#645： The Forgotten Story of the Lumberjack Commandos of WWII
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Summary
Before special operators became an ingrained part of the military strategy and established a prominent presence in the public eye, they existed as experimental, now largely forgotten units that were launched during the Second World War. One of the primary predecessors of today s commandos was the first special service force which was known simply as the The Force and is described in a book by the same name by military historian Saul David. Today on the show, SASUL explains how he came across this little-known story of the force and traces its origins to an idea formulated by an eccentric British civilian scientist and championed by Winston Churchill which envisioned a unit that could accompany a fleet of snow tanks into enemy territory.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast today it's hard
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to go very long without hearing about special operations forces like the army's green berets
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and the navy's seal teams before special operators became an ingrained part of the military strategy
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and established a prominent presence of the public eye they existed as experimental now largely
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forgotten units that were launched during the second world war one of the primary predecessors
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of today's commandos was the first special service force which was known simply as the force
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and is described in a book by the same name by military historian saul david today on the show
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saul explains how he came across this little-known story of the force and traces its origins to an
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idea formulated by an eccentric british civilian scientist and championed by winston churchill
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which envisioned a unit that could accompany a fleet of snow tanks into enemy territory saul details how
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the force was composed of men from both america and canada how members were recruited from the rough
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and ready ranks of explorers miners lumberjacks and hunters who were physically strong and used
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to cold temperatures and rugged terrain and he also talks about the rigorous training that turned
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these recruits into what was arguably the military's fittest and best disciplined fighting force a unit
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which became known as the devil's brigade we turn to the action these elite commandos saw during the
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war which included scaling the sheer cliffs and mountain to secure a nazi stronghold and we enter a
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conversation with why the unit was disbanded before the war was even over and how its legacy continues to
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live on in the special forces of today after the show is over check out our show notes at aom.is
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all right saul david welcome to the show thank you very nice to be here so you got a book out called
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the force the legendary special ops unit in world war ii's mission impossible and it's about this
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military unit that was combined american and canadian troops and they were basically sort of
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the precursor green berets navy seals and i never heard of the story and i'm sure a lot of people
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haven't heard about this story how did you come across the story of the force well believe it or not
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brett given that i'm a military historian and i've studied a lot of stories of this type i hadn't heard
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about it either and that that really sums up how it's sort of slipped between the cracks of history a
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little bit i was uh you know as i've already pointed out i've written about war from the romans
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onwards but one thing that doesn't change in military history is the the basic principles of
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war the the methods change but the way you fight wars don't and so i felt at liberty to range long
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and wide but i hadn't really written much on the second world war since my first couple of books and
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there are another 10 or 10 or 12 in between so i was very keen to find a second world war story i was
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keen to find a story that would allow me to concentrate on a relatively small group of people
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and i was also keen to find a story if possible that that you know had a certain amount of daring
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doing it behind the lines sort of stuff elite soldiers so putting all those things together i did
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a quick search basically an online search believe it or not to find that sort of force and i came up
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very quickly with these entries to the first special service force which i'd never heard of before
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uh it talked about the nature of the force where it had fought and i i was intrigued i was i was
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fascinated and i was also surprised i hadn't heard about it and if i hadn't heard about it brett i knew an
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awful lot of other people wouldn't have done to understand the the origins of the force we have to
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look at the the high level strategic thinking that roosevelt churchill and the other military's
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leaders involved in the war in europe were thinking so what was the strategic thinking
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high level strategic thinking that eventually led to the creation of the force well the the time is
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important the the context of the date we're talking about the spring of 1942 where pretty much everything
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that could have gone wrong had gone wrong certainly for the british up until this point in the war and
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also for the americans they'd come in after pearl harbor in december 1941 and really had been pushed back
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all the way through the pacific it was a litany of disaster really and so that when the americans
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came over to britain to discuss strategy in april 1942 all sides were looking for a way to strike back
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but particularly churchill and the british mainly because resources were always difficult to get hold
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of and they were looking for a way to create a force that could actually do a lot more damage in terms of
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its size and therefore its cost than you would normally get in a military scenario and in part
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of the strategy they were thinking that one thing that one one of the fronts they could open up was
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in norway what were they thinking why norway yeah they're looking for strategic targets they're looking
