British Commandos

The British Commandos ( British Commandos ) were the first military units of raid, not attached to a regiment, created by the British army during the Second world war as of in June 1940 the purpose of which, employed in a nonconventional way and apart from the usual military tactics for the time, were to tackle, disorganize and carry out operations of recognition on the German forces on the continent of Europe.

General information

These commandos were trained of volunteers coming from all the branches of the British armed forces, the the Commonwealth and later of the countries of Europe occupied by the Nazis at the time of the Second world war. Only the best elements were accepted, in front of being young, in perfect physical shape and psychic, to be able to drive, maintain and repair motor vehicles and not to have of sea sickness. One of the clearly definite conditions was the right to voluntarily leave the commandos and to turn over to his unit of origin after an operation. Few volunteers required to do it.

With humor and derision, Winston Churchill gave this name of " commandos" in reference to the " Kommandos" Afrikaner S which put at evil the British troops during the war of Boers. They was peasants, marksmen, which operated by small groups with foot and horse in ambushes and attacks surprised to disperse and disappear then in the nature which was their natural environment. The numerical and material weakness became a military force in the mobility of dispersion and concentration in knacks (raids) and harassings while attacking by surprised fixed positions and convoys of supply

The British commandos were light troops operating per unit of 3-4 general-purpose men of which each one could replace the other, according to their currency " commando soldiers apt has all " in reference to the Marshal Ney of the Napoleonean wars. The composition and the armament are variable according to the operation considered. A commander of the commandos complained bitterly once: " an officer is always wrong until proof of the opposite ".

The commando expected, and rightly, to be put well at the current (" briefing") operation and of its details to know what was going to occur. It was the secrecy of success in hundreds of operations. Intelligent and quite well informed men knew the object of the operation: when the events were unfavourable and the killed chiefs, the followed drive and their talents enabled them to improvise and continue the mission. The officer ordered astute, educated and motivated men who could carry out his plans and whose command was not any more " ahead " , but " follow moi". It was that which defined the operation of the British commandos.

History

The man who invented the commandos was the Lieutenant-colonel Dutley Clarke, the dark and crucial shortly after the Opération Dynamo of the re-embarkation of the British Forces Expeditionary with Dunkirk in 1940. With the call of the General de Gaulle to continue the combat everywhere by uniting with him in the Free French Army, a form of resistance started. Thereafter, there thus existed French units distinct in the rows from the British commandos, as for other Belgian nationals, Polish, or other nations of occupied countries. It was not a foreign legion, but a kind of multinational army. Dutley Clarke was the military assistant of the General Sir John Dill, the Head of the State imperial major at the time of the defeat of the Allies, English, Belgians and French, and who found themselves with the head of weakened British forces, having lost all their equipment in Dunkirk. He remembered the combat of guerilla delivered by the Spanish patriots against the powerful Napoleonean army and the Arab revolt in Palestine where he had been useful in 1936. Its question was: " How desperate men can carry out a war of guerilla with only the weapons which they are able to carry, without artillery nor logistical support, to fight an adversary strongly armed, established with Dunkirk to the Pyrenees ". The question quickly went up the hierarchical line to the Prime Minister Winston Churchill who had just promised recently the victory at the price of sweat, blood and the tears.

Military operations

The United Kingdom threatened of invasion with the preparations of the Operation Otary, project of German unloading in England and subjected to the preparatory bombardments of Lutwaffe at the time of the Battle of England, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill claimed feats of arms and victories to announce them with the BBC and thus to support moral population. For that, the British commandos raids launched to the extreme north of the Norway, on all the coast Norman to the islands of the archipelago Anglo-Norman which transfer the appearance on stage of the new troops commandos which operated later, during the war, until the Balkans, in Greece and on the theater of operations of North Africa, changing colors of camouflage like chameleons and procedures according to the nature of the ground and the adversary.

