"Dress Rehearsal" The Story of Dieppe by Quentin Reynolds 1943
Item specifics
Condition: Very Good
Seller Notes: “No Dust Cover and some age discoloration”
Subject: Military & War
Topic: WWII (1939-45)
Publication Year: 1943
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Special Attributes: 2nd Edition
Publisher: Random House : New York
1943 Hardcover
DRESS REHEARSAL
The Story of Dieppe
In 1943, Quentin Reynolds wrote this mostly nonfictional account of the British/Canadian Raid on Dieppe, France. Reynolds was a correspondent for Colliers Magazine covering the war. Hitler's forces occupied France. The assault on Dieppe was a dress rehearsal for what would later be the Allied invasion at Normandy to establish a permanent invasion of Europe. He outlines how the raid was designed to get Germany to withdraw military hardware from Russia to enable the battle on that front. Reynolds writes the book with numerous anecdotes about getting the job by buttering up contacts with pork chops and brandy. He gets an interview from General Mountbatten, Commander Combined Operations. Once on the ship, Reynolds writes intensely about navigating through the mined waters of the British Channel on board the destroyer Calpe. The personalities of the commanders are vividly portrayed as well as many of the men he encountered on the ship. Some of the names are fictionalized and some information such as on troop strength is left out to avoid giving too much information to the Germans during the conflict. The account of the battle, the interfacing of air coverage with ground assault, and then the harried retreat after some of the objectives were accomplished is gripping. We experience bombs going off on and near the ship, German aerial attacks, and water rushing into the galley. One attack comes as Reynolds is in a room with four other men. When the dust clears, he is the only one alive. Several chapters detail what were then new methods of plastic surgery and prosthetic limbs for the forces. The book is certainly a timepiece, but it highlights the courage of the 10,000 men sent to battle and the approximately one-third casualty rate. It is an interesting read of military nonfiction.
written by:
Quentin Reynolds
Quentin James Reynolds (April 11, 1902 – March 17, 1965) was a journalist and World War II war correspondent. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.
As associate editor at Collier's Weekly from 1933 to 1945, Reynolds averaged twenty articles a year. He also published twenty-five books, including The Wounded Don’t Cry, London Diary, Dress Rehearsal, and Courtroom, a biography of lawyer Samuel Leibowitz. He also published an autobiography, By Quentin Reynolds.
After World War II, Reynolds was best known for his libel suit against right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler, who called him "yellow" and an "absentee war correspondent". Reynolds, represented by noted attorney Louis Nizer, won $175,001 (approximately $1.5 million in 2014 dollars), at the time the largest libel judgment ever. The trial was later made into a Broadway play, A Case of Libel, which was twice adapted as TV movies.
In 1953, Reynolds was the victim of a major literary hoax when he published The Man Who Wouldn’t Talk, the supposedly true story of a Canadian war hero, George Dupre, who claimed to have been captured and tortured by German soldiers. When the hoax was exposed, Bennett Cerf, of Random House, Reynolds's publisher, reclassified the book as fiction.
Reynolds was a personal friend of British media mogul Sidney Bernstein. In 1956, Reynolds paid a visit to England to co-host "Meet the People", the launch night program for Manchester-based Granada Television (now ITV Granada) which Bernstein founded.
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