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for targets particularly that were in snowy areas and mountainous areas and the reason for that is
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because those areas particularly when in in winter time military operations operations can't take
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place but there were strategic targets in those locations both in the carpathian mountains in
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romania one of the areas they were looking at where you had a lot of oil fields that the axis powers were
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using but but crucially in norway there was hydroelectric power and there was also although they didn't
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know it at the time the development of hard water which would be used for nuclear weapons so there's
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very much a sense that they could really disable that that hydroelectric effort that the germans were
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really moving into you know into top gear with by using a force in norway that would fight behind
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the lines and that would be able to fight in winter warfare so yeah they thought okay winter warfare so
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they had to develop a winter warfare unit because at the time both the british and the americans didn't
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really they weren't they didn't have units that were trained just for mountaineering or training the in winter
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conditions and so they had this idea or someone had this idea it was actually this guy jeffrey pike
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who had this idea of creating sort of like a snow tank basically and that you would train these forces
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that would be able to work with these snow tanks and it got called this whole idea got called project
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plow can you walk us through project plow and this guy jeffrey pike who came up with the idea
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i mean pike is one of the great characters of the second world war and although interestingly enough
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from from the british perspective he wasn't alone there were quite a few of these odd eccentric
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characters who really made a vital contribution to the war effort pike himself actually wasn't even a
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scientist the british and churchill in particular were very keen to use scientists to you know to
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develop ways to fight warfare develop ways to get one over the enemy but pike wasn't a scientist he
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certainly wasn't scientifically trained he's actually originally an educationalist but also a civilian
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inventor and he came out with all kinds of nutty ideas throughout the second world war now this was
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probably one of his least nutty ideas he thought that if you could create this elite force this
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commando force that could fight in winter warfare the other really key element of it being able to strike
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hard and fast and then be able to get away was by creating a snow vehicle as you as you point out a snow
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plow as it was known i mean that was its code name what you're really talking about is creating a
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tracked vehicle that can move anywhere on snow particularly up and down quite steep gradients
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and pike reckoned that if a force was equipped with this vehicle it could get away from the enemy
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really it could strike hard and then get away so that was the plan you create the force you develop
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the vehicle and you've got something that you can use against strategic targets well we got to talk
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about more about pike's of his crazy inventions because one of them that almost like churchill really
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liked this idea but it never came to fruition like he came with this thing called uh
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pikerete was basically it made ice like almost like concrete and he had this idea of creating
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aircraft carriers out of this stuff you couldn't make it up i mean his idea was you're gonna you're
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gonna drag icebergs from the arctic you're gonna tow them to the theater of war you're gonna coat them
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in this pikerete which was a sort of combination of of snow ice and wood pulp and you know various other
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things which he had patented and presumably was going to make a lot of money out of if they'd actually
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use this and of course it's called pikerete after him it all sounds completely nutty doesn't it but
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actually it was taken very seriously to the extent that mount baton who was a great supporter of
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jeffrey pike mount baton being the chief of combined operations which was really the force set up to
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strike back at the germans using commandos in the early stages of the war mount baton was convinced
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that pikerete would work and he was given permission by churchill to demonstrate it at a meeting
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of the chiefs of staff and the president roosevelt and prime minister churchill which and this is
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really hard to believe but it actually happens mount baton fires a pistol into the pikerete to so
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show how strong it is this was of course incredibly dangerous in a closed room the bullet ricocheted off
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the pikerete and almost hit one of the chiefs of staff so it almost ended in disaster but you know it was
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taken very seriously it was almost used but they decided not to use it in the end for two reasons
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really one they had enough aircraft carriers and two they were going to use these harbors which of
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course they did eventually the mulberry harbors off the d-day normandy coast so you said that he
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wasn't really a trained scientist he's more of like a gentleman scholar type guy but how did why did
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people like why did people in the british leadership take him seriously well i think it all comes down to
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well two things actually brett i mean it's partly the british character we these eccentric people who are
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amateur inventors or gentleman inventors as you say there's been a long history of that in fact
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you know a lot of the great breakthroughs in british science were actually made by people who
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weren't trained scientists but there's another thing here and that and that's churchill churchill had a
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great interest in quirky ideas you know he thought outside the box himself and he was always looking
