In July 1944 began a series of races ‘ … towards Rennes … after 4 days searching [files] … towards Brest’ and in August they followed the French Forces into Paris, moving ahead of T Force, the Army Intelligence counterpart to the 30th Assault Unit. In September they worked along the Channel coast ports as these were captured. The Unit was redesignated 30 Advanced Unit in the winter of 1944/5 and disbanded in December(?) 1945.
Royal Marine Commandos
These Commandos’ operations are fully described in Royal Marines 1919–1980 (Janes) when many marines carried out amphibious operations. Although the RM Commandos were not individual volunteers, they were all volunteers for RM service. However, in the opinion of one of their senior officers, some of the best men had been posted from the RM Division when its battalions of 1940/1 were reorganised as Commandos: 8th Bn-41(RM) on 10 October 1942; 1st Bn-42(RMo on 10 October 1942; 2nd Bn-43(RM), 3rd Bn-44(RM), 5th Bn-45(RM), all during 1943; 9th Bn-46(RM), 10th Bn-47(RM) both in August 1943; and 7th Bn-48(RM) on 2 March 1944. (A full history of the Royal Marines in World 10th Bn-47(RM) both in August 1943; and 7th Bn-48(RM) on Many of their senior commando officers later rose to high rank in the Corps, including: General Sir Campbell R. Hardy, KCB, CBE, DSO** (46(RM) Commando); General Sir Ian H. Riches, KCB, DSO (43(RM) Commando); Major-General G.C. Horton CB, OBE (44(RM) Commando); Major-General H.D. Fellowes (42(RM) Commando); and Major-General J.L. Moulton CB, DSO, OBE (48(RM) Commando).
40(RM) Commando
Raised at Deal on 14 February 1942 and designated RM ‘A’ Cdo for a short period until 29 October 1942, the commando took heavy casualties in the Dieppe landings of August 1942 when the CO, Lieutenant P. Picton-Phillips RM, was killed. Brought up to strength they served in Sicily, Italy and the Adriatic where their CO, Lieutenant-Colonel J.C. Manners RM, died of wounds. Lieutenant-Colonel R.W. Sankey DSC, RM led the Commando during their later operations in Corfu and north Italy.
This Commando absorbed 43(RM) Commando on 10 September 1945 and typically of all post WWII British Commandos, after disbandment in 1946, the unit was reformed as 40 Commando RM from 44(RM) Commando in March 1947.
41(RM) Commando
Briefly designated RM ‘B’ Commando in October 1942 the Commando landed in Sicily, at Salerno (Italy), in Normandy (June 1944) and at Walcheren (November 1944) serving with distinction in all these operations.
42(RM) Commando
Served in Burma 1944/5 landing at Myebon and Kangaw, their CO Lieutenant-Colonel H.D. Fellowes DSO was wounded in these actions.
43(RM) Commando
Their first operation was the January 1944 landing at Anzio in Italy, where later they fought on the Garigliano front before transfer to the Adriatic the subsequent return to North Italy.
44(RM) Commando
Landed in March 1944 on their first raid into the Arakan, and subsequently took part in the Myebon and Kangaw landings of January 1945.
45(RM) Commando
Landed 6 June 1944 in Normandy where their CO Lieut-Col N.C. Ries, RM was wounded, and Lieutenant-Colonel W.N. Gray (later CMG, DSO*) took over command for the rest of the War. While attacking Linne (Germany) in bitterly cold weather the Commando was heavily engaged on 23 January 1943, when L/cpl Eric Harden RAMC was killed rescuing the third of the casualties he brought out from A Troop’s isolated position. An action for which he was awarded the VC.
46(RM) Commando
Landed D + 1 (7 June 1944) in Normandy and took heavy casualties in subsequent fighting in support of Canadians. Took part in German river crossings, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel T.M. Gray, DSO, MC, RM.
47(RM) Commando
Landed D-day 6 June 1944 in Normandy taking Port en Bessin by D + 1 in an independent action. After further action in France and a spell of rest, they landed at Walcheren in November 1944. Served in Holland January-April 1945.
48(RM) Commando
Landed D-day 6 June 1944 and after action in France took part in Walcheren landings (November 1944). Served in Holland January-April 1945.
