CECIL MERRITT
News arrived by radio and runner. With first light broken across Dieppe and the surrounding area, much of the South Saskatchewan Regiment remained checked at the 24-metre bridge over the Scie River. Lieutenant-Colonel Cecil Merritt, his moustache doing little to mask his baby face, thought of the Canadian dead littering the road a short distance from HQ and, perhaps reminded of the father he had lost in the last war, recognised that something needed to be done. Mustering unimaginable courage, the 33-year-old officer left his position and headed for the men pinned down at the front.
The day – 19 August, 1942 – was turning out to be a disaster. It was one that had been months in the making, with the Soviet Union having long pressured its allies to open up a second front, to relieve German pressure to the east. The United States also wanted a chance to engage the Nazi regime on
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