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for people who could approach a traditional problem from a different angle and pike was very much this sort
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of character how can we disable an enormous number of the enemy certainly the enemy troops the enemy
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war effort with a relatively small force and that's exactly what pike was offering him all right so they
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the british with pike got this idea we're going to create a snow vehicle and it basically looked like
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a spiral like cylinder thing that sort of just moved and it just went through the that was the idea it
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went through the snow they had to take this to the americans what did the americans think of project plow
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well it's interesting because i think my belief is that when this crucial meeting took place in april
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1942 when the idea of project plow was first mooted to the americans churchill was already on board mount
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baton was already on board there was a big discussion about strategy the british seemed to have moved
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towards the american direction in terms of overall war strategy and i think that the acceptance of
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project plow was a bit of a quid pro quo actually it was like okay you've given us something we'll take
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this nutty idea on board and we'll see where we'll see where it goes they didn't promise anything
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at this stage but marshall uh effectively said we'll we'll have a look at it you know we'll we'll make
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sure some senior people in the war department have a look at it and we'll see where it goes and
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and if it's viable we will fund it and i think that's the key thing here the british simply didn't
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have the resources either to pay for and create and train this force and more importantly to
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actually develop the snow vehicle all right so marshall took the idea and i think he passed it on
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to eisenhower and said hey you take a look at this eisenhower then delegated this thing to a guy named
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bob frederick and bob frederick he basically just did this report analysis is this feasible will it do
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anything etc etc what was frederick's initial analysis on this well given the fact that frederick
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becomes the father of the first special service force and i hope i'm not giving the game away too
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much by saying that it's pretty remarkable that his initial appraisal having spoken to all the key
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people and looked at an awful lot of documents was it'll never work i mean i think one of his main
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concerns was yeah you need an awful lot of air assets to to transport this force and you'll never
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be able to get these in in wartime when you know big planes are required for bombing runs basically um
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but he you know he he was skeptical about other elements of the plan and so submitted his report
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to eisenhower who was one of the operations chiefs chiefs at the war department at that time and
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eisenhower was infuriated when he got back from a trip to britain when he received this report because
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basically he'd promised the brits that he would he would get it done and so for frederick to say it
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can't be done he didn't want to hear that he goes back to frederick and you know and he says you know
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look at this again now it's at this point when frederick probably realizes okay there are some
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you know seriously high level people backing this that he began in my view to see the possibility
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of his own involvement his own personal ambition i mean what could be more brilliant for someone who's
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really a staff officer who's unlikely ever to see combat in the second world war actually creating
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and leading this type of special force in combat i you know i'm convinced that something clicked in
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his head and he he saw the opportunity and at that point he maneuvered himself into the position of
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actually taking command of it yeah he made a big jump in rank and he was a young guy too he was like
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only 32 or so yeah he's he's mid-30s he you know he's someone who is done reasonably well in his
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career he's no question he was a fine staff officer but fine staff officers rarely make good combat
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leaders but he he certainly had you know this x factor that allowed him you know both to inspire
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men but also great attention to detail and that is exactly what was required in creating this force he
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he had to be able to inspire the young recruits particularly given the training regime they were
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about to undergo but he also had to keep keep abreast of enormous amount of detail a lot of planning
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meetings a lot a lot of admin to deal with as well all right so the americans signed off and i guess at
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this point pike kind of went into the background he's like all right my idea is taken over my work
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is done well not entirely he he does actually go over to america he wants to keep an eye particularly
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on the development of the snowmobile but the americans find him you know they don't have quite
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the same willingness to put up with eccentrics like pike and they found him very obstructive and
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actually a combination of eyes and how frederick and one or two others managed to get pike sent back to
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the uk look we'll we'll carry on with the project but we don't need him interfering so that so that's
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pretty much what happens to pike but nevertheless you know his original idea was beginning to fly
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by the summer of 1942 they launched the force that that is they start looking for recruits and they're
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also well into the development of the snowmobile well let's talk about the launch of the the force
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this is a unique unit because they decided it was going to be combined american and canadians
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unit why did the british and americans decide to do that it's an amazing fact when you think about
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it first time it's ever happened in history probably brett the last time it ever will happen in history
