Commandos and Rangers of World War II Read online

  The British commando idea spawned many small units and military missions between the Allies that led to the formation of Australian, American and other nations’ Special Forces.

  These Commandos and other Special Forces of World War II were superb light infantry, a fact all too often forgotten in the fashion of the 1980s when every political cut-throat wants to be called a ‘commando’.

  From the Independent Companies—forerunners of the Commandos—who landed in Norway in 1940, to the Rangers in 1945 who landed in the Philippines, the Special Forces’ story is full of interest and paradox. How were those Independent Companies to operate from a ship as their base if the enemy had air superiority? Might the Rangers in the Philippines have saved the fleet if the approaches to Leyte Gulf had been studded with mines controlled from the shore? This book is not concerned, however, with might-have-beens but with the facts as they were, so far as can be told.

  Four Independent Companies were the first British special service forces in action in World War II. They came ashore at the small fishing ports of Mo i Rana and Bodö; their headquarters group landing from their parent ship HMS Royal Ulsterman on 13 May 1940. In skirmishes on the rugged Norwegian mountains made dangerous by an early thaw, these companies screened the Allied operations a hundred or so miles to the north around Narvik. Among the companies’ officers were 20 experts on mountain warfare, flown home from the Indian north-west frontier, who put to good use their knowledge of Pathan tribesmen’s tactics, ambushing some 60 Germans who came ashore to probe northward.

  Despite such setbacks, the Germans continued the infantry frontal attacks with supporting parachute infantry outflanking Allied positions, and after nearly a month of confused fighting the Independent Companies were withdrawn through Bodö along with elements of the 24th Guards Brigade and Norwegian troops.

  The operations in Norway showed clearly one of the paradoxes of the commando idea. These special forces were used as infantry, although the Independent Companies had been hurriedly raised for guerrilla operations, an idea fostered by Major Holland, an engineer who, by a lucky chance, was appointed head of the general staff’s research section, then known as GS(R), in 1938. His research into the possible use of guerrillas led him to champion preparations for all types of irregular operations, although he could make little headway against the traditional thinking of those directing military operations. However, a study dated 1 June 1939 concluded that ‘if guerrilla warfare is coordinated … (with the) main operations, it should, in favourable circumstances … present decisive opportunities to the main forces’. Holland was joined by (Sir) Collin Gubbins and the GS(R) section—renamed MIR (Military Intelligence Research)—became a powerhouse of ideas, including escape organisations, deception techniques, and commando-like formations. These guerrillas—Collin Gubbins had pointed out in 1939—would be in actions usually fought ‘at point-blank range as the result of an ambush or raid’. By the spring of 1940 the War Office had been persuaded to put some of these ideas into practice and a number of companies were raised to act independently in guerrilla roles.

  In April 1940 Colonel Holland put Collin Gubbins in charge of the Independent Companies and he went with them to Norway, where through no fault of Collin Gubbins much—if not all—of his and the ISTDC’s teachings were ignored. The Independent Companies were intended to be a ship-based force slipping ashore to harass German communications and cut the supply line of Swedish ore, but they often fought as infantry because the Allies had no other troops available; an unavoidable reason for deploying special forces in this role in Norway. Their successor units were misused with less reason. An added paradox to the Narvik actions was the Germans’ own demolitions that destroyed much of the port’s facilities, reducing iron-ore shipments to little more than a quarter of the pre-war level.

  Ten Independent Companies, each with 20 officers and 270 men (see Appendix 2) had been formed from Territorial Army volunteers with a leavening of regular and reservist soldiers.

