by Samuel Stanley
It had never been done before, at least not in any modern army. Troops of two nations had blended to form a superb instrument of combat, smoothly and without hint of rivalry at any level. This was the First Special Service Force, officially a unit of the U.S. Army in World War II and made up equally of U.S. and Canadian fighting men. Initially, it totaled some 1,800 troops, divided into three regiments plus a service battalion.
In Italy, the scene of their most decisive operations, the Germans they faced were awed enough to name them “The Devil’s Brigade.” A directive from their high command, found in the pockets of one captured German, stated: “You are fighting an elite Canadian-American force. They are treacherous, unmerciful and clever… The first soldier or group of soldiers capturing one of these men will be given a ten-day furlough.” That furlough was long in coming.
This force was the brainchild of the Combined Operations Group under Lord Louis Mountbatten. The group had visions of an elite parachute unit to be used for special missions. When Winston Churchill got wind of the idea, he gave it his enthusiastic backing and suggested that the mixture be Canadian and American. Ottawa quickly agreed. So, after some deliberation, did Gen. Eisenhower. An obscure American lieutenant colonel, Robert Frederick, was handed the task of getting the force together and was named as commander. It was he who picked the title of Special Service Force, a name sufficiently ambiguous to keep hostile agents guessing. Later, to Frederick’s annoyance, it became confused on our side with Special Services, whose function was entertainment of troops. The contrast could hardly be sharper.
A drop into Norway by parachutists trained to fight on skis, along with a special snowmobile for quick movement, was the original idea. Such an outfit could do serious damage to Norway’s industrial complex, thus disrupting German planning. Preparations went forward immediately for what was termed “Project Plough.”
Fort Harrison, outside Helena in Montana, was chosen for the training site, that summer of 1942. It was a bleak, wind-swept area, surrounded, except for the town, by low hills. Frederick set up headquarters and sent out recruiting notices to other posts, asking for volunteers who were, in civilian life, “Lumberjacks, Forest Rangers, Hunters, North Woodsmen, Game Wardens, Prospectors and Explorers.” All, he stressed, would be picked for their ruggedness, ferocious nature and willingness to face peril. For Canadians the criteria would be the same. In these requirements U.S. commanders at other posts saw a welcome opportunity. A few emptied their stockades of all hard cases who wished to and could measure up to Special Service Force standards. But Col. Frederick didn’t object to their records; if they could make good soldiers that was enough. And they did. Quotas from all sources were quickly filled, even with many recruits screened out as unsuitable.
Training was more rigorous than any given the Marines. Men were strapped in parachutes, put into C-47s and told when to jump. Any who hesitated were promptly dismissed. But those who made it through sensed a common bond, Canadians and GIs alike. They were men of dedication, facing a future which would call for their utmost. And in their commander they found the appeal of a true leader.
Many of the arriving Canadians were in summer dress, shorts, colorful shirts and even kilts. Off duty the two groups mingled in Helena bars, sharing their thoughts. On one occasion miners from nearby copper diggings began taunting the Canadians, who took it mildly at first from an awareness of their status as outsiders. But their GI buddies soon got fed up. A brawl started in which the soldiers teamed up and tossed the miners out. MPs called to quell the uproar refused to intervene, when they learned the cause.
For the next two weeks training went on for a project which, literally, never got off the ground. A snowmobile, known as a “Weasel,” did become a workable vehicle and was put into production. All Forcemen were trained in its operation. But Project Plough was losing steam. Norway, it appeared, objected to the idea of its industry and countryside being ravaged more than it already was. Also, both American and British officialdom were cooling toward Project Plough, and so the idea was put on ice for good. Colonel Frederick never liked it anyway.
So now the question arose, what to do with these hand-picked, highly-trained troops? A great part of their indoctrination seemed to have been a waste. An elite strike force with nowhere to strike, an organization of stalwart parachutists now suddenly grounded, meant for the most of them a disappointment. A new use for this force would have to be found, a new role, for the big brass could hardly afford to waste such a potent weapon.
The answer came with the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians. In August 1943 the Force packed up, headed for the Pacific coast, and was loaded onto transport ships for an assault on the island of Kiska. The Navy, of course, would handle the landings. But the Navy had one of its less brilliant days; the operation was untidy and set up confusion enough to alert any enemy not half asleep. But Fortune smiled that day. When at last the troops set foot on Kiska, there were no Japanese to fight. Then, with its hope for action dashed again, the First Special Service Force was shipped back to San Francisco.