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that you have this joint u.s canadian force commanded by officers from both sides you know the leader
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ultimately was going to be frederick but it was you know it was very much a force with with equal
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input from both these armies and there was one very good reason for that actually and that was that
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they needed to recruit people who would be suitable for this type of winter warfare and and there was a
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feeling that you know canadians they live in this sort of climate anyway they're obviously ideal i think
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there was also an element of this is still allowing a kind of british uh connection to the story i mean
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bear in mind that the canada at that time still had the union jack as its flag of course you still had
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the royal connection and so i it was probably a little bit of a sop to churchill on the one hand and a
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feeling that we're going to get some damn good recruits from canada as well yeah we'll talk about
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some of the people that both countries recruited from but what another interesting fact about the
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the force is that it wasn't under any branch of the military in the united states it wasn't like
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part of the army or navy it was actually just part of the war department well frederick was very much
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of the opinion that you there was going to be all kinds of interference that traditionally there's
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always been a sense brett that you know that special forces are frowned upon by by you know
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the traditional elements of the military it was it was the case then and it's still the case today and
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i think frederick realized this and therefore he wanted to keep the force you know with the small
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as as smaller chain of command as possible basically he wanted he wanted to answer only to
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the army chief of staff and that's exactly what happened at the start it was just the war department
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led uh kind of operation and frederick's given complete carte blanche he's he's literally given
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a document that says you know this is priority war work anything i need i get we're going to take a
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quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show so you mentioned that one of
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the reasons they brought in canadians they wanted people who were you know used to this sort of the
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climate that they thought they were going to fight in snow mountains etc and so as a consequence
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they recruited heavily amongst like lumberjacks miners hunters and this also happened it seemed
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like in the united states they were primarily recruiting like from like the northwest the montana
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area so the same sort of climate so i mean who are the type of guys like that joined up i mean
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what was this what was the pitch when you know the when frederick went out and trying to get people
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to join this thing what was what was he selling them well the first thing is interesting is that
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they sent the pitch to pretty much everybody so there was no unit in the u.s army and the canadian
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military forces that that didn't actually receive the pitch the question is who were they going to
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get and who were they going to select but but the picture was quite specific in canada they were
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looking for so-called active personnel with high physical standards military trained and ideally
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possessing the combined qualities of mountaineer north woodsman and skier as you as you've already
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pointed out and the americans were looking for something similar they were a bit more specific
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actually they wanted single men between the ages of 21 and 35 three grades of grammar school and you
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know the occupations you you've already mentioned and it's true that the majority of the force did
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come from those sort of backgrounds but they it wasn't entirely it wasn't exclusive and what's
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interesting about the force is that there were people from all over the united states from all over
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canada and there's even one guy who who actually figures quite prominently in the story a guy called
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percy critchlow who's a sergeant who's a 29 year old classics teacher from the caribbean you know
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this is this is a bright intellectual guy almost the opposite of what they're looking for but if you
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had the right stuff and you said the right thing in interview and you appeared to be the right type
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of guy you were determined enough and you were fit enough they took you on so percy was one guy that
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you highlight in the book any other guys that you highlight in the book that you know kind of
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epitomize the type of man who joined up with the force yeah well i mean i'll give you one example
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on each side i mean on the canadian side i mean one of the most attractive figures as far as i was
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concerned because again quite an unusual type to pick was a guy called captain tom mcwilliam i mean he
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was 27 years old a school teacher he came from the eastern maritime province of new brunswick he wasn't
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particularly tall he wasn't particularly heavy what he was was a talented athlete deceptively strong
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and frankly in my view a born leader and you know it was what's so brilliant about the the the
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selection process is they were able to find people like mcwilliam now that was the canadian side on
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the on the american side of course you had people from uh you know as you've already pointed out the
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northwest in particular but that wasn't just they were also looking for people who had experience from
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that region and i think probably the you know the the best example of all someone who again figures
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very prominently in the story is a man who wasn't that young in fact he was out of the age range he
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was 37 years old a man called howard van owsdale who was actually half dutch and half native american
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he'd been a gold prospector and trapper in in the northwest state of oregon for many years i mean
