The Devils Brigade
Known formally as the 1st Special
Service Force, the Devil's Brigade was a joint Canadian-American
unit that began July 9, 1942, at Fort William Henry Harrison,
Montana. Airborne-trained and honed to the sharpness of a cold
steel blade, the Devil's Brigade saw most of its action in
Italy, but also fought in France, where it was deactivated in
1944. Its forte was close-quarter combat against
numerically-superior forces, a task which it accomplished with a
raw power that gave the brigade its nickname.
The 1st Special Service Force was trained
& equipped to conduct Mountain Warfare with all of their
soldiers trained in military skiing and cold weather
operations. A large portion of their training was in
"Commando" type operations and after deploying to
England, all of the 1st SSF personnel attended the grueling
British Command course.
SHOULDER SLEEVE INSIGNIA
1st Special Service Force
An scarlet Indian arrow head,
3 1/8 inches in height and 1 3/8 inches in width, with
the horizontal letters USA above the vertical letters
CANADA in white.
Symbolism: The arrow head represented the Native American
Indian heritage of both the United States and Canada.
Background: The 1st Special Service Force was activated as
a joint Canadian American unit on July 9, 1942. The
shoulder sleeve insignia was approved on September 14,
Lead The Way
Darby's Rangers was the
moniker given to the 1st Ranger Battalion in honor of
its commander, Major William 0rlando Darby. The
unit was activated June 19, 1942, in Carrickfergus,
The Rangers fought
throughout Western Europe and were involved in many
critical and bloody battles, but achieved their greatest
fame when Rangers scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc as
part of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
operations units of the second World War were known as
the Army's elite. Their philosophy was simple: shock the
enemy with quick strikes and deep thrusts, leaving him
paralyzed and confused. It was the 20th-century
application of principles first formulated by Rogers'
Rangers, and it became the basis of the modern-day LRRP,
LRSD & Airborne Ranger strike force.
|China, Burma & India During WWII
Merrill's Marauders was
the title given to the 5307th Composite Unit
(Provisional), a 3,000-man special force formed &
commanded by Col. Frank D. Merrill.
The unit deployed deep
behind enemy lines and boldly staked out a piece of
Burmese jungle daring the Japanese to challenge it. The
Japanese obliged, and wound up losing to the Marauders
in five major battles and 17 skirmishes.
The Marauders' greatest
feat, and the one that made them an inspiration 20 years
later to American soldiers once again slogging through
Asian jungles, was their march of miles through thick
Burmese jungle en route to the capture of the airfield
In the Pacific,
Lieutenant General Walter Krueger established a small
elite force and called them the Alamo Scouts, probably
after his native San Antonio.
In perhaps their greatest
feat, the Scouts led U.S. Rangers and Filipino
guerrillas in an attack on a Japanese prison camp at
Cabantuan, freeing all 511 allied prisoners there.
numbering more than 70 volunteers, the Alamo Scouts
earned 44 Silver Stars, 33 Bronze Stars and four
Soldier's Medals by the end of the war. In over 100
hazardous missions deep in enemy held territory, they
never lost a man in action. The Alamo Scouts evolved
from a simple reconnaissance unit in New Guinea to a
sophisticated intelligence collection group which
supplied and coordinated large-scale guerrilla
operations on Leyte and Luzon.
The Alamo Scouts have the
finest record of any elite unit of World War II and, are
arguably, one of the finest units in the history of the
United States military.
Besides these formally organized
special operations efforts, a number of U.S. Army officers
conducted guerrilla operations behind Japanese lines in the
Philippines. Colonel Russell Volckman, who later would play an
important role in the birth of Special Forces, escaped from the
enemy and formed a Filipino guerrilla band in northern Luzon,
which by 1945 consisted of five regiments. Major Windell Fertig,
a reservist, raised his own guerrilla force that ultimately
totaled some 20,000 fighters.
In areas and missions that even
the Devil's Brigade and Darby's Rangers never ventured, there
was a very different type of special operations force
organized and ran by a very different type of organization. It
consisted of small teams of 3 to 5 people parachuting into the
darkness to operate behind enemy lines. These small special
forces teams developed a network of contacts, give instructions
and equipment to local underground resistance fighters and waged
guerrilla warfare against a very powerful and well organized
enemy, right in there own back yard.
It was a new kind of special
operation, a new type of warfare, taking a bit of the Swamp Fox
and a bit of Mosby and combining it with new technology and the
specialized fieldcraft & techniques of clandestine
operations. Specializing in espionage, sabotage, airborne
operations and guerrilla fighting. There wasn't an official name
for it yet, and few even knew of their existence, but the agency
that developed and refined this modern form of unconventional
warfare was called "The OSS". Formerly know as
the Office of Strategic Services.
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|This page is an
unofficial document and does not represent information
endorsed by the United States Government, the United
States Special Operations Command or the United States
Army Special Operations Command. However, most
information is derived from those sources and has been
checked for accuracy. For comments, questions, and
suggestions, please go to the Communications
Gunnery Network - SOF