Commandos and Rangers of World War II

by James D. Ladd

  A complete set of drills had been worked out by this time with, for example, five phases in recovering a swimmer after his recce. First he swam out shining his torch for the paddler to see. As there was always the chance that the swimmer’s faint light might be missed and he might go beyond the canoe, in the next phase (two) he turned and shone his torch shorewards. Having collected his swimmer in phase one or two, the paddler now set course for the submarine rendezvous, beaming the infra-red light seawards in phase three and then, in phase four shorewards when the submarine might have passed inshore of the canoe. Should they not be picked up, the paddlers made for a second rendezvous (phase five) further offshore or headed back to the beach to lie up for the following night, when the submarine would come to a different rendezvous. Each meeting-point was timed with as much leeway as moon and tide might allow—say an hour on occasions, although many submarine captains took bold risks in staying offshore beyond the agreed times when no recovery had been made, just in case the canoeists were late.

  The tall and ever-cheerful Norman Teacher and his paddler Lieutenant Noel W. Cooper RNVR, were launched in a strong onshore wind but got away successfully from the submarine. Three hours later she was back at the rendezvous but there was no sign of the canoe, only the sound of surf breaking on the beach two miles away. The skipper was preparing to take her out to a second rendezvous arranged for that night when the lookouts saw the grey canoe with a lone paddler. Noel Cooper was lifted aboard: he had seen nothing of Norman Teacher since the Lieutenant swam off towards the shore. The next night, the burley George Burbridge, a captain in the Canadian Army, took a canoe into the beach to look for Norman Teacher but there was no sign of him. The team worked on several beaches that and the following two nights, recording the exact position of enemy strongpoints in places only 50 to 100 yards apart. They checked the beach incline and its contours, looking for points where minor craft could beach. They also checked possible ‘berths’ for major craft and LSTs, where more space was needed for a safe beaching and suitable ground on the beach for the LSTs’ vehicles to deploy. These berths might also be improved for the build-up phase, by bulldozing earth ramparts to speed the off-loading of bulk stores caried by many LSTs. The team checked the incline for some 200 yards out from the beach at one point. On the fifth night they were dog-tired, having had little relaxing sleep in the cramped quarters of the submarine and spending several hours each day writing up their notes on the previous night’s recce. Nevertheless George Burbridge and Noel Cooper went in once more: nothing was seen of them again.

  No.4 COPP was to survey a beach on the north-west coast, and Neville McHarg with Lieutenant Sinclair paddled shorewards from HMS Safari. A confusion of fishing fleets, sardine nets, and the glare of flares silhouetting the submarine as Allied bombers attacked a nearby port forced them to withdraw. The next night, Captain Edward (Ted) Parsons RE and his paddler, Leading Seaman Irvine, prepared to land, Ted Parsons taking a ducking as he tried the first time to board the canoe in a nasty swell. They righted the boat, however, and got away at the second attempt. Ted Parsons had got ashore, but when lying rock-still he felt a gun behind his ear and was captured. Irvine was caught next day as he paddled along the coast.

  Bob Smith and David Brand from HMS United got inshore on their first night’s recce to find a long and unchartered sandbank off the south coast port of Gela, where the Rangers would land that summer. The next night Bob Smith took soundings over the stern of the canoe while David Brand held her steady as she bucked in a rising wind while they fixed the exact position of this bank. By midnight the weather was a deal worse and they caught the full force of the gale as they cleared the lee of the land, making their way towards the rendezvous. United was not there—or at least not where Bob Smith expected her—and an SUE charge tossed over the side failed to attract any attention. Going back inshore, a tough and wet hour’s paddling, they rechecked their bearing from the landmark of Casa Bittaleni, forcing their way back out into fierce seas. On this course David Brand’s double paddle snapped. A second charge over the side brought no more response than the first, and a rising moon showed up the wild seascape. Three more hours of paddling and bailing, bailing and paddling, brought them to the second expected rendezvous, but in the great troughs and high seas the submarine lookouts could miss the torch signal or RG beam from a 16-foot (5m) canoe. By daylight it was clear they had missed their rendezvous, and at about 0800 they set course for Malta, taking a back-bearing from Mount Etna. The overcast sky was merged with spume as the salt spray stifled easy breathing and they were losing their battle with fatigue after 20 hours’ paddling. Consequently there was little they could do early that night when a mammoth sea caught them dangerously broached-to, but the buoyancy of Mae West lifejackets wedged in the bow and stern kept the waterlogged canoe afloat till the storm eased around midnight—some 24 hours after it blew up. David Brand’s hip was weakening his strength as an old wound opened up after hours in the water, and now the canoe was little more than a tiny hulk. Nevertheless, Bob Smith kept edging her towards Malta and at first light they saw the island over the long swells following the storm. A patrolling MTB picked them up and Bob Smith later launched the battered canoe to paddle her across the harbour to the submarine base.

