SAS in North Africa
The British Commandos were the prototype for the modern special forces. Volunteers had to undergo an arduous training course.
British & Commonwealth Forces had a plethora of small Elite units:-
Levant Schooner Flotilla
Raiding Support Regiment
Special Raiding Squadron
Small Scale Raiding Force
Special Boat Service (section, squadron)
Greek Sacred Squadron
Long Range Desert Group
Popski’s private army
Indian Long Range Squadron
Sea Reconnaissance Unit
Royal Marine Boom Patrol Detachment
These tended to be mission specific units or units for use in just one theatre of operations. Talents employed in such units may not have been of much use in other theatres.
I think that “elite” units were (and still can be) incredibly valuable. Examples include Brandenburgers in 1940 and in Russia, Rangers at Point du Hoc, Fallschirmjaegers at Eben Emael, and even the Commandos as morale boosters before D-day. SAS also earned their keep. I do think, however, that they got out of hand. They had tremendous potential as battalion sized units given battalion sized objectives. Their use should be rare indeed because there are only a limited number of missions suitable for such units. If you have too many resources tied up in these units, higher level commanders will be forced to mis-use them, normally as ordinary infantry. Suitable missions should only be of such importance that the commander would be willing to sacrifice the entire unit to see them accomplished.
In the event that a need arose for a unit larger than battalion of so, they should have, contrary to Gen McNair’s wishes, tailored standard units to meet this need. This is essentially what the USMC was….not an elite unit, but amphibious infantry. Other such examples included the Chindits and the Galahad mission.
Allied airborne forces represented an effort all out of proportion to their value. Divisions, corps, and such were entirely too ponderous for timely deployment, and too lightly equipped for the missions they were given. Once again, perhaps battalion sized units with battalion sized objectives might have been more efficient.
An excellent source, if you can find it, is WARFARE IN THE ENEMY’S REAR by Otto Heilbrunn. He’s a tedious read, but the guy does his homework.
January 1944: These U.S. Marine Raiders, with the reputation of being skillful jungle fighters, pose in front of a Japanese stronghold they conquered at Cape Totkina, Bougainville.
US Marines
The “eliteness” of the US Marine Corps is a ticklish subject. The Corps did not systematically draft the best manpower into its ranks, but its personnel policies did guarantee that it had a significantly better manpower picture, especially in its combat units, than the average Army Division. Also, the Marine Corps was able to put together better trained and equipped teams for any given battle than the Army generally could.
The personnel policies of the entire USMC were similar to those of the Army Air Corps. Only volunteers were accepted. Even when the Corps started accepting draftees, only those who voluntarily accepted assignment to the Marines were taken. The other important factor was the assignment of the best manpower to the combat arms. While the Army gave lip service to a similar policy, the truth was that regular culls for special or elite duties brought the infantry down to almost the lowest common denominator. The Marine Corps managed to keep this kind of thing down to a minimum, even disbanding the Parachute and Raider battalions in 1944 and feeding their members back into the regular Fleet Marine Force.
The personnel policy described above was leveraged by the nature of operations in the South and Central Pacific. Because land campaigns were highly localized and offensive operations were planned months in advance, Marine divisions (and Army ones in the same areas) had the opportunity to train for 6-12 months before commitment to a few weeks or months of combat. After a battle, divisions were put back into training cycles for the campaign after next, not taken directly to the next battle. The end result was that units were always up to strength and teams from squads to regiments completely trained and integrate on D-Day. The Army only approximated this in Europe during the Husky and Overlord landings.
Altogether, self-selected and selectively assigned personnel, trained to razor sharpness before each battle, and allowed time to recover between campaigns, created the condition of Marine eliteness in the Pacific.
British Paratroopers Red Devils (WWII)
Airborne
Their task was that of desant ops with a rapid link-up; this worked on OVERLORD, and failed to happen on MARKET-GARDEN. Wasn’t the lesson of Crete that anything smaller than a Brigade-sized airborne op was probably too small?
The Soviets reckoned on using their airborne forces in a similar fashion (at least, according to the training I received), and all that film of para-dropped BMD and ASU was terribly impressive……Division dropped in under an hour springs to mind.
Note that the bulk of British airborne units were line battalions retrained as glider troops, and not “The Parachute Regiment”. Of the Division that went in to Arnhem, look at the some of the battalions involved; Staffordshire Regiment, King’s Own Scottish Borderers being examples.
I seem to remember a statistic that the SAS and Long Range Desert Group destroyed more Luftwaffe aircraft in North Africa than did the RAF – they were extremely successful at their airfield raids.
On the other hand, Orde Wingate (who set up the Chindits) was a firm believer in the “ordinary battalions, trained properly” theory.