By this time the Force had become a well-knit, cohesive unit. For weapons it listed the .30-caliber machine gun, 60-mm mortar, rocket launcher, Johnson light machine gun plus the standard M1 rifle. Colonel Frederick had designed for it a distinctive uniform, topped off with a service cap bearing red, white and blue braid. Canadians and Americans mingled without a hitch; initially, there was grumbling about the different pay scales—a much higher one for Americans—but the grumbling soon ended. Officers were chosen from both groups, on merit alone, and relations between them and their men were informal, much as in the Australian Army. At each level respect and confidence were mutual. And any man who wanted out was permitted to quit the Force.
Then came the opportunity these men had waited for. Up to that point the Force had been like a rudderless ship, striving to reach a port it had never known. In Italy, though, Gen. Mark Clark’s Fifth Army was having rough going. Such an outfit of tough, combat-oriented troops might give it the help it sorely needed. And the Force was ready. For this new move—into another theater—they embarked on the Empress of Scotland and set sail for Casablanca the following October. From there Oran was next and then Santa Maria, northwest of Naples, where they bivouacked in the Italian Artillery School barracks.
The Fifth Army had a problem. The way to Rome was blocked, up to that point, by densely fortified mountains, particularly the Gibraltar-like La Difensa, a 3,000-foot peak. Here and on neighboring Mt. Remetanea the German Winter Line was anchored. So far it had defied the best efforts of several American and British divisions, which had sacrificed many men in fruitless assaults. Beyond these strongpoints lay the open Liri River Valley and access to Rome; somehow the way had to be cleared. For the Force these two strongpoints would be the objective.
Operationally, the Force was assigned to the American 36th Division, on 22 November. In the assault on La Difensa, the Force’s 2nd Regiment of 600 men, under Col. Williamson, would form the spearhead. First Regiment would act as reserve for the 36th Division, while 3rd would be held as Force reserve and also act as litter and supply bearers. Supplies would have to be man-handled up the slopes—mules couldn’t make it. After dark Col. Frederick explored every foot of the terrain, taking pains not to alert the enemy. The south flank offered the only feasible approach, but the Germans had every footpath zeroed in, so that way was ruled out. The north side, Frederick learned, was protected by a 600-foot cliff with six bare, rocky ledges above it leading to the crest. This would be the Germans’ escape route, considered impossible of ascent and therefore, in all likelihood, unguarded. But, as the colonel said to his staff, “If they can go down it, we can go up it.”
The night of 2 December, 2nd Regiment climbed to the half-way mark, in a driving rain which, though miserable for the men, should aid in assuring surprise. Scouts were sent out to attach ropes all the way up the cliff. Next day the regiment lay in concealment, checking equipment, sharpening knives and waiting for dusk. The attack was scheduled for 10:00 p.m. Far below, all of the artillery of II Corps set up a terrific plastering of La Difensa’s crest, as it had so often before but with little effect. On that crest the enemy was tightly and securely emplaced in bomb-proof caves and rocky crevices.
The regiment moved out on schedule and, hanging on to the ropes, struggled and kicked their way up the cliff after midnight, all 600 men. Plainly, their training for mountainous Norway was paying off. After scaling the cliff there were still some 350 yards to go and the leading company, faces blackened like the masks of demons, fanned out as skirmishers. Here and there they crept onto a sentry—and promptly slit his throat. They were also close enough now to smell the Germans cooking. Dawn was near. They had long since passed the concealment of trees, and from now on it was a question of who shot first. Unhappily, someone stepped into a pile of loose rocks, which clattered and gave them away.
Now was the moment of truth, the one they had waited and prepared for. Below them lay a saucer-shaped depression, about the size of a football field and swarming with crack panzergrenadiers. The Forcemen piled into it like wolves on a flock, spraying a hail of lead with their Johnson guns, whipping the unprepared foe into frantic scrambling. Those who dived into holes were blasted with grenades or bayoneted. It was all over in two hours. Germans still mobile fled down the opposite slope and disappeared into the trees. They left their commander behind as a prisoner, a man totally nonplused. “You can’t be here,” he kept repeating. “It is impossible!”
The Force, however, had paid a price—some 20 killed, 160 wounded. But the enemy paid far more.