  HMS United was still at sea. Her second canoe, with Archie Hart and Eric Folder, had made a rough-and-tumble landing in heavy surf near Gela. Archie Hart’s suit filled and perhaps incautiously he made a dash for the shelter of some dunes, where he hoped to drain it out. Unfortunately he ran into barbed wire that twanged a warning which brought a sentry along the beach, and Archie Hart was captured. Eric Folder was caught next day by two German guards in a fishing smack. The other Middle East commandos fared worse: Lieutenants de Kock and Crossley RNVR vanished after being launched from HMS Unrivalled on their first raid. Lieutenant Davis was caught ashore next night and his paddler, Able Seaman McGuire, was picked up by an armed fishing boat.

  Despite these disasters all the submarines eventually returned to base, although HMS Safari had a lively homeward passage dodging searchlights, E-boats, and aircraft. Their attention may have been aroused by Ted Parson’s cover story, every man going on beach reconnaissance having one carefully rehearsed—as Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott had rehearsed Roger Courtney off Rhodes: for the tenth time by one report! Ted Parson’s story involved a submarine’s wrecking, but no doubt the Germans—if not the Italians—took this with some hefty pinches of salt. As for HMS United she had been on station at the rendezvous; but as it is barely possible to see a 10,000 tonner at 400 yards on a rough night there is little chance of seeing the recognition signals from a canoe when these torch or RG beams are a mere four feet (just over, a metre) at arm’s length above the waves.

  A study of the failures at Sicily gave Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott three lines of thought: more training was essential—he had let Nos. 3 and 4 COPPs go out only with reluctance; more attention was needed in fitting the suits, for which these teams had not been adequately measured; and thirdly, the life-jackets they wore could not always be inflated in emergencies. The bravery of men swimming ashore in these pioneer beach reconnaissances is beyond question, and knowing Norman Teacher as a friend, as well as being his CO, the Commander feels there is a strong probability that the young Lieutenant made the supreme sacrifice in swimming to his death rather than risking his capture, as others, too, may have done. Having attended conferences with senior planning staff, they all had dangerous knowledge of the precise Allied intentions.

  The development of COPPs forms part of the broader story told in later chapters, in which these teams’ contribution to other major landings is shown. (For a summary of the COPP history see Appendix No. 7). But in the late spring of 1943. Don Amer took No. 6 COPP to the Med and was followed by Ralph Stanbury with No. 5. Between them, these teams made a successful survey of the Allied landing beaches near Syracuse, and the work of No. 3 off Gela was handed to the Americans. In the summer of 1943, the commander passed on his desk
work at COHQ to Surgeon-Commander Murray Levick RN, an authority on endurance who was able to make major improvements in the COPPists’ diet more meat, fresh fruit, and other foods not readily available in the ration allowances for most units. Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott could now concentrate on the preparations for the Normandy landings, although he was still not fully fit after the months of hard training he did with his men.