50, 51 and 52 Commando
Raised in the Middle East early in 1941 these small units were amalgamated as the Combined (Middle East) Commando and became D Battalion of the Commando force with 6 Division. They wore the knuckle-duster cap badge and included Royal Marines apparently, but after service in Crete presumably—for no detailed Unit History is in the Public Record Office—the unit was disbanded that summer (1941). See also Middle East Commando. 51 Commando included a number of Palestinian Jews and fought in the East African campaigns.
62 Commando
Formed in July 1941, later joined by former members of the 1 Small Scale Raiding Force, and under Lieutenant A. David Stirling, Scots Guards, served as ‘L Detachment’ in Egypt. David Stirling believed that a major strike against one target behind enemy lines was wasteful and resources were better employed in a series of small simultaneous raids by determined men. During operations with the Long Range Desert Group against Axis communications in North Africa, the unit developed its own heavily armed jeep with a Browning machine-gun firing forward and twin Lewis or Vickers K-guns firing to the rear. They did parachute training but their only air drop at this stage of the war (on 16 November 1941) failed to destroy fighters on five enemy airfields before an Allied offensive.
For a short period the unit was designated ‘No. 1 Small Scale Raiding Force’ but in February 1943 they became the 1st Special Air Service (the SAS). From a strength of 10 officers and 40 ORs in February 1943, their establishment rose to 400 all ranks with five squadrons. (See SAS brief history below.)
Middle East Commando
On disbanding Layforce (7, 8, 11, 50 and 52 Commandos) after their actions in Crete and Syria, a Commando force attached to the Eighth Army was sometimes known as the Middle East Commando. 6 officers and 53 ORs of this force made the November 1941 raid on what was thought to be Rommel’s desert HQ (see Chapter 8). The force was disbanded early in 1942.
The Chindits
Brigadier (later Major-General) Orde Wingate in 1943 led seven columns of his 77th Infantry Brigade in a 4 months’ raid behind the Japanese lines in Burma. They were supplied by air having marched in. The following year Orde Wingate and his Brigadiers—including Mike Calvert and Bernard Fergusson—took six brigades, now called ‘Chindits’, into the Indaw area. But Mike Calvert has written that the Chindits’ long range penetration warfare ‘was never meant to be ‘guerrilla warfare’ … these columns would operate independently … and then come together forming a fist … [as]an outflanking movement from the air’. Their use almost as troops in the line led to their near destruction before the last Chindit Brigade was withdrawn in August 1944.
American Special Forces
1st Marine Raider Regiment
Formed 15 March 1943 in Espiritu Santo (an Allied Pacific base in the New Hebrides) as part of the First Marine Amphibious Corps (IMAC) from existing, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Raider Bns who were later detached from time to time. After moving to Guadalcanal, the Regiment’s CO, Colonel Harry B. Liversedge, commanded the Northern Landing Group originally planned as a Raider operation against New Georgia but made up of 1st Raiders. US Army’s 3rd Bn (45th Infantry) and 3rd Bn (48th Infantry). The unopposed 5 July 1943 landings were on a narrow front as only 4 craft could beach at one time. For Force advanced south-west from Rice Anchorage to block Japanese reinforcements of their south coast Munda air-base’s defences, or their later withdrawl from this area attacked by US Army Units that July after a series of landings.
The Force divided with one army battalion moving to block the southern trail to Munda while the remainder cleared the area of Dragon Point between Enogai village and Bairoko Harbour further west. The Force was held on 9 July by the Enogia defences despite air support, but without artillery. The Princeton University study of USMC amphibious warfare in the Pacific, points out the limitations in conventional battles for Raider Regiments without heavy guns. Although well led and determined men, the Raiders did not take Enogai until n
ext day, when over 300 Japanese dead were counted—47 raiders had been lost. The failure of close air support on this occasion led to later improvements in ground-to-air cooperation but in 1943 bombers were not an adequate substitute for artillery.
The Regiment—joined but its 4th Raiders—in aggressive patrols scouted the defences of Bairoko meetings fierce opposition. This village was bombed by B-17s and shelled by light naval forces but held out. The Munda airbase was taken on 3 August and the Northern Force moved south to cut off the Japanese retreat in a series of scattered actions during the following three weeks, before the Japanese evacuated the village the Bairoko on 24 August.
The Raiders were withdrawn and not brought up to strength before the Regiment was disbanded on 1 February 1944, when most of the men had been transferred to the 4th Marines.