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you know exactly what they're looking for but he had the added advantage of being someone who
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had a great kind of sense of you know he he could track people he could he had a great sense of of
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the relief of the mountainside and this would be a a talent that was going to become very useful when
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they actually get to the mountains in italy and there's another thing to point out we've been
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calling it the force but like that's what frederick decided he wanted to call it he called it the force
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like that's what it was referred to as yeah that was its shortened version i mean he actually chose
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the full name the first special service force because he thought it would mislead people i mean
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he thought it was a very kind of bland name that was almost like the the entertainment troop that the
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u.s army had at the time and and indeed they they were sometimes mistaken for that entertainment
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troop he was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes but actually when you think about it first
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special service force you know in modern terms you think yeah okay these these guys sound quite tough
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to me but uh it was shortened to the force that was what they were known then and that's what they
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still call themselves today all right so they they started recruiting these guys they set up a training
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camp in montana and the leaders there were they were charged with basically getting these guys into
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shape and but also you know making the most elite soldier possible and so they came up with this you
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know one of the most rigorous advanced training programs for fighters in world war ii and this was
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one of my favorite parts of the book because it was just it was like a movie montage almost i could
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like imagine them doing all these different things what was their training like can you give us a bit
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of uh exam some examples of that well i've looked at training for military forces through the ages and
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in particular modern day special forces and i have never seen a training regime that is as tough as
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this one certainly if you consider that they had to go from you know pretty much being very few of them
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had actually been in combat in fact hardly any of them had been in combat so it's not as though they
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were they were you know trained hard-bitten soldiers these were young men with with talent with
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determination and they were thrust into a training regime that was incredibly brutal so within just
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days of them arriving at the camp near helena montana they were expected to go through their
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parachute training now normally that would take about six weeks they were expected to do it in in a
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week i mean everything was accelerated so once they got their wings and plenty of them didn't get
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their wings you know they broke their legs or they and they were immediately returned to their units if
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that happened but once you got your wings after just two jumps then the real tough stuff started so
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you know just to give you a sense of what they went through i'll i'll talk a little bit about the
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training regime from august to october as well as parachuting they weren't they learned weapons and
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demolition usage unarmed combat and small unit tactics october to november 1942 large unit tactics and
00:22:52.760
problem solving november 1942 to march 1943 skiing rock climbing adaption to cold climates and operation
00:23:00.460
and maintenance of the weasel snow vehicle that that is the snow cloud which which they developed and
00:23:06.460
from april to june 1943 amphibious landing techniques and while all of this is going on brett they're put
00:23:14.340
through the most brutal physical training program that you can imagine that included the fatigue of combat
00:23:21.520
unfavorable terrain or adverse weather it consisted chiefly of crawling rope rope climbing boxing push-ups
00:23:28.400
games doubling running i mean they did it all they and and what's interesting about this physical regime
00:23:34.640
is that you think on the one hand you need you know guys who can get through it of course they did but they
00:23:40.960
also needed thinking soldiers just like the special forces today they were looking for a combination of a
00:23:46.580
physical superman but also someone who could think outside the box it was really a brutally tough as i say
00:23:53.240
training regime and those people who came through it and plenty didn't became in my view some of the finest trained
00:23:59.760
soldiers of the second world war yeah i mean as you you're describing all the skills they learned i mean for most of
00:24:04.920
the military in the british and americans like there'd be like the airborne division that would learn how to skydive well these
00:24:10.340
guys had to learn how to skydive and then like amphibious that was for the marines well these guys
00:24:14.520
had to learn amphibious assault so they were they were doing it all they were jack of all trades they
00:24:18.880
were and and it's worth pointing out that when they were doing all these various different skills and
00:24:24.000
they were being tested on their ability in these skills they were generally off the charts that you
00:24:29.040
know a good example is during the amphibious training in the spring of 1943 of course the marines have been
00:24:34.940
through that there were records of you know getting on and off landing craft all those records were
00:24:40.360
broken by the forcemen and if you bear in mind they only had a week or two to train to break these
00:24:45.200
records you just get a sense of the sort of people that they had you know that they had created in this
00:24:50.720
force and they you know their their ability to to shoot their aggression their physical capability
00:24:57.640
their multi-skills capability was really outstanding and on a metric of of up to 100 100 of course being
00:25:06.780
the highest they were usually way off that that that scale they were they were into the 140s 150s
00:25:12.720
they had never seen soldiers like this before did the soldiers as they were training at this camp near
00:25:18.620
Helena Montana they they know what they were going to be used for exactly or were they just sort of
00:25:23.640
there and they're just whatever they had to do that day they did they didn't know for sure there
00:25:27.980
were lots of rumors they were they were occasionally working in sort of cutouts of hydroelectric dams and
00:25:34.180
and power stations so they had a they some of them had a suspicion it might be something something to do
00:25:40.180
with hydroelectric power but they were never officially told where they were going as as soldiers of course
00:25:44.920
never are right up until the last minute so there were a lot but one thing they knew for sure though
00:25:50.200
they were going behind the lines and the likelihood of them coming back from this mission were very low
