and the pilot just managed to jump in time, his parachute opening only a second before he hit the water. The American pilot was rescued from the water. The sky was full of planes chasing each other. Towards Dieppe it was like an inferno – we could see that there were difficulties there but could not imagine that such a disaster was occurring.
We proceeded towards Newhaven, where we arrived around 17:30.
© Noël Rabouhans – 8th August 2026
Comments