This is the building some historians believe to be the central, yet secret, objective for the Dieppe raid on August 19, 1942.
Inside this former restaurant and hotel was the German Naval Headquarters and communications centre, a building suspected to contain a four rotor Enigma machine and code books – much-needed items of equipment for helping the Allied break the codes used by the Germans.
Standing on the edge of the port on the corner of Rue Vauquelin, today the building is a mixture of accommodation, a restaurant, and a tourist shop. Its wartime role has largely been forgotten by visitors to the Normandy town.
This objective ultimately failed as the British commandos sent to retrieve the objects struggled to get past the heavy defences found along the coast here.
Operation Jubilee was designed to demonstrate the commitment of the British to re-open the western front lost at Dunkirk and involved over 5,000 Canadian soldiers and 1,000 British Commandos who were supported by tanks plus the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
Facing overwhelming German defences along the coast, it was within six hours that a retreat began and four hours later over half of the landing troops had been killed or captured.
The Royal Navy lost over 30 landing craft and a destroyer in a raid which was later labelled as a framework for D-Day where important lessons were learned for seaborne assaults.