00:25:55.600
so they were training the troops getting these guys ready we forgot about the plow because this is the whole
00:25:59.960
thing that kick-started it what how was the development of this uh snow vehicle going while they were training
00:26:05.560
these soldiers well it went very well actually and it went well of course because the resources were
00:26:10.560
pretty much unlimited that Studebaker was was given the job of of developing this vehicle
00:26:15.740
in in in cahoots with you know various uh technical branches of the of the American military
00:26:23.000
they were doing it with various research bodies both in the United States and Canada and Canada in particular
00:26:28.560
already had some form in this field and they came up with admittedly having to refine it through various
00:26:34.180
different modifications but they came up with something that was really really effective the so-called
00:26:39.420
weasel the m29 vehicle was developed and used in large numbers actually later on in the war and you
00:26:46.100
you find it popping up in various different campaigns but for reasons i'm sure we'll come on to in a second
00:26:50.740
it was never actually used in combat by the force even though it was developed for them okay well let's talk
00:26:57.120
about these guys are getting trained so we got to remember these are American and Canadians
00:27:00.580
and every combat unit has their own unique culture and i imagine this one developed a really unique culture
00:27:06.440
because not only the type of training they were doing but also the fact that they were soldiers
00:27:10.280
from two different countries what was the culture like in the force i mean it was fascinating when
00:27:15.160
they first came across each other whether when the recruits first arrived at helena in early august 1942
00:27:20.920
they had different uniforms they had different ways of marching they had they had different
00:27:26.520
equipment i mean you know if you think of this the learning curve that they had to go through to
00:27:32.360
become you know to create a kind of esprit de corps in this single unit was really again incredibly steep
00:27:38.600
but they were prepared to do it and it's very interesting i think you know by the by the end
00:27:43.360
certainly by the time that you know they go into combat there's a real sense of unity even though
00:27:50.480
they come from very different backgrounds does that mean there wasn't any tension between the
00:27:54.560
nationalities no it doesn't there certainly was there there were fistfights between them particularly in the
00:27:59.800
early days there was a certain amount of bad blood uh between one particular uh platoon in my view
00:28:07.040
between the the americans and the canadians you know there's a lot of fighting there's even some
00:28:11.080
firing going on during a live firing exercise that wounds one of the soldiers you know these were tough
00:28:16.780
men tough men who were you know who took no prisoners and there wasn't a feeling that particularly the
00:28:23.980
canadians felt that the americans you know were better paid which they were their their parachute pay
00:28:28.920
was higher than the canadians were getting you know and there was inevitably going to be some
00:28:33.280
uh sense of national competition but despite all of that as as the training continued slowly but surely
00:28:40.980
their their real pride was in their unit in their company and even down to their platoon and their
00:28:47.500
section as happens in all of these elite military forces so as i was reading this it reminded me of the
00:28:52.700
story of the 10th mountain division we did a podcast about them a couple months ago and the thing
00:28:58.080
with the 10th mountain division they developed sort of this reputation in the the military thanks to
00:29:03.080
some you know some pr things that they did sort of like these it's really glamorous like you had these
00:29:07.500
skiing gi's and the the force reminded me of that a bit did the force they develop a reputation
00:29:13.280
amongst other branches in the military they did and it was a reputation that that basically
00:29:19.620
other people in the army particularly people who'd seen combat didn't feel was deserved they'd heard
00:29:25.860
about this force they'd obviously heard about its training they heard about its glamorous uniform
00:29:30.080
they heard about its its its feeling that it could you know it could pretty much accomplish anything
00:29:35.620
and they weren't convinced and you know and understandably they weren't convinced because
00:29:39.640
it hadn't seen any action and it wasn't going to see any action for a while in fact i think the fact
00:29:44.180
that it doesn't see action for for quite a long time brett is one of the reasons why it was so
00:29:49.020
superbly trained i mean one of the problems you have in wartime is the speed with which soldiers
00:29:53.660
get trained and thrown into action luckily because of various delays in in finding the right target
00:29:59.440
for the force it had a good year to train properly and i you know and it was all the better for that
00:30:04.780
but certainly there was a lot of jealousy among the rest of the military and it's interesting you
00:30:08.840
mentioned the 10th mountain division because in the early days when they were thinking of how they
00:30:13.000
were going to develop the force they were thinking you know we'll match the two together we might
00:30:17.860
even equip the 10th mountain division with with weasels but that never actually happened
00:30:21.980
do you mention they have glamorous uniforms how are they different from the other uniforms
00:30:25.460
they well they they had developed this you know if you think about it it's not going to be american
00:30:31.000
it's not going to be canadian it's going to be a mixture between the two incredibly smart so that
00:30:35.180
even a private soldier basically looked like he was an officer they had this you know this very
00:30:39.860
natty lanyard which uh red white and blue lanyard that that ran through one of the soldier epaulets
00:30:45.740
and you know if you saw these guys in the street you would have thought there's an officer
00:30:50.000
and every single member of the force and there were about 1500 combat soldiers in the force
00:30:54.800
was wearing this uniform of course they didn't go into combat in that uniform but off duty that's
00:30:59.440
what they were wearing and if people saw them in the street they must have been thinking who are
00:31:02.840
these guys yeah i'm looking at a picture right now it's it's pretty sharp looking so you so one of
00:31:08.500
the issues they had the the military so they're training these guys and originally they're supposed to
00:31:12.560
go to norway but then the high command they started figuring well maybe we're not going to do that
00:31:18.260
and they had a lot of problems trying to figure out what exactly they were going to do with them
00:31:22.020
and this started becoming a problem because like a lot of the leaders were worried these guys are
00:31:25.660
going to get stale like they've trained they're ready they're raring to go but if we don't let
00:31:30.020
them get action now they might go bad so what happened why did they decide not to send them to
00:31:35.080
norway and why were they sort of in limbo for a while well the the original plan to send them to
00:31:39.900
norway was predicated on enough planes being available to fly them and the weasels to norway and drop
00:31:47.200
them in there of course there was an alternative they could have gone by sea but that was pretty
00:31:50.740
quickly rejected they felt they needed to insert them into the you know the wastelands of norway
00:31:55.900
where they wouldn't be located by the germans and the only way they could do that was by air
00:32:00.460
there were other factors involved interestingly enough the norwegians themselves weren't that keen
00:32:05.400
on these various uh industrial targets being destroyed because they felt it would affect their own
00:32:10.180
population and there were other you know secretive units like soe the special operations executive who
00:32:16.020
also carrying out similar targets who very much were feeling this you know you're muscling in on
00:32:20.800
our patch so there was a lot of opposition to using them in norway and the decision was taken
00:32:25.960