  While the Independent Companies were returning from Norway, an extension of the idea for independent forces was being shaped in Whitehall. The first amphibious raid—three officers landing between Boulogne and Etaples—had been mounted on 2–3 June by MIR with informal contacts in the Royal Navy, who provided a trawler. These first raiders successfully fired 200,000 tons of fuel near Harfleur and then rowed 13 miles back to safety on 10 June bringing a lone straggler. However, the Prime Minister was pressing for even more positive action. On 4 June, the day the Dunkirk evacuation ended, he wrote to the Chiefs of Staff: ‘if it is so easy for the Germans to invade us … why should it be … impossible for us to do anything of the same kind to him?’ That evening Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Clarke set down his thoughts in brief notes on raiding parties carried by ship to the French coast and drawn from a special force. Aware of the way 25,000 Boer farmers had been defeated only by ten times their number in the war of 1899–1902, during his boyhood in South Africa, Dudley Clarke was able to interest his chief, Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, in the idea and it was put to the Prime Minister. A few days later, on 8 June, the scheme was approved on two conditions: no unit was to be diverted from the essential defence of the British Isles; and the new force must make do with a minimum of arms. Dudley Clarke was also instructed to mount a raid across the Channel ‘at the earliest possible moment’. The War Office Section MO 9 came into being that afternoon and began steps to raise the special force of commandos named after those Boer farmers of the South African war. Before the 1939–45 War was over, many soldiers and marines wore the commando shoulder flashes or rangers’ badges but the green beret was not introduced until late in 1942.

  Commando and Ranger shoulder flashes:

  1. From 1940–2 varying styles of flash were worn and use of identifying numbers was ‘not likely to be approved for security reasons’. After May 1943, however, numbers were incorporated in the printed flashes (see below) replacing the then forbidden red on blue variety of flashes including red embroidery on worsted. Early in the war some commando officers wore a white and black lanyard and 1 Commando had a salamander badge—green salamander with red tongue, in red and yellow flames, on khaki background.

  2. Red details on black background (sometimes a roundel) of the Combined Operations badge was issued in matching pairs with guns facing forward on upper arms; in addition to commandos the landing craft crews and other Combined Operations personnel wore these badges.

  3. Royal Navy Commando in white lettering on dark blue ground and Commando Depot flash of red on dark blue.

  4. Examples of printed red on dark blue background of army-style flashes worn by 1 to 14 Commando and of Royal Marine commando flashes. These RM red on blue flashes were Cash’s tapes and added to existing flashes worn by RMs. 43 (RM) Commando also wore a red and yellow lanyard.

  5. 2 Commando flash and dagger badge (silver on black) with dagger downwards—a point of some discussion but eventually the dagger of the general badge pointed upwards as in 8 below.

  6. Commando signals badge of white on dark blue with white lightning streak.

  7. Special Boat Section red on blue and badge of 101 Troop with white swordfish passing through red figures on blue ground. Some ‘swordfish’ badges were of metal.

  8. Red dagger on navy blue ground worn by Commandos from late in 1944.

  9. Black spot of No. 5 Troop (Commando not identified), black square with white D and skull worn by Depot staff, and wings of para-trained commandos (worn by Frenchmen of 10 Commando—among others—on right shoulder between commando and combined operations flashes but SBS paras wore these wings on the left breast of tropical shirts).

  10. Examples of unauthorised Commando flashes usually red lettering on dark blue ground.

  11. SS and Commando Brigade flashes and the double daggers of Brigade Headquarters’ personnel (c. 1943 probably). The HQ flash had red ‘SS’ with silver daggers marked in black on a black ground.

  12. 1st Special Service
Force (the North Americans) badge of a Red Indian arrowhead, their red flag carried a black dagger on a white shield.

  13. The American Combined Operations badge in yellow on a blue ground worn by US army amphibious forces.

  14. Ranger diamond with gold lettering and edges on blue ground, worn on left shoulder by 2nd and 5th Rangers in training 1943. The diamond was replaced by the authorised scroll badge of white lettering with red outline on black ground and appropriate number for 1st to 6th Ranger Battalion. Any badges were unauthorised that identified so-called ‘rangers’ within infantry divisions.