What followed was more grueling than what happened before. Down below, German artillery took up where the Allied had left off. For six long days the battered 2nd Regiment, reinforced by a battalion of the 1st, endured the pounding, crouched in the same holes and crevices the enemy had used. But the shelling was longer and even more intense than any II Corps had set up. There was no hope of relief while it lasted. And supplies and rations were running out; little could be packed in under that constant threat. With them was their colonel, who was always right up there where the action was hottest (he demanded just as much from his commanders).
At last the shelling and counterattacks (beaten off with further losses) let up enough to allow the 142nd Infantry to relieve them. Those men on Difensa had gone through all any humans could take. Casualties mounted to 511. Even 1st Regiment, in reserve below, suffered a 40% loss from the shelling without firing a shot. That was when Frederick, loved and admired by his troops, showed one more reason why they did. Slashing red tape, he ordered and got fifteen cases of bourbon manhandled to the crest of La Difensa. For that riddled, nerve-shattered command it was a blessing. After relief, what was left of the Force was pulled back for a three-day rest.
Such was the Force’s initial taste of action; in it they had shown what it took to be a member of that rough-and-ready unit. But plenty of hard combat lay ahead. There was still Remetanea to crack. This meant fighting their way along a saddle bristling with strong defenses. Again, 2nd Regiment led the way, fighting and winning a sharp engagement in which they were out-numbered three-to-one. Night patrols were bringing in many prisoners, seizing them like stalking panthers, while the enemy captured not one. By the end of December all objectives had been taken, leaving the way clear for Clark’s Fifth Army to move on Cassino. But the cost of these prodigious feats had been high. From a combat strength of 1,800 men, the Force suffered 1,400 casualties.
Those left on their feet were sent back to Santa Maria for reinforcement and a sorely-needed rest.
The rest wasn’t a long one. Troops like these were too highly prized to be left idle. At this time the Anzio landing, a venture aimed at driving a wedge through the enemy defense, was underway. It would mean holding a narrow beachhead, in the initial stage, and would call for the toughest available troops to expand it. Little resistance was expected, at least in the beginning—an estimate which was to prove seriously wrong. But in any case the First Special Service Force should play a vital role. On 1 February 1944 it arrived at Anzio and was deployed immediately.
The beachhead was thirty miles square. In it, Fifth Army had crammed 40,000 troops, the VI Corps, under Gen. John Lucas. The front line stretched some thirty-three miles, of which the Force would defend just over a quarter, its southernmost sector being anchored on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Perhaps in tribute to the Force’s combat prowess, this sector was twice that held by the 3rd Division, one of the Fifth Army’s best.
Before long the dream of a quick sweep through weak enemy defenses, envisioned by Gen. Clark, looked more like a nightmare. The fact was, Marshall Kesselring had brought up 70,000 crack troops, among them the Herman Göring panzers, and instead of expanding the question was, could the beachhead even be held? High in the mountains, German artillery had every square foot of the bare, flat expanse nailed in their sights. And they shelled it regularly.
So the Force was placed in a defensive role for which it wasn’t suited. At the moment, the men’s chief concern was in protecting themselves. In that soggy terrain digging foxholes was a waste of effort; the holes would fill up with water. The only recourse lay in burrowing into the raised sides of the Mussolini Canal, which ran through their sector. But the Forcemen wanted action—it was in their nature. First and Third Regiments sent out nightly patrols which slaughtered foemen and brought back prisoners to be queried on enemy dispositions. Next day, VI Corps artillery blasted these with telling effect.
About this time Frederick, now a brigadier general, thought up a scheme for heightening the Germans perception of his men as a gang of desperate assassins. From a still-functioning printer he ordered a batch of arrow-shaped stickers, bearing the Force insignia as well as, in German, the message: “The Worst is Yet to Come.” The stickers were distributed among patrols which, after killing an enemy, pasted them to his forehead or helmet. These macabre calling cards must have reached their mark, for inside a week the enemy had pulled back half a mile.
So life—and death—in the beachhead settled into a pattern of patrol thrust and parry, lasting for 100 days. There was plenty of idle time; during lulls in the shelling many Forcemen even planted vegetable gardens, tilling the soil with horses and equipment bought from displaced farmers. Dairy cattle supplied many with fresh milk. But all that was too good to last. General Truscott, replacing Lucas in command of VI Corps, was getting restless and the build-up for a massive breakout was moving fast.