After a series of very hard drives where only those which made a success of the tests obtained the patent, the right to carry the badge and could join the various operational units. In the beginning, these volunteers came from the companies of Marines of the Royal Marine and the first raids commando were operations amphibians whose first proceeded in the area of Boulogne-sur-Mer in the night from June 23rd to 24th and the second on the Channel Island of Guernesey in the night from July 14th to 15th. These " punctures of moustique" aggravated sufficiently the adversary and fed enough BBC in bulletins of victory. They was the 2 there goal principal of the operations commandos: to inspire confidence in the English camp and concern at the adversary. During their development, the British commandos passed under the orders of the admiral Lord Mountbatten, cousin of the King and chief of the Combined Operations .

On the Western face, it have two great operations of which one is still discussed. It was the operation " Jubilee" on the port of Dieppe, the July 10th 1942 which was at the same time a total success as an operation of commando of the irregular forces on the two sides and a failure quite as total like unloading of the Canadian infantry of the regular forces in the center. The lessons of it were drawn to prepare the future unloading in Normandy of June 6th, 1944. The first was not to directly take a port and the second was not to mix the heavy regular forces of infantry with the light irregular forces of the commandos. At the D-day, the British commandos attacked in first discreetly and silently with their practices to take and hold the bridges and the road junctions until the arrival of the heavy regular troops for the changing.

The other success of the British commandos was the door Opération Carriage on the port of Saint-Nazaire the March 28th 1942

Operation Carriage

The British commandos destroyed the Forme Joubert, large dry hold of the port of St-Nazaire to prevent that the battleship " Tirpitz ", twin of the " Bismarck ", cannot be repaired there after a possible war of race in the Atlantic. This exceptional raid, accomplished at the price of terrible losses, proved as of this time the irreplaceable character of the special forces in the event of conflict. This operation was the prototype and remains for it the model of the operations combined between several branches of the armed forces in a competitive co-operation, as a concerto which is the fight of an instrument against all those of the orchestra.

See also: Operation Carriage

In the dark days of at the beginning of 1942, the vital line of supply in North Atlantic was stretched to the point of rupture. The submarines " U-Boote" the tradind ships combined ran more quickly than they could not be replaced, and to this threat that of the German surface vessels was added. Previous spring, Royal Navy had pursued and succeeded in running the modern one and powerful battleship Bismarck, but of others " raiders" potentials remained in freedom. Most dangerous of them was the Tirpitz, ship twin of the " Bismarck". The destroyed dock was given in service only in the years 1950. The battleship " Tirpitz" private remainder of a base of repair, never left its Norwegian refuge.

Tirpitz was a monster, with more than 50.000 tons, a thick shielding and guns of 380 Misters It was so powerful that no British or American battleship could only face it. If this giant managed to reach the lines used by the convoys in the North Atlantic, the results could have been catastrophic for the Allies. With his usual literary talent, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill described this manner the importance of the destruction of Tirpitz: " all the strategy of the war turns at that time around this boat ".

Tirpitz was then embusqué in water of the Norwegian fjords, just as the battleships of pocket Lützow and Admiral Scheer. Royal Navy endeavoured to neutralize this dangerous fleet or to force it to leave and fight, but up to now the British missed chance. The danger was that the German ships make an exit while the major units of the British fleet operated elsewhere, and that they do not attack a convoy only protected by armed corvettes, trawlers or destroyers. However, if Royal Navy could lead Tirpitz to fight and damaged it, there was one port on all the Atlantic facade accessible to the ships from the Axis where it could be repaired: the port Frenchwoman of St-Nazaire.

This harbor small town sheltered the dry dock Louis Joubert, better known under the name of " Normandie" dock; , an enormous dry hold built especially to accommodate the steamer Normandy, the pride of the French momentary fleet of pre-war period. Bismarck, damaged in its combat with Hood and the Prince off Wales in May 1941, had put the course on St-Nazaire when a plane Fairey " Swordfish" royal Navy struck it of a torpedo, damaging its rudder and allowing the British naval force which continued it to intercept it and to run it. It was also with St-Nazaire that Tirpitz would repair possible damage caused by torpedes, bombs or shells. The British were decided to remove the only refuge to repair the giant ship - and thus was born the operation " Chariot".