  The extent of Allied naval support for Special Forces is exampled by the navigational specialists provided for COPPs, in addition to Lieutenant-Commander (Navigation) Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott. Initially eight regular navy officers and one ex-merchant navy RN Reserve officer commanded COPPs: Lieutenants—Norman Teacher, (No. 3), A. Hughes (also No. 3), N. McHarg (No. 4), R. N. Stanbury (No. 5), Don Amer (RNR of No. 6), Geoff Hall (No. 7), Freddy Ponsonby (No. 8), Geoff Lynne, No. 9, and J. Townson (No. 10) who commanded this COPP throughout its time in the Adriatic.

  Other aspects of naval support are briefly shown in the Beach Pilotage School on the Kyles of Bute (Scotland) that greatly improved landing craft crews navigation. While the cool courage of submarine crews in bringing canoe teams to beach areas cannot be overemphasised. The skippers of the LSIs (described for brevity as LC carrier ships) were equally skilful, Commander T. B. Brunton, RN, bringing HMS Princess Beatrix on one engine from Bayonne to Falmouth, safely returning her commandos. The ‘PB’ was—in the Commander’s words—‘the best seaboat … I ever had’. Other naval personnel became frogmen clearing obstacles including elements-C and diving to disarm Goliath beetle tanks off Normandy, later clearing river obstructions often under fire in north-west Europe.

  Their senior officers believed in setting an example, Lord Mountbatten diving the one-man Welman submarine in a trial. ‘At 28ft the front window cracked and I had a job getting up again’ he writes, the Prime Minister did not approve of such risks by senior officers, but the CCO felt his men expected such leadership.

  The interchange of amphibious ideas was common among the Allies, and Lord Mountbatten sketched the LCI(L) for General Marshall who had 300 built.

  THE FAR EAST, DECEMBER 1941 TO JULY 1942

  Japanese forces, with four years’ battle experience in China, were expected by the Imperial Command to destroy the American fleet in Pearl Harbour (Hawaii) in the early Sunday morning of 7 December 1941. This strike, which relied on diplomatic and military surprise, was to be followed by the occupation of the Phillippines in 50 days, of Malaya in 100, and of the Dutch East Indies (Celebes, Borneo, and Java) by mid-summer.

  Although the American fleet was destroyed, its aircraft carriers were at sea and unscathed. Nevertheless, the Japanese, with relatively few elements of their three-million strong army, achieved more rapid success than they had expected: by 11 January 1942 they had occupied the Celebes; on 4 February the Allies on Amboina surrendered: on 15 February Singapore fell; and on 19-20 February Timor was invaded, the main force of its defenders surrendering a few days later. All Allied regular forces had been withdrawn from Java and Sumatra, but guerrilla operations continued in Portuguese eastern Timor until early in 1943. Here the neutral Portuguese were prevented from reinforcing their garrison by Japanese command of the sea and air.

  During March, the Japanese landed on the north coast of New Guinea, an island of high mountains and jungle twice the size of the British Isles. Over confident after their quick victories, the Japanese began an invasion of the Solomons and planned a landing at Port Moresby in south-east New Guinea. Occupying Guadalcanal among other Solomon Islands, they were checked when the invasion fleet had to be recalled before reaching Port Moresby, for an American naval task force, despite heavy losses, turned back the Japanese fleet on 5 May in the battle of the Coral Sea 300 miles (550km) south of Guadalcanal.

  The Japanese were not going to win a short war for control of oil and other natural resources in south-east Asia. On Timor—for example—one of their 51 active divisions was deployed in 1942, only to be by-passed later in the Allied counterstrokes of 1942-43.

  CHAPTER 4

  Guerrilla Warfare:

  Australian Independent

  Companies

  Although getting to the right beach was the first logical step in amphibious raids—as the ISTD Centre had implied in their 1938 studies—the chronological development of these operations was less orderly. When Captain J. Michael Calvert RE arrived with Colonel Mawhood and the schoolmaster explorer, Captain F. Spenier Chapman, in Australia in November 1940, this small military mission was to teach methods of training ‘a new variety of soldier’: the commando. For the Australian army was among the first, if not the first, Allied service taking up the commando idea, even though they already had nearly four divisions overseas. The plan was to use Independent Companies for raids in the Middle East, and a sixth centre, a remote national park, a hundred miles south-east of Melbourne, was set up to train them. This at Mike Calvert’s suggestion, was officially No. 7 Centre so enemy agents might be confused in looking for No. 6. Men from these Companies would be the first commando soldiers to fight a prolonged guerrilla war, not in the Middle East but in defence of the approaches to their homeland.