interestingly enough by the americans to you know rethink how they were going to be used if we if we
00:32:32.220
if we can't get the planes to drop them for these behind the lines targets we need to rethink how
00:32:37.520
we're going to use them and the and the idea really comes we're going to use them as elite commander
00:32:40.940
units they may still be behind the lines but when they're not going to be dropped miles behind the
00:32:46.100
lines we could possibly operate them behind the front in a much more conventional type of military
00:32:51.320
warfare and while they're figuring this out what they're going to do with them in europe they actually
00:32:55.240
one of the first missions they went on was to kiska which is alaska so they were actually trying to
00:33:00.020
fight the japanese the pacific theater and they the 10th mountain division was also at kiska how did the
00:33:05.760
the troops fare from the force how'd they do yeah they do very well at kiska actually i mean
00:33:10.100
kiska has gone down in history as a bloodless victory it was a landing that was unopposed by
00:33:14.480
the japanese because they'd bugged out a few days before but what you realize from the the actual
00:33:20.700
landings on kiska is what a brutal terrain it would have been to fight in kiska of course being one of
00:33:25.180
the aleutian islands in the pacific and you know up near alaska this this is tough terrain to fight in
00:33:30.620
and and so it proved and one of the interesting things about the the force and the job of the force was
00:33:36.520
to go in first they're both going to land first but they're also going to be used as a strike force
00:33:40.900
but by dropping them by parachute as well and what what you see with them is this incredible discipline
00:33:46.600
i mean one of the scandals well not the scandals but one of the criticisms of the of the kiska campaign
00:33:52.360
is there were a lot of friendly fire incidents a lot of people getting shot by their own side because
00:33:57.080
the troops were very jittery before they realized that the japanese weren't there and actually the
00:34:01.520
the force when were much more disciplined and there's a sense that these guys are properly under
00:34:06.860
control and also physically the you know the kind of distances they had to march and the speed with
00:34:10.860
which they did it it was all pretty impressive and it was a very good dry run to be truthful for what
00:34:16.360
they were eventually going to have to accomplish in italy all right so that's right so they went to
00:34:20.360
kiska they went to that limbo period they didn't know what they're going to do with them finally high
00:34:24.000
command decided we're going to send them to italy where in italy exactly were there was the force sent to
00:34:30.100
well the connection interestingly enough brett is eisenhower eisenhower is now the supreme commander
00:34:35.380
in the mediterranean and has been since the landings in north africa towards the end of 1942 and his
00:34:42.120
feeling is we need a force that we can use for the landings in sicily first and then and then ultimately
00:34:48.640
the landings in italy now sicily goes by without the force being used that's the summer of 1943 but by
00:34:54.740
the autumn of 1943 when the landings in italy proper have taken place there's a bit of a stalemate
00:35:00.500
and there's a stalemate in the mountains in in southern italy mainly involving the u.s fifth army
00:35:06.700
commanded by general mark clark who's one of the proteges of eisenhower and clark is demanding he hears
00:35:12.580
about this force and he asked for it specifically he's thinking they could be a big deal breaker in the
00:35:17.120
mountains that this is what they're trained for we can't get through the mountains mainly because the
00:35:21.500
germans are holding all these high mountain passes and if we can get the force to actually
00:35:26.080
strike against one of these passes you know we may be able to force our way through and so there
00:35:31.540
was one pass that they were really focused on it was la defensa what was this pass like what made
00:35:36.940
it so difficult and why was it so so an important part of the italian campaign well monte la defensa
00:35:41.960
has been a you know a stronghold since roman times hence its name i mean you know it's known as the
00:35:47.440
defendable mountain it's a sheer cliff basically and to get up it you have to scale it you can go
00:35:53.780
up the easy route which well the easy relatively easy route which was which of course was the way
00:35:58.600
you would have walked up it but that was mainly from the back of the mountain and that was the bit of
00:36:02.520
area that was controlled entirely by the germans so to get up the main bit of the mountain you either
00:36:07.880
had to go up a ramp which of course the germans were readily defending or you had to climb cliffs and
00:36:14.420
the germans were absolutely of the of the opinion quite understandably that the allies didn't have
00:36:18.920
troops who could do that just to give you a bit of sense of context where where the pass was it was
00:36:24.240
really the keystone in a defensive system known as the winter line which is a really a chain of
00:36:29.120
mountains and the monte la defensa is on the on the shoulder of a pass known as the leary valley which
00:36:37.320
the americans the american fifth army wants to advance up with its armor but it can't do that until
00:36:43.500
it's taken the two shoulders of the past so to take first monte la defensa and then the other
00:36:48.380
shoulders is going to require an extraordinary effort and various attempts have been made to do
00:36:52.620
this and they've been beaten off with heavy losses and when the force finally arrives towards the end of
00:36:58.540
november 1943 and clark is planning for the next attack you know it's like manna from heaven okay we can
00:37:07.140
use the force to take monte la defensa that was the that was the idea and how did they do it what was
00:37:11.880
the approach i mean you couldn't go around you couldn't go up the ramp so what do these guys do
00:37:15.620
well they scouted out and very quickly the scouts who include the the character i mentioned earlier
00:37:22.740
van oursdale oursdale goes on a personal scout with a major and they walk behind the lines actually it
00:37:30.480
was in the even this even the scouting mission was incredibly dangerous and they go behind the lines
00:37:34.720
and it's at that point that van oursdale notices this this sheer cliff and this cliff is on the
00:37:40.960
northern side of the of the mountain and that was well behind german lines so not only are the
00:37:46.060
germans thinking well no one's gonna no one could climb this even if they could get to it they're
00:37:50.240
also thinking well they can't get to it because the lines are you know are further the other way so
00:37:54.500
and it's van oursdale's recommendation that this is the route they take to get up the mountain
00:38:00.060
and so they just climbed it up like at this sheer cliff yeah it's you know you you the pictures of it
00:38:06.520
are really quite extraordinary it it's it's just a sheer slab of of rock 200 feet long and even to
00:38:13.560
get to that point and that's the final bit that's just before the peak even to get to that bit you've
00:38:17.820
got to climb up you know the mountain itself is a thousand meters we're just under a thousand meters
00:38:23.780
i mean we're talking three thousand feet high this is a sizable but also brutal conditions the time of
00:38:29.440
year this is december it's you know it's wet it's cold it's snowy uh you know the chances of getting
00:38:35.500
up this mountain for any normal soldier at night and it's held by some of some of you know some of
00:38:41.940
the most effective soldiers in the german army panzer grenadiers who are all veterans really you know
00:38:46.860
no one else apart from the force in my view would have even considered that it was viable to attempt
00:38:52.080
and it's in it's in the climbing of this mountain really that i think the all the different elements of
00:38:57.680
the of the force training come together to allow them to pull it off and i imagine that they were
00:39:02.380
victorious they they took the mountain in the end yeah it's really you know it's the climax to the
00:39:07.600
book it's you know i don't want to give too much away but it's it's an astonishing story really and
00:39:13.840
