According to Robert Adleman and George Walton in their account of the Special Service Force, The Devil’s Brigade, the satanic moniker originated in a diary found on the body of a dead officer from the Hermann Göring Division killed during a patrol. An entry when translated read: ‘The Black Devils are all around us every time we come into the line, and we never hear them come.’
The blackness, a reference to the chalk used as camouflage by the men, wasn’t the only sinister accessory of the Special Service Force men at Anzio. To further strike fear into the enemy, Frederick had some calling cards printed for his men to leave on the bodies of the German dead. Underneath the Force’s red arrowhead insignia was a message in German: Das dicke Ende kommt noch, or ‘The Worst is Yet to Come’.
Unlike the fighting on Monte la Difensa, where killing took precedence over capturing, at Anzio Frederick wanted as many Germans as possible caught for interrogation purposes. One of the most successful hauls netted 111 Germans, when a patrol led by Lieutenant George Krasevac infiltrated the enemy’s front lines and surprised them as they assembled for a patrol of their own. One German officer subsequently admitted to Frederick that they had assumed the Special Service Force was a division and not a brigade.
The patrols continued throughout the early spring, with Frederick often accompanying his men. One of his fellow officers, Colonel Kenneth Wickham, recalled that his reason for doing so was to ‘check the conduct of the night patrols. He had a sense of where and when he was needed. The men became aware that they would often find him in a critical area.’
After 99 days on the front line, the Force was withdrawn in May and allowed 12 days of rest. By now the unit’s fighting strength was 2,000 and when they saw the arrival at their rest camp of several armoured half-tracks they guessed their role was soon to change. Sure enough, when they returned to the fray on 23 May it was as part of the VI Corps breakout from Anzio, codenamed Operation Buffalo.
While the main thrust was aimed at Campoleone, Velletri and Cisterna, the Special Service Force’s job was to protect the right flank of the advance. The first day’s objective was to seize Highway 7 to Rome, which was achieved, but some of the men advanced so quickly once across the highway that they became isolated and were caught by the retreating Germans.
One by one the Allies’ aims were fulfilled and the breakout from Anzio quickened, although the Germans staged an aggressive withdrawal, bombarding the Allied units who chased them too vigorously. In one such incident the brigade suffered many casualties at Artena when they ran into a barrage of German 88mm artillery. Nonetheless on 3 June Frederick, now a brigadier general in overall command of a pathfinder task force called ‘Howze’, led his brigade towards Rome. He had suffered two slight wounds in the preceding days but he was determined to be at the head of his men as they entered the Eternal City. Later, in a report written at the request of the War Department to clarify the timing of the seizure of Rome, Frederick described the hours leading up to the Force being one of the very first Allied units into the Italian capital:
Early on 4 June 1944 the First Special Service Force was directed to enter the city of Rome and to secure bridges over the Tiber River. Elements of the First Special Service Force with attached elements of the 1st Armored Division proceeded toward Rome from the East, the assault force attacking along Highway 6.
At 0620 hours, 4 June 1944, the head of the assault force column passed the city limits of Rome and entered the city. This column was preceded by reconnaissance personnel who worked into the city as far as the main railroad station before returning to report their observations. This assault column consisted of 1st Armored Division vehicles on which personnel of the First Special Service Force were riding, with personnel of the First Special Service Force on foot ahead and on the flanks of the motor column.
When a portion of the assault column had entered the city, the enemy opened fire with anti-tank artillery which prevented further forward movement of the Armored Division vehicles until after the enemy defences had been neutralized. However, troops of the First Special Service Force continued on into the city in a manoeuvre to outflank the enemy defences. I can state the time of entering the city with certainty as I was in a radio vehicle near the head of the column and checked the time frequently during the advance. I definitely remember that it was 0620 hours on 4 June 1944, when the leading vehicles crossed the city limits.10
What Frederick omitted to include in his report was the moment he was wounded when an enemy shell exploded close to his armoured half-track, a shard of shrapnel cutting open his leg. Despite the wound, Frederick spent the afternoon of 4 June checking the bridges along the Tiber for demolition charges. At the 110m-long Margherita Bridge Frederick’s patrol encountered a detachment of Germans, holding the bridge for any stragglers from the east of the city. A firefight ensured in which three Germans were killed and 12 captured, but Frederick’s driver was killed and he suffered further wounds to his leg, as well as one to his arm. The wounds, the eighth and ninth that Frederick had sustained in the war, gave rise to his reputation as the ‘most-shot-at-and-hit general in American history’.
While Frederick was flown back to a hospital in Anzio, his men decamped to Tor Sapienza, a suburb in the east of Rome, and from there they were sent to the far more salubrious shores of Lake Albano, 12 miles south-east of the capital. Frederick soon joined his men at the lake, albeit with an arm and a leg in plaster, and on 23 June he had them assembled for an address. To the disbelief of the Special Service Force, Frederick announced he had been posted to another command. One sergeant present said that the men ‘cried like babies’ when Frederick informed his men he was moving on.