  The officers were selected from established units, with colonels putting forward men like Lieutenant Bernard J. Gallinan who were chosen for their independence of mind as well as soldiering ability. The Lieutenant had once leapt fully clothed into a river, demonstrating to a casual enquirer the purpose of a Royal Engineer’s lifejacket as he continued building a bridge while swimming fully armed among the pontoons. Such incidents could influence the future not only of individuals but, in this case, of a whole series of skirmishes and mini-battles on the island of Timor. Officers and volunteer NCOs were trained at the centre for six weeks before joining the Independent Companies in which volunteer soldiers were trained for a further six weeks by their own officers. By the winter of 1941-42, four Companies had completed these and other courses, and a further four completed their training in 1942. Their brief histories are shown in Appendix 7. The campaign of the 2/2 Independent Company on Timor island would become a classic guerrilla campaign.

  Nine out of ten of the 2/2 Independent Company were from the dry country districts of Western Australia, used to living in the bush, butchering their own meat, and improvising motor repairs—skills they found essential in living off the country in Timor and during their first year or so as an Independent Company stationed 250 miles (400km) south of Darwin in the little town of Katherine with its corrugated buildings, its one hotel and two stores. All these men were volunteers for world-wide service with the Second Australian Imperial Force, which provided the prefix 2 of the 2nd Company’s number (the First AIF had served in World War I).

  In December 1941, 2/2 Company sailed as part of Sparrow Force, 2,000 men in all mainly from the 2/40 Battalion going to reinforce the Dutch on western Timor, an island seventeen times the area of England and Wales, about 300 miles (480 + km) long and on average 40 miles (64km) wide. Only 13 to 35 degrees south of the equator, it is mostly arid hills covered with scrub and rises to 10,000 feet (3,040m) in the mountainous central regions. Around the coast and in river valleys there are stretches of tropical jungle with pythons and other snakes. Sparrow Force landed at the island’s north-west port of Koebang to protect its airfield, but within a few days the Independent Company, with some Dutch troops, was sent east along the coast to occupy Dili in the Portuguese half of the island where they landed on 17 December 1941. The Company was 327 all ranks—for their war establishment, see Appendix 2—with 60 tommy-guns between the three platoons. However, the effective force was soon down to 50 men: their issue shorts exposed men to malaria mosquitoes, and as the quinine powder had to be taken rolled in a cigarette paper—an anti-malaria dose many men dodged—illness spread quickly.

  By the time the Japanese landed at Koebang on 19 February 1942, the main elements of Sparrow Force were also ravaged by malaria. They had only three or four NCOs who had seen action before, and 50 replacement troops had never fired a rifle
before they reached Sparrow Force. As the Australians retreated eastwards, attempting to form a defence perimeter, 630 Japanese paratroops were dropped to snipe among them, slowing their retreat and allowing the battle-hardened elements of the Japanese 38 Division—some 5,000 men—to outflank the Australians’ withdrawal. Although all but 78 paratroop snipers were killed, the Australians were forced to surrender within four days, leaving the 2/2 Independent Company and some Dutch troops to carry on the fight 160 miles (257km) to the east of Dili.

  The Company’s contacts with its parent force had been slight, and transmissions from their Australian Army 109 wireless set would not carry across the mountains and headlands to Koebang. However, their independence was no hardship as they exchanged stores for local honey, eggs, and other native produce. In January, one ship had visited Dili bringing four officers and some 50 reinforcements who apparently thought independence meant lack of discipline. Under an armed guard on their first night ashore they learnt the truth: as guerrillas, their discipline must be more ruthless than in regular forces for there are no guard-rooms or time for punishment details.