  Cap badges—commandos wore the badge of their regiments on a green beret but several badges were used from time to time or by units associated with commandos, a. the dagger-SS badge of 2 Commando and probably the badge rejected by the War Office for general use; b the knuckleduster knife badge of 50–52 Commandos in the Middle East; c black square with red (?) VI of 6 Commando; d a black hackle worn for a time by 9 Commando; e the badge of the Raiding Support Regiment 1943–5; and f the badge of the 1er Bataillon Fusilier Marin Commando with 10 (Inter Allied) Commando. Frenchmen and other nationalities with 10 Cdo also wore a national flash above their commando flashes. Royal Marine commandos wore appropriate officers’ or other ranks’ cap badge, except for 41 (RM) Commando who wore an officer’s full-dress collar badge as their cap badge.

  The activities of MIR and others associated with clandestine operations were to take a separate, but not unrelated, course mainly from the activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Their paths were to cross quite frequently with commando raids, but Commando formations were uniformed military forces—as mentioned earlier—if not always treated as such by their enemies.

  Before the commandos could begin their raiding, links had to be forged with the Navy. Captain G.A. Garnons-Williams RN, an enthusiastic supporter of the raiding idea, found some ‘crash’ air-sea rescue boats for Dudley Clarke’s first raid, which was mounted on the night France surrendered, 23 June, with four landings along a 20-mile stretch of French coast around Boulogne. The 115 raiders were drawn from the Independent Companies as No. 11 Independent Company carrying half the British stock of Thompson sub-machine guns: 20 tommy-guns. Dudley Clarke went on the raid as an observer; no doubt it appealed to his swashbuckling sense of adventure.

  Faces blackened with grease paint, a cosmetic replaced in later years by burnt cork or mud daubs, the men crouched on the boat’s decks, going inshore at three points. At the fourth landing the boat almost ran into Boulogne harbour, despite earlier reconnaissance of the target beaches by her skipper, Lieutenant-Commander J.W.F. Milner-Gibson RN. An enemy searchlight lit the danger and the boat sheered off to beach further up the coast on sand dunes, ‘a dark outline showing against the sky’. Led by Major Ronnie Tod, 30 men went ashore and had hardly been gone a few minutes when Dudley Clarke and the commander saw the dark outline of a boat coming in from the sea. This spectre anchored some 100 yards away, a small mysterious vessel that prompted Dudley Clarke—as such uncertainties would concern future raiders—to move quietly to the bow and warn the men ashore. A Very light flickered into the sky away to the south: other raiders were in action. As a figure appeared on the beach—it was Ronnie Tod—a German cycle patrol rode up. However, Ronnie Tod’s one-man ambush failed when he dropped his tommy-gun magazine as he cocked the gun, and there was a burst of fire from the Germans. The long silence that followed would become a familiar feature of night raids filled with uncertainty and pregnant with disaster. But this night, after being ashore an hour or so, the raiders waded back out to the boat arm-pit deep in the rising tide. By dawn they were eight miles off shore under fighter aircraft’s escort. Dudley Clarke had been the only casualty, hit in the ear, which had been sewn back in place by a petty officer as the boat left the beach.

  The other landings that night had varied success: two Germans killed south of Le Touquet; a seaplane stalked in its anchorage near Boulogne, but it took off—no doubt unaware of the intruders—before they reached it; and the other party saw nobody after landing on a waste of dunes. Arriving back at Dover the raiders were cheered, and later the whole country was heartened by their exploits. But having tippled some extra rum ration, the men on the boat entering Folkestone were threatened with arrest as deserters before their identity was established.

  Three lessons came from this raid: the need for means to identify friend from foe, always difficult in night actions but particularly so for a small party on a hostile shore; the problems of coordinating secret operations with regular forces—friendly Spitfires had delayed the boats for an hour in mid-Channel on their outward voyage before establishing their true identity; the difficulty of pin-point navigation, the third point, was the most crucial of all. Milner-Gibson had made nine solo landings in recces of the beaches during the three weeks before the raid, but on the night his boat’s compass proved faulty and others lost their way. Nevertheless the raid, like the one made earlier in June, had proved landings were possible. No men had been lost, and a sentry’s body might have been brought back to identify his unit had not overcrowded conditions aboard forced the raiders to tow the body, which sank.