St-Nazaire and the Normandy dock is on the estuary of the Loire, to approximately 10 km of its mouth. In spring of 1942, the river was broad 1,5 km and relatively not very major, except where a channel for large boats had been dredged, close to northern bank of the estuary. The dock itself was very large, a basin of 349 meters out of 50. The access rested on enormous thick doors of 11 meters, so massive that the British called them " caissons". They measured 52 meters length and 16 top, and had been conceived to be moved on enormous casters.

The houses of winch and the pumping stations were built on the same scale as the large dock. On a side of the hold dries were St-Nazaire and the basins of Penhoet, of broad artificial dampings which were generally used by the small German warships. The basin of the St-Nazaire, smallest of both, was allotted to the U-Boat S, which reached the estuary of the Loire through a succession of locks. Some of the shelters concreted for U-Boote of St-Nazaire were in service, whereas others were still in construction.

Other installations of the port were in the vicinity, just as locks, bridges, quays, underground tanks of fuel for the submarines, and a powerplant. The whole of the complex was defended by some 100 guns of various gauges, truffle of projectors of research and was attended by minesweepers and ships of coastal defense. The city itself sheltered to 5000 soldiers and marine German, of which a brigade of complete infantry.

To overcome these formidable defenses, the British knew that they were to engage their best soldiers - the commandos. The soldiers of the Crown had a long story of the daring raids to tell the truth. They organized tens of forwardings with small boats against the Spaniards and the French at the time of the veil. And they also carried out during the First World War strike them risky against Zeebrugge, in Belgium, during which unloaded troops neutralized German coastal defenses whereas the navy ran three old cruisers in the channel which borrowed U-Boote German to gain the North Sea.

The British commandos had been already distinguished in similar raids, of Africa in the islands Lofoten in Norway. The attack of Lofoten in April 1941 had been an enormous success. It had added up 11 run ships, 800.000 gallons of oil burned, 216 Germans and 60 " Quislings" Norwegian (nicknames of the Norwegian collaborators) captive facts, and more than 300 volunteer Norwegians for the forces of free Norway. The British had recorded one casualty.

Whereas the majority of the first raids carried out by the commandos involved losses, embarrassment and concern for the Axis, St-Nazaire posed a challenge much more difficult than all that had been tried previously. If the offensive succeeded, and nothing were less sure, it would be the most daring raid of the war. The commandos were to be committed during the last week of March, because it is only at this period that they would have a full moon and a rising tide between midnight and 2:00 of the morning.

The British resources were thin. Some of the commandos were to move on a flotilla of 15 high-speed motorboats, boats of wood not armor-plated and long 34 meters, which transported their auxiliary tanks on the bridge and had as an armament only one gun bitube Oerlikon of 20 mm and a pair of Mitrailleuse S Lewis dating from the First World War. Four of these fragile boats also transported Torpille S. the high-speed motorboats had two advantages: they reached 18 nodes speed and had only one very weak draft. While entering the estuary of the Loire on a tide of spring, they could operate on the high funds and around beaches of vase, in-outside principal channel, strongly defended.

A slightly higher firepower was provided by a single motorized drain-hole out of wood. It carried an anti-aircraft gun Vickers of 40 mm, two machine-guns bitubes of 12,7 mm and a semi-automatic gun of 40 mm. It was intended to act as boat of command and to guide the raiders to the Loire, because it was equipped at the same time with a radar and a sound probe.

There was finally the destroyer 74, whose tubes designed to be fastened with semi-hull had been almost advanced to the prow, in the idea that it can launch its torpedes over a net anti-torpedes. Those had been modified and had received a timer, so that they explode after having rested one moment on the ground. The function of the ship was to torpedo the southern box if the principal weapon did not function. Destroyer 74 was a strange boat which had evil to maintain a speed given between extreme slowness and the 40 nodes reached thoroughly. It was to be towed to enter in action, with the great dislike of its captain, the second lieutenant Micky Wynn, one of these many daring characters and eccentrics (" of an insane eccentricity " , according to a senior officer) which had found their place in Royal Navy in war.

