SpecForce
Did Commandos Make a Difference?
What of the “supersoldiers,” the Western commandos who often operated in conjunction with local resistance fighters and garnered so much attention both from contemporaries and from posterity? What was their impact? Their dramatic contributions cannot be denied. Heroic World War II special operations have provided rich inspiration for a long line of books, movies, and television shows, ranging from Alistair…
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THE TRAGINO AQUEDUCTÂ MISSION
Men from No.2 Commando (No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion) who participated in Operation Colossus Hughes, Norman; Tragino Aqueduct; Airborne Assault Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/tragino-aqueduct-224940 In June 1940, Britain had withdrawn its army out of the jaws of death from Dunkirk. In just under 50 days, the German Wehrmacht had overrun Norway,…
THE TRIPLE NICKEL
The formation, organization, and operation of the U.S. Army Parachute Test Platoon in June 1940 is a well-known story in the annals of special purpose, special mission organizations. This was, however, the first of two test platoons at the Army’s Parachute School at Fort Benning. The second was activated on…
“Libyan Taxi Service.”
LRDG Headquarters Section (note markings on “Louise”) of Chevrolet 30 cwt. The first two vehicles are armed with Vickers guns, and have canvas sand mats rolled up and stored on the front wheel arches. Later the SAS had their own transport. Before a desert raid. Stirling standing at right. It…
ITALIAN MIDGET SUBMARINES
An Italian CB-class submarine Although the presence of midget submarines on both sides was rumoured during the Russo-Japanese War, the Italian Navy may claim to have been the first to deploy midgets in 20th-century warfare. During World War I, a few small submersibles of c.16 tons (16.25 tonnes) surfaced displacement…
Konfrontasi
The first major Australian SAS operation began on 21 June 1965, when a patrol led by Corporal John Robinson helped guide a company of Gurkhas under the command of a British officer, Captain Ashman, to attack Lumbis, a village about ten kilometres inside Indonesian territory. After three days walking, they reached…
“River Raid on Korea”
Map of the American Naval Operations in Korea, 1871. The largest-scale combat in which Leathernecks participated in the three decades following the Civil War was the Korean Expedition of 1871. On 23 May of that year, five vessels of Rear Admiral John Rodgers’s Asiatic Fleet—the frigate Colorado, sloops Alaska and…