2nd Marine Raider Regiment (Provisional)
Formed 12 September 1943 under Lieutenant-Colonel Alan Shapley to coordinate 2nd and 3rd Raiders’ operations on Bougainville when these battalions were attached to 3 Marine Division—the 2nd with the 3rd Marines Regiment and the 3rd with the 9th Marines. Bougainville is 125 miles (200km) long and 30 miles (48km) wide, lying across the channel (the ‘Slot’) separating the two chains of Solomon Islands running south east from Bougainville (the largest of these islands). The island’s northern mountains fall away to a southern plain where the Japanese had several airfields. These were part of the defence system protecting the major Japanese base at Rabaul (New Britian) and in turn would provide Allied fighter bases to block Japanese air raids from that base.
The Raider battalions on Bougainville, after the 1 November 1943 south-west coast landings, took part in a number of offensive patrols and had their share of defensive work on the perimeter, but the Japanese could not bring together their full strength of two divisions for a counter attack until January 1944. By this time the Marines had been withdrawn in a sensible use of amphibious forces—having taken the beach-head, and enlarged it so that enemy artillery fire could not reach the airfield, the 3 Marine Division handed over a prepared perimeter to an army corps, who in turn passed the defences to Australians when the American army later moved against the Philippines, bypassing Rabual.
The 2nd Raider Regiment were withdrawn from Bougainville on 11 January 1944 and disbanded on 26 January.
1st Marine Raider Battalion
Formed 16 February 1942 under Lieutenant-Colonel Merrill A. Edson, these raiders landed at Tulagi in August 1942, and later that summer were in action on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands—see Chapter 6—where they held Bloody Ridge against frenzied Japanese attacks. They left Guadalcanal on 16 October for restk of reorganisation at Noum’aaea (New Caledonia) 800 miles south of Guadalcanal. On 5 July 1943, as part of the Northern Landing Force at New Georgia, the Battalion was in a series of actions. Their heaviest fighting, on 20 July (D + 15), began at 1015 hours when moving towards Bairoka, they came on Japanese machine-gun and sniper positions. In minutes they were pinned down, as the enemy’s log and coral bunkers under sprawling banyan roots made a series of well camouflaged defences along a ridge. The thick jungle cover exploded mortar bombs before they reached the bunkers, and without flamethrowers the marines had only demolition charges and small arms to reduce these defences. The 1st Raiders were joined by the 4th Battalion but progress was slow despite the Raiders’ determination. The Raiders therefore withdrew that night to their positions around Enogia.
The 1st Raiders had lost 74 killed and 139 wounded before finally leaving New Georgia on 28/29 August 1943. The Battalion had fought their last action and was disbanded on 1 February 1944. They received a Presidential Unit Citation for their operations in the Solomons.
2nd Marine Raider Battalion
Formed on 16 February 1942 under Lieutenant-Colonel Evans F. Carlson the 2nd Raiders raided Makin Island on 17 and 18 August 1942, and made a month-long raid on November 1942 behind Japanese lines on Guadalcanal—see Chapter 6. In November 1943 under Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph P. McCaffrey USMC, they landed west of Cape Torokina (in the Empress Augusta Bay Area, Bougainville) on 1 November 1943. Coming ahsore on Green 2 beach, they moved east to a mission station, and on D + 8 (9 November) they fought a stubborn battle for a trail junction they took that afternoon. For the rest of the month and into December they fought in support of the 3rd Marine Regiment before being withdrawn to Guadalcanal on 11 January 1944.
The Battalion received a Presidential Unit Citation for their operations in the Solomons before being disbanded on 31 January 1944.
3rd Marine Raider Battalion
Formed under Lieutenant-Colonel Harry B. Liversedge on 20 September 1942 in American Samoa. (Harry-the Horse Liversedge was an international athlete). On the night 20/1 February 1944 led his Battalion ashore unopposed on Pavuvu (in Russell Islands north-west of Guadalcanal), an operation supporting the US Army’s landing the same night on neaby Banika island. No enemy were on the Rangers’ island which they garrisoned for a month. In the 1 November landings west of Cape Torokina, the Battalion was commanded by Lieutenant Fred D. Beams. They took the small offshore Puruata Island and by 1800 hours had overcome a reinforced Japanese rifle company. Meanwhile M company, detached for this landing, came ashore over the main Green 2 beach and set up a road block 1,000yds (0.9km) inland. Later that month the 1st Parachute Bn (temporarily attached to the 2nd Raider Regiment) with M Company and a forward observation team of the 12th Marines, landed by sea on 29 November at koiari an hour’s voyage south of Cape Torokina. Put ashore by mistake in the middle of a Japanese supply base, they fought all day and were only extricated that evening by destroyers and the 155mm guns at the Cape laying a three-sided box of fire.