On 23 May the long-awaited attempt pushed off behind a thundering barrage. For the Force, 1st Regiment (Col. Marshall) and 1st Battalion of the 2nd (Lt. Col. Akehurst) made up the spearhead. They were backed by a Ranger platoon of half-tracks mounting 75-mm guns. Their objective would be Highway 7, the road to Rome. They got there without too much trouble, far out-distancing the renowned 3rd Division, which gained only half a mile.
The next major move, though, was another story. They were ordered to seize the town of Artena, key point of the enemy defense, and here the panzers stood fast and turned on the heat. Confined to the defense again, the Forcemen took a pounding, the heaviest they had yet faced. But they held on. Then, four months and three days after the initial landing, VI Corps achieved that hoped-for breakthrough, with the Germans in full retreat. The Allies pushed on to Rome, the goal of their long and bloody struggle, where, appropriately enough, the first unit to enter the Holy City was the First Special Service Force.
It had paid a stiff price for the honor. Its 1st Regiment was reduced to barely half-strength. The Force was then given a six-months’ respite, but more fighting was to come. Next August it took part in the invasion of southern France, along with Gen. Patch’s Seventh Army. On 7 September Frederick’s men paused to rest at the Franco-Italian border, their final mission completed. On 5 December this splendid outfit was deactivated, at Villeneuve in France. They had given all that could be asked.
The First Special Service Force never played the role it was designed for originally. It never had to. But it did adapt easily to a different role—more as regular infantry—and rose to it brilliantly. The Force never attracted much publicity anywhere; even enemy intelligence knew little about it and the High Command was routinely caught off guard by its startling actions (somehow these Germans could never understand that a textbook was not necessarily the Bible).
Success, though, was achieved at a fearful cost. Turnover in personnel amounted to 600% and Gen. Frederick himself was wounded nine times. But here were soldiers of two nations fighting as one and bringing out the best in each group. And that “best” was more than good enough.
U.S. Battle Honors
As awarded by the American government:
Pacific Theater
Aleutians Campaign
Kiska-Little Kiska August 15-19, 1943
Segula Island August 17, 1943
Mediterranean Theater
Naples-Foggia Campaign
Monte la Difensa December 3-6, 1943
Monte la Remetanea December 6-9, 1943
Height 720 (Monte Sammucro) December 25, 1943
Radicosa January 4, 1944
Monte Majo January 6, 1944
Monte Vischiataro January 8, 1944
Mussolini Canal (Anzio) February 2 - May 10, 1944
Monto Arrestino May 25, 1944
Rocca Massima May 27, 1944
Colle Ferro June 2, 1944
Rome-Arno Campaign
Rome June 4, 1944
Southern France Campaign
Ille d'Hyeres August 14-17, 1944
Grasse August 27, 1944
Villeneuve-Loubet August 30, 1944
Vence September 1, 1944
Drap September 3, 1944
L'Escarene September 5, 1944
La Turbie September 6, 1944
Menton September 7, 1944
Canadian Battle Honours
Monte Camino
Monte la Difensa-Monte la Remetanea
Hill 720
Monte Majo
Radicosa
Monte Vischiataro
Anzio
Rome
Advance to the Tiber
Rocca Massima
Colle Ferro
Italy 1943-44
Iles d'Hyeres
Grasse
Villeneuve-Loubet
Vence
Drap
L'Escarene
La Turbie
Menton
Southern France
North-West Europe 1944
Legacy
The First Special Service Force was perpetuated by both the Canadian Airborne Regiment and the United States Army Special Forces (commonly known as the "Green Berets"), both created in the 1960s. Bi- or multi-national forces since the Second World War seem to be fairly uncommon, particularly with regards to special forces units.
Sources
“The Throat Slitters,” Saga Magazine, April 1963.
Personal talks with William Story, a Forceman all the way through.
The Author
Sam Stanley was born in St. Louis, Missouri, near the beginning of this century. He attended several colleges, among them the U.S. Military Academy, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and George Washington. Never graduated from any.
In World War II he was an enlisted man in the 58th Fighter Squadron (P-40s) as an armorer, in North Africa. He wasn’t a good armorer, but the 58th Squadron posted a really admirable record—four enemy planes shot down for every one of theirs. The squadron occupied a lonely airstrip deep in enemy-held territory.
Stanley lives in Washington, D.C., is unmarried and, to the extent advancing age permits, is an avid tennis player. Also, he finds time to work on stories in the military field. He has been published in both the American Legion Magazine and The Retired Officer Magazine.