The Battle Heard at Dieppe
Before dawn in a French seaside village, two holidaymakers woke to the sounds of a battle: guns, planes and shouting. The raid they heard had happened nine years before.
What was reported
In August 1951, two English women staying at a guesthouse in Puys, near Dieppe, woke at around 4 a.m. to hear what sounded like gunfire, shells, dive-bombers and men shouting, coming from the beach. It went on, rising and falling, for nearly three hours.
They wrote notes as it happened. The Society for Psychical Research later compared them with the timeline of the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942, when thousands of Allied soldiers landed on these beaches, and found that the sounds matched its stages closely.
Explanations offered
Sceptics have suggested a dredger working in the harbour, the sea, or aircraft, and point out the women had read about the raid. Nobody else in the village reported hearing anything. It's one of the best-known cases of a phantom battle heard rather than seen.
- When
- 4 August 1951
- Where
- Puys, near Dieppe, Normandy, France
- Witnesses
- Two English women on holiday
- Status
- Disputed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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