History Series / Dieppe

A Canadian mini-series airing on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network in 1993. Focus of the series shifts back and forth between those planning the raid on Dieppe on August 19, 1942, and one of the platoons of Canadian infantrymen that was charged with carrying out the landings.

* BigBadassBattleSequence: Inasmuch as a limited Canadian television budget can portray. The climax of the miniseries is the assault on Blue Beach. The planning for the raid takes up the first three-quarters of the series, with the landings and the aftermatch both given reasonable coverage. Budget considerations prevented the portrayal of the other landing beaches (Yellow, Orange, Green, Red and White) but the script focused its attention on a single platoon landing at Blue Beach, so the viewer gets a taste of the overall action.

* CanucksWithChinooks: While the senior commanders in the film are British and American, the soldiers who are committed to carrying out the Dieppe Raid are Canadians. They are portrayed as independent, tough-minded and eager to fight after sitting in the UK for long years of training.

* AntiHero: Casey is an adulterous rule-breaker who threatens to break things off with his English girlfriend as soon as he finds out her husband, fighting overseas, has been killed. Boasts about not actually carrying anything in his pack on route marches, and leads a raid on General McNaughton's dinner party in order to steal their roast beef and wine.

** Canadian General McNaughton also kvetches about how two Canadian battalions where wiped out by being under British command at Hong Kong.

** Crerar and McNaughton are both shown as putting ambition and politics ahead of military necessity.

* BritsWithBattleships: The senior commanders on the Allied side are Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the combined chiefs of staff of the British armed forces, and the head of Combined Operations, Lord Mountbatten. The trope is portrayed literally as several discussions revolve around the commitment to Dieppe of a Royal Navy battleship for fire support and the unwillingness of the combined chiefs to lose another capital ship in combat. British sailors are featured prominently as background in many planning sequences, and as extras manning the landing craft that the Canadians ride to shore.

* InsaneAdmiral: a number of these. Mountbatten is more interested in publicity than winning the war. Sir Dudley Pound, the naval chief of staff, fears losing battleships more than he cares about supporting the other services. Sir Arthur Harris thinks he can win the war single-handedly with Bomber Command and is loathe to divert his airplanes away from their strategic mission.

* WeAREStrugglingTogether: Denied battleship support, General Roberts desperately appeals to the head of Bomber Command, Air Marshal Arthur Harris. Harris agrees to provide 150 heavy bombers but asks what would happen if it was too foggy for his planes to take off on the day. Roberts replies he'd have no choice but to press on. Harris thanks him and Roberts leaves the meeting convinced he has his bombers. Later, Mountbatten and Hughes-Hallett inform Roberts that Harris refused to let his bombers participate, citing Roberts' comments as the reason why. They furiously demand to know what Roberts said at the meeting.

'''Mountbatten''' (incredulous): Roberts! That's the oldest trick in the book! The second you concede a circumstance in which you would proceed without something, it follows that something isn't really required.\\

* WeAREStrugglingTogether: Denied battleship support, General Roberts desperately appeals to the head of Bomber Command, Air Marshal Arthur Harris. Harris agrees to provide 150 heavy bombers but asks what would happen if it was too foggy for his planes to take off on the day. Roberts replies he'd have no choice but to press on. Harris thanks him and Roberts leaves the meeting convinced he has his bombers. It later turns out that Harris went over Roberts' head to the combined chiefs with a refusal to participate, because Roberts in effect stated their presence wasn't absolutely necessary.

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Leith's attraction to Casey is never overtly explained, though he fits a number of tropes that sync with this idea, such as AntiHero, LovableRogue, etc. Casey is presented as such in his introductory scene, when he advises a comrade "if we did everything we were told - we'd be Nazis."

** Harris wasn't being completely selfish; he states his belief in dialogue that Bomber Command is doing important work, and he has no desire to derail his master plan for a "Dickie Mountbatten sideshow."

* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Stefan suffers from claustrophobia to the point he needs to be tied up and gagged while in the hold of the transport taking them to Dieppe. When released, he goes berserk trying to get out, until Major Morton grabs him and shakes him. Stefan explains he was trapped in a septic tank as a child, and Morton jokes that the smelly hold they're in means they're all in a septic tank.

* TheHedonist: Casey is portrayed as this, carrying on an affair with a married British girl and then threatening to break it off once her husband is killed. He explains that he had to join the Army to escape a similar predicament in Canada. [[spoiler: Subverted in the end when he agrees to marry Leith.]]