just getting up to the top of the mountain is one of the great military feats in my view and once
00:39:18.660
they're up there they've got to take the mountain against these crack troops and they do it because of
00:39:23.360
their training and because of their aggression and because of their determination you know all
00:39:28.040
these things come together and they capture the mountain it you know it's one of the great feats of
00:39:32.640
the second world war why it isn't better known i i honestly don't know funny enough brett there was a
00:39:37.740
film made in the 1960s so you know if you're long enough in the tooth and some of your listeners will
00:39:42.520
be they might have seen that film called the devil's brigade which which actually deals with the
00:39:46.900
capture of this mountain and talking a bit about the you know the early days for the force but
00:39:51.080
but since that film and since one or two books it's you know it's it's sort of gone disappeared
00:39:56.120
into history and i'm still slightly mystified as to why no your description of the battle was just
00:40:00.820
fantastic really engaging action-packed and that you mentioned they were called the devil's brigade
00:40:05.040
and that was from the germans like from that encounter the germans had this encounter with the
00:40:08.780
force and they basically called them devils and the name stuck yeah the force goes on to do other
00:40:13.940
extraordinary things actually at anzio they are the first troops into rome they're the first troops to
00:40:20.420
invade the south of france so just after um the d-day landings you know they're always at the
00:40:26.260
forefront of any any tough fight fighting and they go on to you know really carry out some extraordinary
00:40:32.920
achievements i in my view the the the capture of monte le defensa is still their greatest single
00:40:37.600
achievement but but as you say the germans were were frankly in awe of them and gave them a number of
00:40:43.060
nicknames one of which was the black devils which is where you get the name the devil's brigade from
00:40:47.400
and they gave them that name the black devils because during the anzio standoff i suppose you'd
00:40:53.480
call it when when the beachhead was being controlled by the germans the only bit of the beachhead that
00:40:58.700
the germans wanted to stay well away from was the bit the force were defending because they would
00:41:03.760
aggressively patrol every night they would arrive where the germans weren't expecting them they would
00:41:09.040
find dead bodies in the morning with cards on them with with a little you know symbol and that's where
00:41:14.460
they got their name because of course they'd always be blacked up when they went out on these night
00:41:17.560
operations that's why they were known as the black devils so yeah after little defense that you said
00:41:22.260
they were basically used as commandos and campaigns throughout italy what happened after the war what
00:41:26.480
happened to the force i think one of the reasons why the force isn't better known is because of its fate
00:41:31.980
towards the end of 1944 the force is actually disbanded at the beginning of december 1944 and given its
00:41:38.400
achievements in the year earlier you know it's only really been in combat for a year but it's done some
00:41:43.560
astonishing things so you might ask the question why is it why is it disbanded actually one of the
00:41:48.740
main reasons it's disbanded is because of its binational nature um the canadians simply didn't
00:41:55.420
feel they could devote the resources to you know to putting in reinforcements therefore their element of
00:42:02.080
the force was being diluted all the time and they didn't think that was acceptable there was a possibility
00:42:06.700
of continuing it just as american only but there was a feeling that that you know that that would take away
00:42:11.320
from its essential esprit de corps and so the decision was taken to disband it while the war
00:42:16.720
was still ongoing and there was another reason for this actually which is that by the end of 1944
00:42:21.400
d-day's come and gone the various allied armies are approaching or are into bits of germany and there's
00:42:29.220
a feeling that really you don't need this kind of specialized force anymore it's really about you know
00:42:33.560
using the big sledgehammer to crack a nut and not the stiletto which is what the force was
00:42:38.520
but then you know they were disbanded but did they have an influence on the respective militaries in
00:42:43.580
the in canada and the united states yes i mean i think that's the real point is that the legacy of
00:42:48.440
the force carried on in particular in the early late 1950s and early 1960s in the u.s when when the
00:42:55.720
first green beret units were being formed and they very much were formed in not just in honor but in
00:43:01.840
the in in you know with with the whole kind of sense of training and and use that the force had
00:43:07.980
been created for so you get this unbroken line albeit that the force has been disbanded at the
00:43:13.500
end of the second world war between the force and special forces today and the same goes for canadian
00:43:18.920
special forces you know they're all all these units look back on regularly attend the force reunions
00:43:24.440
which are still happening you might be surprised to hear brett there are one or two forcemen still alive
00:43:28.720
that i was able to interview and at every one of these gatherings these association gatherings
00:43:34.140
there is a member of the u.s and the canadian special forces which you underlines the bond between
00:43:39.300
them that's crazy that there's some still alive who's still alive uh well there's a man called callow
00:43:43.880
hill jack callow hill who's a canadian he's the last man alive who actually went up monte lo defensa
00:43:48.760
and he's he's in his late 90s now i interviewed him three or four years ago for the force his his his mind
00:43:54.780
was as sharp as it must have been when he actually went up the mountain uh you know really an
00:43:59.660
extraordinary guy ordinary guy came back got married worked in a tinning company in hamilton
00:44:05.000
ontario for the rest of his life you know hides his light under a bushel to be truthful very modest
00:44:10.280
guy brett and i i think most of these special forces guys that that's fairly typical that's who
00:44:15.220
they are they don't shout about what they've done but they did some extraordinary things yeah here's
00:44:19.520
the i see a picture here of uh callow hill right now good looking guy says here he joined the force
00:44:24.240
to get out from under his family and look for a bit of adventure there was they all had very
00:44:29.180
different ideas for why they were going to do it some wanted to get into combat some wanted to
00:44:33.100
venture some wanted to see the world and some as as in callow hill's case just wanted to get
00:44:37.920
get out of the you know out of their family and and to grow up a bit i mean you know he's he's 18 or
00:44:43.180
19 at the time and he wanted to experience you know life well sol this has been a great conversation
00:44:49.060
where can people go to learn more about the book in your work well you can go to my website
00:44:52.740
www.sauldavid.co.uk but also you can find my books in particular the force at most bookshops in the
00:45:00.740
us and the uk and also on most of the websites amazon and and the like all right well sol david
00:45:07.000
thanks for your time it's been a pleasure cheers brett my guest today was sol david he's the author
00:45:11.800
of the book the force the legendary special ops unit in world war ii's mission impossible it's
00:45:16.040
available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about the work
00:45:22.240
well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at artofmanliness.com
00:45:33.660
where you find our podcast archives well there's thousands of articles written over the years and
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free episodes of the aom podcast and if you haven't done so already i'd appreciate if you take one
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get something out of it as always thank you for the continued support until next time this is brett
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mckay reminding you not only listen they win podcast but put what you've heard into action