They were withdrawn from Bougainville on the 11 January 1944 and disbanded at the end of the month.
4th Raider Battalion
Formed at Camp Linda Vista (California) on 23 October 1942, the Battalion trained at the Raider Training Company’s Camp Pendleton base. In late February 1943 they arrived at Espiritu Santo, the base in the New Hebrides. Their first CO. Major James Roosevelt, trained them and in May command passed to Lieutenant-Colonel Michael S. Currin.
The Battalion’s first action was on New Georgia near Segi Point when the Colonel led O and P Companies with half the HQ, to pre-empt any Japanese occupation of this eastern tip of the island. A week later, after paddling their boats 8 miles (13km), they landed a Regi at 0100 hours on a patrol in strength that would take them through jungle and swamp, often waist deep in muddy water. On this first day they set up a rearguard 2 miles inland protecting the swing west to their first bivouac. From here they needed two days in terrible terrain to work their way around the Viru inlet, a distance of some 12 miles. Several attacks by Japanese patrols were brushed off before the two platoons east of the inlet took Toombe village on 1 July, and the same morning the main body took Teterma with its 3in gun overlooking the narrow harbour entrance. An attempted forcing of this passage by a naval force had been blopcked, and the raiders had to fight off a final suicide attack after six hours’ battle before the village was taken, and the anchorage secured that evening.
The day before, 30 June, N and Q Companies with the rest of HQ landed at Oloana Bay on Vangunu Island, a staging point for New Georgia which it adjoins. The raiders contacted a scouting party ashore and established a beach-head for the 103rd Infantry, despite the landing parties being scattered in the rough weather. The marine and army companies became separated in the subsequent fighting but had taken the main enemy positions by nightfall. Next night a Japanese barge convoy attempted to land stores and was sunk, other mopping up was completed before these companies rejoined the Battalion for the move to New Georgia’s north coast on 18 July. After their action at Bairoko during their six weeks in northern New Georgia, with the 1st Raiders, the Battalion’s effective strength was only 154–54 had been killed, 139 wounded and others were sick.
The Battalion was not brought up to strength before being disbanded on 1 February 1944.
1st Ranger Battalion and Darby’s Rangers
The formation in June 1942 and subsequent actions of this Battalion are described in Chapter 6. In the spring of 1943 they provided the cadres for new battalions: A and B companies for the 3rd; C and D for the 4th; and E and F the new 1st. All three battalions became known as Darby’s Rangers although from time to time battalions operated independently.
The ‘new’ 1st Battalion landed at Gela in the early hours D-day, 10 July, and held part of the town for 36 hours despite Axis tankk attacks. On D + 3 they and the 4th Battalion—Darby’s Force in Sicily—attacked the Mount Delta Lapa positions of the Italians which were supported by two batteries of heavy artillery. With tank support and bayonet charges, the Rangers cleared these defences taking 600 prisoners, and next day made contact with the US 3 Division advancing on their left. Darby’s Force became a self-contained unit on 13 July with the addition of 18 SP howitzers from an armoured field artillery battalion. However, they took the old fortress mountain city of Butera, without bombardment when a 50-man patrol gained the centre of the city after outflanking road defences and charging the old walls’ gate.
While training replacements during the next weeks several rangers were killed when mortar rounds fell short, also at this time the Ranger Cannon Company was formed with six 105mm (4.1in) guns under Captain Chuck Shundstrom.
Three Battalions—1st, 3rd and 4th Rangers—landed at Salerno, see Chapter 9. During October these battalions were in the Allied line overlooking the Venafro valley some 40 miles from Naples. The mountain peaks changed hands several times while the Rangers were 45 days in the line, taking some 40 per cent casualties.
Reorganised for the Anzio landings all three Battalions came ashore in the cold early morning of 22 January 1944, taking a battery of 100mm guns, three armoured cars and two machine-gun posts. They dug-in on the perimeter and on 25-8 January held the salient near the Carrocetra Apprilla factory area. Relieved by British troops on 29 January, the marched through the night to positions for a spearhead attack leading the US 3 Division’s assault on Cisterna. See Chapter 9.
Commandos and Rangers of World War II Page 43