One Day in August: Ian Fleming, Enigma, and the Deadly Raid on Dieppe (Hardcover)
Description
In less than six hours in August 1942, nearly 1,000 British, Canadian and American commandos died in the French port of Dieppe in an operation that for decades seemed to have no real purpose. Was it a dry-run for D-Day, or perhaps a gesture by the Allies to placate Stalin's impatience for a second front in the west?
Canadian historian David O'Keefe uses hitherto classified intelligence archives to prove that this catastrophic and apparently futile raid was in fact a mission, set up by Ian Fleming of British Naval Intelligence as part of a 'pinch' policy designed to capture material relating to the four-rotor Enigma Machine that would permit codebreakers like Alan Turing at Bletchley Park to turn the tide of the Second World War.
'A fast-paced and convincing book ... that clears up decades of misinformation about the ignoble raid' Toronto Star
About the Author
Professor David O'Keefe, a former officer in the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment of Canada) is an award-winning historian, author, film-maker and leading authority on Canadian military historical research. He currently teaches history at Marianopolis College in Quebec and lives outside Montreal.