But none of these vessels could provide the principal impact, the blow of pole-axe which would put the dry hold except service almost indefinitely. There would not be a second chance. The commandos would put foot at ground to destroy the large sliding boxes, the houses of winch and the pumping station, but even that could not make the dock unusable for the remainder of the war. One needed something moreover, and this something proved to be the HMS " Campbeltown". This old destroyer with 4 chimneys length 95 meters, alias US " Buchanan" , was one of the 50 obsolete destroyers transferred to Royal Navy by the United States in exchange from the privileged use of bases within the the Caribbean and from Canada British.

For raid, the " Campbeltown" was sent in an installation of Royal Navy to Devonport to undergo a face lift there. A 9 days rebuilding enabled him to resemble the one a little German warships largely used class " Möwe" , a kind of crossing enters a small destroyer and a large destroyer. The workmen of Devonport reduced to the maximum the old destroyer, because it was to cross the high funds of the Loire, where even with high tide there were only hardly 3 meters of water. The operations of the commandos always were containing various kinds of disguise, vestimentary and different for the approach and the effect of surprise.

All the torpedo tubes and the anti-submarine equipment of the " Campbeltown" were removed, just as two of its chimneys, the majority of its masts and all its guns except one. The two remaining chimneys were shortened, and the workmen added a mean shielding around the footbridge. They also installed 4 high armor-plates 5,4 meters of the footbridge to the poop, in order to give a certain protection to the unloaded elements of the commando. Moreover, the boat accepted 8 Oerlikons guns of 20 mm, and its single part of 76 mm was moved poop with the front beach.

The corrosive one of the " Campbeltown" consisted of 24 loads of depth, placed in a steel tank concreted in the hull, just behind the pedestal which had carried the gun of the front bridge. This enormous load, which represented more than 4 tons of explosives, was started by other explosives fixed at detonators having a 8 hours deadline. These detonators were to be activated by going up the Loire. If all were held in accordance with the plan, Campbeltown would press the enormous doors of the dry hold, frayerait a way through and would be inserted deeply in the basin. It would be then scuttled at this place, then with a little chance would explode and destroy the Normandy dock until the end of the war. The explosive load was well sufficiently behind the hull of Campbeltown for not being damaged by the inevitable deformation of the prow, and well enough with before being in the zone of the target.

The mission of the commandos was to unload quickly, to draw on all that was important and to destroy to the maximum the vital equipment of the dock and other installations of the port. The doors of the locks connecting the basin of the Sous-marin S was a top priority - to put except service the access to the ocean would block and would limit seriously the utility of the basin. On the whole, the purpose of the commandos were to demolish 4 bridges, 6 powerplants, 8 lockgates lock and 13 guns.

The terrestrial force was to count 256 men and officers, coming from 6 various companies of commandos. Some of the raiders transported only one gun and an enormous backpack containing up to 40 kg of explosive. The task of other groups of 5 men, each one equipped with Thompson machine-guns and a Bren machine-gun, consisted in covering the carriers of explosives while they posed their loads. Other elements of combat, formed each of 2 officers and 12 men, were to take by storm the positions of artillery, to establish a perimeter around the dock and to push back the reinforcements coming from the city. For unforeseen crises, there was a thin reserve of 12 men, as well as a doctor and a small medical detachment.

The raid was to be led by lieutenant-colonel A.C. Newman, a territorial officer of the regiment of Essex, chief of the 2nd Commando and veteran of the raids successful in Norway. The naval quota was ordered by the commander R.E.D. Ryder - inevitably called " Red. " Ryder was the British old seaman par excellence, a veteran of polar exploration, submarines, of Q-ships, anti-submarine ships disguised in commercial boats, and of two shipwrecks on warships. These two chiefs were calm and considered professionals.