Frederick had been promoted to major general (at 37 the youngest man to hold the rank in the US Army Ground Forces) and was destined for command of the 1st Airborne Task Force and a role in the invasion of southern France. Nevertheless despite the honour, he regretted the severance of a two-year bond with the Special Service Force and it pained him that he wasn’t able to tell his men why he was leaving.
Having left the 1st Special Service Force, Frederick took up his new appointment and hurriedly began preparing for Operation Dragoon, the codename for the invasion of southern France. With the Allies struggling to break out of the Normandy beachhead, it had been decided to open a second front at the other end of the country. The task fell to the soldiers of the American VI Corps under Lieutenant General Lucian Truscott, all of whom were veterans of the bitter fighting in and around Anzio. To assist VI Corps, a new airborne division had been raised – the 1st Airborne Task Force.
With the exception of the British 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade, the Task Force was all-American, comprising the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the 517th Parachute Combat Team, the 550th Glider Infantry Battalion and the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion. In addition another unit was formed specifically for the invasion – the Provisional Troop Carrier Air Division, consisting of 450 American transport planes and 550 gliders, the aircraft that would take the Task Force into France.
To assist Frederick in his daunting task of preparing the Task Force for Operation Dragoon, 35 airborne staff officers were posted to his side. In a matter of weeks they had to devise the best strategy for carrying out their allotted task: to jump into the Le Muy area, a few miles inland between Cannes and Toulon on the French Mediterranean coast, and prevent German reinforcements reaching the beaches where the main landing was taking place. Facing Frederick’s Task Force was the German Nineteenth Army under the command of General Hubert Weise. The Nineteenth Army contained many Eastern European volunteers who were prepared to fight to the death rather than risk capture and execution on return to their homeland.
After months of leading his men from the front, Frederick was now obliged to sit down and plan a strategy that would ensure a swift accomplishment of their task, one upon which the success or failure of the invasion might hinge. The plan he formulated was straightforward: on the night of 14 August three pathf
inder teams would insert into Le Muy, carrying the latest ‘Eureka’ hand-held radar homing beacon system. Once on the ground they would begin transmitting on a frequency that would be picked up by the main airborne assault force and used as a guide for the British 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion and the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team. Once they had dropped and seized their objectives, gliders would land at 0800hrs on 15 August (D-Day for the main invasion) with heavy weapons and fresh supplies of ammunition. Finally, on the afternoon of the 15th, the 550th Glider Infantry Battalion and the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion would land in gliders to consolidate the expected gains made by the initial parachute assault.
The plan was executed with stunning success, resulting in the most accurate night-combat drop of the war. Eighty-five per cent of the paratroopers landed on their DZ and when the gliders landed at 0800hrs with heavy weapons and ammunition supplies, casualties were again light.
A few miles south on the landing beaches, VI Corps had established a secure bridgehead and in the afternoon of 15 August the 550th Glider Infantry Battalion and the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion landed in their gliders without serious difficulties. Operation Dragoon had achieved all its aims of the first few hours and Frederick’s 1st Airborne Task Force had been instrumental in securing the success of the mission. By late afternoon on 16August, VI Corps armour linked up with the paratroopers in Le Muy and Frederick’s task was complete.
At this point the British 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade was detached from the Task Force and assigned to their Eighth Army in Italy; they were replaced by the Special Service Force (now under the command of Colonel Edwin Walker) on 22 August. Frederick visited his old brigade and greeted them with the words ‘I’m sure glad to see you’.
There was scant time to reacquaint themselves with one another, for the Task Force was instructed to exploit German disorganization and push east towards the Italian border. It was a memorable time for the Americans with enemy opposition light and French hospitality immense. Flowers, kisses and wine greeted the liberators in every town and village. On 24 August Frederick set up his HQ in a plush Nice hotel while his men continued on to the border and established a 60-mile north–south front along the Maritime Alps with the 1st Special Service Force at the southernmost flank by the coast.
While the war raged furiously further north in France, in the south it was all sunshine and pretty girls in what became known as the ‘Champagne Campaign’. The weather closed in at the end of October, and the following month the 1st Airborne Task Force was disbanded, having achieved its purpose and the German Army now being pushed back towards Germany.
On 22 November Frederick visited the Special Service Force HQ at Menton, a French coastal town two miles from the Italian border. He issued decorations and then expressed his gratitude for all the men had done in the preceding two and a half years. Six days later the Force was pulled back to Villeneuve-Loubet, a few miles west of Nice, and 5 December they paraded for the final time. Almost a year to the day since the ‘Black Devils’ had performed such heroics in seizing the supposedly impregnable Monte la Difensa, they were no more. The Canadian contingent was subsumed into their own army and the American members of the Special Service Force were transferred to various different airborne and infantry units.