So the British Army couldn’t agree on the best approach over six years of war…
Forcemen of 5-2, First Special Service Force, preparing to go on an evening patrol in the Anzio beachhead. April 20-27, 1944.
Special Service Force
Forget not the Special Service Force, an American-Canadian Brigade designed for employment in Norway. They sat about waiting for an opportunity and were eventually committed to the Anzio landing where they held a division frontage. The Germans were so impressed by them that they felt that they were facing three divisions.
On the other end you have ‘regular’ units who earn a reputation as elite troops. No better than 442th RCT(Nisei) which is the only unit to ever receive the Combat Infantry Regiment accolade (which means that every man in the regiment is entitled to wear the CIB) and no fewer than 3 Presidential Unit Citations for their efforts in Italy and France.
Critically, elite units cannot be rebuilt after combat losses without a decent cadre. We see this in this decimation of HJ in Normandy and their subsequent reconstitution performing badly in Wacht am Rhein. On the other hand the US Airborne divisions were rebuilt after both Normandy and Arnhem but strong cadres meant that the replacements were absorbed without undue reduction in combat potential.
The SSF was a light infantry brigade-size unit with specialized training and capabilities. All the men were ski and mountain trained, they were also amphibious trained. The men were extensively cross-trained in weapons skills, most had demolitions training and many would have qualified as combat medics. The units were small, self-contained battalions, small unit tactics were heavily emphasized, the heaviest weapons available were 60mm mortars (but they swiped 81mm mortars on occasion).
They were a fantastically effective unit, but were unable to maintain the quality of replacements and the time for the training that was required to keep them up to strength. In effect, the Force had a combat lifetime of just one year (not counting their commitment in the Aleutians, which involved no combat, but a lot of danger), they were committed in Italy November 1943 and fought their last action in Southern France in November. They were then joined with 99th Infantry Battalion (Separate) — the “Norwegians” — in the 474th Infantry Regiment (Separate).
If you can find a copy the Combat Studies Institute of the USA CGSC published “A Historical Perspective on Light Infantry” by MAJ Scott R. McMichael, has a good overview of the Force, as well as the Chindits, CHICOMS in Korea, and the British in Malaya. It’s well worth finding a copy.
Ian Dear’s X Commando which tries to piece together the history of Number 10 ‘Inter-Allied’ Commando from its formation in 1940 to its disbandment in 1945. It comprised several ‘national’ Troops (troop = company) two French troops, one Belgian, one Norwegian, one Dutch, one (short-lived) Yugoslavian and one ‘German’ troop. This last troop ‘X’ comprised Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Sudeten-Germans, White Russians and oddly an American from Pittsburgh. Of all of Ten Commando X troop was never fielded in above section strength, usually a section being attached to other various units as interpreters, interrogators and German Army experts (several had held pre-Hitler commissions in the German Forces).
To protect them in case of capture they were given Immediate British Citizenship by order of Churchill and they selected new British sounding names from a Llandudno Telephone directory (they were first based in Llandudno, Wales after the War many settled there). It was further suggested that as a few of them had obvious accents, if they were captured to claim to be Welsh (this actually worked! one was even questioned by Erwin Rommel in early 1944 after being captured surveying near what was to become Omaha Beach).
I really do recommend this Book incomplete though it is (many records were destroyed regarding X troop so he relied on surviving records and accounts from such people as Louis Mountbatten and General Gavin) as it shows what a difference Small ‘Elite’ units can make to the overall ‘Big Picture’.
No.10 Commando Contained no ‘British’ Personnel other than HQ Troop and ‘X’ Troops ersatz Britons. Paddy Mayne was involved in the early setting up of the Commando and it was on his recommendation that the various troops retained certain parts of their National Uniforms such as headgear, Rank Insignia etc to foster a greater feeling of Unit/National Pride.
The only troop which fully adopted British uniform including various Regimental cap-badges on their Green Berets were ‘X’ Troop. The French Later adopted the Green Beret after Dieppe where small units of them and ‘X’ Troop accompanied the Canadians, but as each Troop wore it in differing national styles No.10 Commandos few Parades looked ‘interesting’.
The Numbering of Commando units generally followed from 1 onwards was Army Commandos, 40 onwards was Royal Marine. After 1945 Army Commandos were disbanded but the Royal Marines retained their Commando unit Designations as well as the ultra-tough training regime, they never returned to their pre-war roles as RMLI (Royal Marine Light Infantry) and RMA (Royal Marine Artillery).
The Various No.10 Commando Troops went on to form the Nucleus of those countries Special forces apart from the Norwegian troop which was disbanded when it came under Norwegian Government control and ‘X’ Troop.
Ian Dear does note that sometimes due to Paddy Mayne’s Involvement SAS’s Foreign elements and No.10 Commando’s sometimes get confused in some accounts of actions, especially those in the Aegean.