The men who followed them counted soldiers and sailors of career, but the majority were " warriors temporaires" ; the detachment of Newman included/understood a London Stock Exchange member, a minor, a curator of a museum and an economist. All had acquired an excellent level while following the fatal training of the commandos. No one did not carry the badge commando on his shoulder without surviving exhausting forced marches - 100 kilometers 24 hours was the standard, and sometimes the men were to achieve 11 kilometers in one hour. A unit had made a memorable walk of 104 km of 23 hours. Everyone shared the loads, without difference between officers, warrant officers and soldiers. Everyone was involved in the snow and the cold of the winters of Highlands; everyone shivered during the unloadings in icy water of the Hébrides; everyone learned how to kill out of the men with naked hands and the knife.

These volunteers in time of war knew that they were thrown in the arms of death. With a depressing honesty, the Mountbatten vice-admiral, chief of the combined operations, have in fact called to Newman that him and its men had passed by losses and profits:

" I am sure that you can there go and make the job, but we do not have much hope to be able to extract you. Even if you are lost all, the results of the operation are worth the sorrow of it. For this reason, I want that you say to all the men having family responsibilities, or who think of having to withdraw itself for any reason, that they are free to make it and that nobody will be upset with them for that ".

Newman transmitted the offer of Mountbatten to its commandos, but not only one man did not withdraw himself. The drive for raid lasted of the weeks, in particular with the hold dries King George V of Southampton, which was enough large to accommodate the " Queen Mary" of 75.000 tons. The groups of attack repeated their tasks still and still, and spent more time still around a precise model using photographs taken by the reconnaissance aircraft of the RAF. The teams of demolition involved themselves of day, then while carrying stringcourses and finally of night. The rule was to place the explosives on the target in 10 minutes or less, and with each repetition of the men were declared touched in manner impromptue, so that the other members of the team are constrained to learn each function in addition to their.

" raiders" even invented a password the German proof: " war let us weapons week" , with " weymouth" for answer, because there is no sound " w" (oueuh) in German. They also granted some sets of actors for the German spies who could be around Falmouth, their point of loading. They were called themselves the " 10th deterrent force anti-under-marine" and launched the rumor which they were organized to seek of U-Boote far beyond the Western approaches of British Isles. They also concocté a history according to which the force went some share to the east of Suez Canal, and they were ensured that whoever observed them could see that sunglasses and other equipment for hot climate.

The gasoline of the operations of commando is to mislead the adversary and to improvise. The raid on St-Nazaire gave to place with many tales, legends, myths and accounts. The " Campbeltown" plugged in the lock lockgates and exploded the following day midday, whereas all the raiders had died, disappeared, captured or set out again towards England.

Gregory Bateson already released two types of behavior, the " calibrage" and the " rétroaction" , the first is the execution of a program and the second consists to act in uncertainty and to integrate uncertainty in the control of the action. The action of the commandos is of the second type.

Units of the Special forces: Special Air Service, Special Boat Service and Chindits

Range length Serves Group

On the desert ground of big spaces open of North Africa, the reconnaissance missions presented the solitary characteristic of navigation with few benchmarks. the LRDG (Long Arranges Serves Group) was formed in 1940 by Ralph Bagnold to collect information and to transmit them to the general headquarter. These patrols covered a vast zone, Mediterranean in Chad and of Egypt in Tunisia, on the desert side of the engagements along the coast. The trucks of this group transported the Free French Forces of Leclerc in their first raid on Mourzouk and Koufra starting from Chad before the FFL do not have their own vehicles for future raids and to penetrate in Tunisia and to finish the countryside of North Africa while uniting with the British forces from Egypt and the American forces unloaded in North Africa at the time of the Opération Torch.

Special Air Service

Scouts, the LRDG had become conveyer for SAS which will have its own vehicles for attacks surprised far behind the frontline before disappearing in nature. These surprised attacks maintained the adversary in permanent state of alert and fixed many enemy forces which would have been useful elsewhere. The ingeniousness and the intrepidity of SAS are symbolized by its currency " Who dare win " (Which dares gain).

David Stirling founded the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1941 what revolutionized the way of carrying out a war and many current special forces copy its tactics. The philosophy of SAS is to reject all the tactics formal to have some no, the improvisations are in the center of its successes. The formal tactics are about the principle of Schrödinger " Order from Order " or principle of organization by extension in the execution of a program or receipt. The improvisations are about the principle of von Foerster " Order from Noise " or principle of organization per availability to the event.

