Music Before the Money

The Dieppe Raid, also known as The Battle of Dieppe or Operation Jubilee, during World War II, was a Canadian-led attack attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe on the northern coast of France on August 19, 1942. Under the command of the Chief of Combined Operations, Lord Louis Mountbatten, over 6,000 soldiers, including some British and American - and supposed to be - supported by a large naval and air contingent, were to seize and hold the major port of Dieppe for a short period. This exercise was to test for a possible amphibious assault and to gather intelligence from prisoners and captured materials while assessing the German responses. It was also claimed that the Allies wanted to draw the Luftwaffe into a coordinated attack from the air.

My novel Rockets of the Reich, begins with a rescue mission to the trapped soldiers on the Dieppe beach. My protagonist, Wyn Parsons, is being carried to shore on a British landing craft and, using the threat of a gun, forces the drivers to land in an attempt to save some stranded soldiers. I drew from personal journals to fill in the drama and I had to take time outs because the cruelty of the battle was tough to take in one sitting.

From my research the raid was sent in undergunned because Mountbatten, shaken from the loss of the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse by a Japanese torpedo attack, feared losing any more capital ships and pulled the navy ships from the attack. The surprise, if there was any to begin with, was further lost when they attack ran into a German convoy in the English Channel.

Despite the claims that Allies gained from the attack, here are the facts:

As a result Hitler ordered the building of the immense Atlantic Wall fortifications which made D-Day difficult, especially Omaha Beach.

The Allied air force was beaten back by the Luftwaffe taking losses of 115 aircraft that took a year to replace and losing veteran pilots that could not be.

The Canadians lost almost 3000 men, 1000 killed and 2000+ taken prisoner.

None of the Canadian generals, Roberts, McNaughton and Crerar took any part in the overall planning of the operation and only assisted only with smaller details. The plan had already been designed by the Combined Operations HQ when the Canadians were called in. However, Major-General J.H. Roberts was forced to take the blame for the failure.

Mountbatten never shouldered any of the blame and had a public relations statement written to tell everyone it was a tactical success.

The Canadians had been training in England for almost 3 years and the Prime Minister, Willam Lyon MacKenzie King - a lightweight who it was said took advice from his dog and his dead mother - wanted some glory for Canada. The sad part was it was a good idea until Mountbatten started stripping the raid of its essentials. The result was a killing field of concentrated machine gun and heavy gunfire - like the Somme on a small scale.

But, Mountbatten was a “Royal” fresh from having his ship sunk off Crete in May 1941. This hardly qualified him for Chief of Combined Operations and, it is said, he treated the Canadian command as pesky underlings. During his visits to Canada after the war, despite his well-rehearsed excuses, the Royal Canadian Legion distanced itself from him and his relations with Canadian veterans were never friendly.

Now known as Yusef Islam, Cat Stevens went round in my 8-track deck many times. Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat and Catch a Bull at Four are household names to me as much as many of Gordon Lightfoot’s greats. What ended my thirst for new Cat Stevens material was, he, himself. Due to a change in religion, in 1978 Cat Stevens changed his name to Yusef Islam and disappeared from the charts the same year that Lightfoot hit the charts with Daylight Katy.

Cat Stevens, born Steve Georgiou in London, England, July 21, 1947, was the son of a Greek father and a Swedish mother. He changed his name to Cat Stevens because he thought his Greek name would not take him far in the pop field. Although, the Greek influence in his music is unmistakeable. Wild World and Morning Has Broken are his two top hits but there are dozens of great songs in his albums.

Like Lighfoot and Croce’s music books I have two of Cat Stevens. His book had tabs so I could pick out the fingerstyle and do a decent job of The Wind. I would also concentrate on his vocal style because there was no one who sang like him and it would sure get everyones’ attention. Being an acoustic guitar lover I always wanted a Gibson Jumbo like he and John Denver had. The guitar could fill up a room just due to the size of the box.

I still love to play Father and Son. Like Lightfoot’s Sit Down Young Stranger it tells of a brief time when fathers’ could not adapt to the rapid changes in their children. There’s was the generation who fought World War II and came home with the knowledge that we would never have to fight in a war. In both songs the parents are frightened of the person sitting in front of them because they do understand why they are rebelling. But I think they are more frightened because they feel they have lost their children forever.

Cat Stevens started to search for spirituality early in his career. Just listen to his lyrics and then all of Buddha and the Chocolate Box. So it did not suprise me that he converted to Islam but I never thought he’s drop out all together. I mean, for a while Bob Dylan changed religions almost yearly.

As a high-profile voice for Islam, he caused controversy in 1989 with public statements that were widely interpreted as support for the death of Salman Rushdie, an interpretation which he has denied. Rushdie was condemned by Islamic extremists for his book Satanic Verses. However, this has caused Yusef Islam to be banned from entry into the U.S. as an undesireable.

I got this from Stumble! Enjoy!

Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”

4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.

6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”

7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.