  MO 9 had plans to raise 10 Commandos, each with 10 50-man Troops, and called for volunteers for unspecified hazardous duties who must also be prepared to work and train for longer hours than regular formations. These Commandos intended to mount successive small raids in lightening strikes, keeping the Germans off balance and fearful of more serious threats. Before this force of 5,000 commandos could be raised, however, Churchill’s enthusiasm for special forces was tempered by reality. He had seen all the commando-like forces, including Storm-Troops and Leopard Units for guerrilla actions in the event of a German invasion, drawn from existing formations. But these regiments, which included reservists and conscripts with some company commanders over 40, were unlikely to provide the aggression needed in a commando action.

  On 22 June, when the Prime Minister was asking for a corps of at least 5,000 parachutists, the commando idea was moving in a number of directions. Men of 2 Commando were originally to be parachute troops, but the RAF had even greater difficulty in finding planes than the Royal Navy had in finding craft. The proposal was therefore dropped, but the 500 men who had started their parachute training became the nucleus of 1 Airborne Division formed in November 1941. However, some years would pass before selected commandos were trained as parachutists.

  These changes of direction were confused by Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, who had much of the Churchillian spirit but no gift for cooperation with ministries. He had been a World War I hero in the Gallipoli and Zeebrugge landings, and in 1940, aged 68, was the Member of Parliament for Portsmouth. On his appointment as head of combined operations, he embarked on endless controversy over hypothetical command of raids by 5,000 men, although there were no more than 500 trained commandos and some 750 men in the Independent Companies. Only one more raid was mounted in 1940 and that in July, when Lieutenant-General Alan Bourne of the Royal Marines was temporarily running Combined Operations Headquarters (the name used throughout this book for the directorate, although in fact having some variations of title) before Keyes’s appointment.

  This raid, on Guernsey in the Channel Islands, by some 100 men from 3 Commando and No. 11 Independent Company (sometimes referred to as No. 11 Commando) was well rehearsed, and after last-minute changes of plan, literally within half an hour of setting out, the raiders boarded two destroyers to transfer to motorboats refuelled from the parent ships they accompanied. These crash boats made a great noise, and part of the plan was to fly Anson aircraft overhead as the run was made to the beach, this being timed to a nicety. Nevertheless, the raid was later described by its leader, Colonel John Durford-Slater, as a ‘very amateurish affair’. Nothing was achieved and several men had to be left ashore as they were unable to swim to the boats, whose RNVR crews would not beach for fear of damage to the crafts’ hulls.

  Through the rest of that summer and autumn
the Prime Minister’s demands for major raids by 5,000 to 10,000 men could not be met because there were no craft to land them. Proposals for two ‘invasion corps’ came to nothing; each needed 380 LCAs and 180 Landing Craft, Tank (LCTs), the first LCT having her trials in landing five or six tanks only that November. Convoy protection and aircraft had to take priority over raiding forces’ equipment, but, as the name ‘invasion corps’ suggests the British were considering ways of getting a more permanent foothold in Europe. However, this conflict between preparation for an invasion and the immediate raiding of the enemy coasts was never clearly resolved; and a force of Royal Marines and Commandos was held on the Clyde forever preparing for landings against the possible need to capture an Atlantic island base should Gibraltar fall.

  However, this ‘Puma’ force—code-named as the largest cat—was never launched against the Canaries or the Azores. The Royal Marine elements—a division without a ‘tail’ although the establishment list shows some support units—sailed to Dakar in September 1940 but did not land. This and other abortive moves brought frustration and some despondency to the commandos who had been gathered by Keyes into large groups to train with their landing force from the Royal Navy.