When the face moved of North Africa in Sicily and Italy, SAS adapted to the ground with same philosophy. At the time of the Unloading of Normandy, SAS operated in Brittany to fix at it the German troops which were stationed there there. SAS took part in all the wars of decolonization to become a force anti-terrorist, thus giving the attack to the embassy from Iran to London and releasing the hostages. During the war of the Gulf of 1991, the patrols of SAS found their ground first, the desert, attacking to further push back them in the desert, the Iraqi transportable batteries of Scud in order to put them out of reach their targets potentials.

Volunteer as of the Free French Army, Pierre Boulle took part in the countryside of North Africa and Burma with SAS from where it drew the substance from his two news from which were drawn a film: the bridge of the river Kwai.

Special Operations Executive

This very special service implemented several small military units on the arrears of the enemy the such Force 136 in Southeast Asia.

Special Boat Service

The SBS, Special Boat Service, whose currency is " United we conquer " (Plain we conquer) is the ancestor of the Commandos of navy French and of SEAL American resulting from the UDT (Underwater Demolition TEAM) wide in Sea Air Land of the special forces of fight against the guerilla.

Chindits

The Chindits are combatants of the jungle of the theater of operations CBI (China, Burma and India) during the Second world war. They drew their name from the lions guards of Burmese temple. They were organized and directed by the General Orde Charles Wingate, an eccentric English who walked in the life with the Hebraic bible and Homère to inspire it in his strategic designs of the choice and the organization of the battles inside whose the tactical designs of the engagements are. Before going to Burma, Wingate organized in Palestine of the " patrols of nuit" in the " Kiboutzim" to face the raids of the neighbors arabo-Moslems. In Egypt, Wingate conceived the plan of the " patrols of deep pénétration" ( long arranges penetration patrols ) whose partial realization was found in the LRDG (Long Arranges Serves Group) and the complete realization in SAS.

Chindits were the execution of this plan in Burma where groups were sent in the jungle, behind the Japanese lines, and were supplied far by parachutings with the planes of the captain Philip Cochran of the air forces of the United States. At the end of the First War of Indo-China, the CFEO (French Task force in the Far East) created the GCMA (Grouping of Airborne Mixed Commandos) on the model of Chindits de Wingate. Same manner, were conceived the green Bérets of the United States, embryo of the American special forces to the beginning of the year 1960 in Vietnam, under the Kennedy administration.

On this theater of operations forgotten of the Second world war, there were also the Merrill' S Marauders, the first terrestrial force of the United States to be fought in Asia, in the Burmese jungle and to train local combatants against the Japanese troops of occupation. Chindits and Maraudeurs resulted from the same source and gave many heirs. Among the Petty thieves also American volunteers of Japanese origin were whose parents were interned in camps of relocalization in the United States. On the European theater, they served in the 442 RCT (Regimental Combat TEAM) in Italy and in the Vosges. It was the military unit most decorated with the history of the United States, that to prove their honesty and their patriotism and whose currency was " Go for Broke " (to advance to bore) Nippo-American S.

Bibligraphic references

John Keegan & Richard Holmes, Soldiers. History off Men in battle , Elisabeth Sifton Book. Viking. New York, 1986.

Peter Young, Commando , Ballantine Book, New York, 1972

Ashley Brown ED. Undercover Fighters. The British 22nd SAS Regiment , Villard Books, New York, 1986

Related bonds

Philippe Kieffer

External bonds

http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/frgraph/Vol6/no3/PDF/08-History1_f.pdf
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/special_forces_in_world_war_two.htm
http://commandos-fnfl.ifrance.com
http://souvenirsas.ifrance.com
http://codoponchardierSASB.ifrance.com
http://5thsas.com Site devoted to Belgian unit S.A.S. plus a French-English forum devoted to the units S.A.S., Free Commandos, Forces and with Resistance.

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