“We know the Nazis have dozens of full divisions as occupying forces in France, the Low Countries, and Italy, but we’re sure a handful of strong regiments can take them all out even though we have no concrete plans for developing a beachhead for large-scale landings of more divisions and we do not yet have *any* supporting ground forces yet from the Americans.”

Um, no, that doesn’t pass the smell test. That, and the Enigma machine *was* that important, and the Brits (rightly) placed a higher premium on intelligence than did any other nation — they knew what a force multiplier it was.

Before the real story was declassified, the Dieppe Raid was sheer folly, a stupid waste of materiel and good men. Now we know it happened for a very important reason, one fully in line with what had been the Brits’ long tradition of having the best intel community on the planet.