Frederick assumed command of the 45th Infantry Division in December 1944, leading them across the Rhine and into Germany in March 1945, where they fought their way toward Nuremburg in the closing weeks of the war in Europe. After the war Frederick returned to America, but in 1948 he was back in Europe as the commanding general of the US forces in Austria. The appointment was brief and from February 1949 to October 1950 he commanded the 4th Infantry Division at Ford Ord, California before being posted once more to Europe as chief of the joint US Military Aid Group to Greece in the aftermath of the Greek Civil War.
He didn’t last long in Greece, retiring from the military in March 1952, a decision that Frederick never fully explained. According to the account given in The Devil’s Brigade, Frederick was alleged to have incurred the wrath of a high-ranking Greek politician who demanded of the American government that Frederick be either fired or forced to retire. Not wishing to see Greece fall to the communists, the US government acquiesced and the distinguished military career of Robert Frederick came to an abrupt end. His service had seen him decorated with, among others, the Distinguished Service Cross with oak leaf cluster, the Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, the Silver Star Medal, the Bronze Star Medal with oak leaf cluster, the French Légion d’honneur and the British DSO.
In his extraordinary career, Frederick had shattered many of the preconceptions governing the behaviour of a commanding officer in battle. He had exposed himself to enemy fire on countless times in order to lead and inspire his men, an example that didn’t sit well with some of his more conservative peers, who not only objected to having Special Forces in the US Army but also believed Frederick’s conduct to be irresponsible and dangerous within the overall command structure. Ironically, however, in the same year that Frederick retired from the US military, Colonel Aaron Bank established the 10th Special Forces Group, which in time would gain global fame as ‘The Green Berets’. Much of the ethos and inspiration of the Group originated in the 1st Special Service Force, with some of its wartime members recruited to its ranks.
Further fame came the way of the Special Service Force in 1968 when a film based on the book The Devil’s Brigade was released, starring William Holden and Cliff Robertson. In the best traditions of Hollywood the film stretched the bounds of veracity at times to suit its purpose but nonetheless it helped cement the reputation of the brigade in the eyes of America. Two years after the film’s release, in 1970, Frederick died in California aged 63.
Despite the many fine words that were spoken at Frederick’s funeral the passing of time had dimmed the memory and weakened the impact of such eulogies. None could be compared to what the war correspondent Clarke Lee had written just after the war by way of a eulogy for the demise of the Black Devils:
It is difficult to write about Frederick’s exploits without suggesting a wild-eyed composite of Sergeant York and General George (Blood and Guts) Patton. But the comparison is misleading. Frederick certainly saw as much combat as the average infantryman, and more than most, and in common with Patton, he demanded the best effort from those in his command and believed that the best way to win battles was by incessantly attacking, getting the enemy on the run and keeping him there. His military fame is founded on his own fighting record, rather than any striking of attitudes, display of showy uniforms and flashy bodyguards, or employment of a highly-coloured vocabulary.11
* The result was the T-15 Cargo Carrier, later to become the M29 Weasel, which was used by Canadian forces into the 1960s.
PADDY MAYNE
SPECIAL RAIDING SQUADRON
It was in South Africa that Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne first left his mark on that continent. Not as a soldier, the profession in which he would later gain legendary status in North Africa, but as a rugby player of high repute.
In May 1938 Mayne sailed from Britain on board the Stirling Castle as a member of the British Lions rugby squad chosen to tour South Africa and Rhodesia. A recent law graduate from Queen’s University Belfast, the 23-year-old Mayne was one of the youngest players in the 28-man squad but he was also one of the strongest and most athletic, a second-row forward standing 6ft 3in and weighing 16 stone who had already impressed in his three appearances for Ireland. ‘He was a very quiet chap,’ recalled Vivian Jenkins, the vice-captain of the Lions, 60 years later. ‘He was a bit of a loner in one way but he was immensely popular on tour. At first glance you would think he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but we soon discovered that when he got steamed up he would do anything.’1
Mayne played in 19 of the tour’s 24 matches, including all three Test matches against South Africa, and though the Lions lost the series the young man from Belf
ast was one of the few tourists to earn the respect of their hosts. Dougie Morkel, one of the legendary figures of early South African rugby, described Mayne as ‘the finest all-round forward I have ever seen and he is magnificently built for the part. In staying power he has to be seen to be believed.’2
Though Mayne was disciplined and controlled on the field of play, a player not known for violent excesses in an age when brawling was common, away from the pitch Mayne revealed to his Lions teammates an occasional glimpse of his dark side. Jenkins recalled an evening when Mayne and another player, a Welshman called Bunny Travers, went down to the docks in Durban with the sole intention of fighting. They got their wish and ‘flattened them all’, returning to the team hotel to tell their teammates all about their victory.
A few days later the squad moved north-west to Pietermaritzburg and checked into the hotel selected for them by the tour organizers. The hotel allocated the players the shabbiest rooms, reserving the best ones for some dignitaries in town for the game. Mayne was furious with their treatment, recalled Jenkins, ‘and decided to stage a one-man protest … he proceeded to break everything in the room, the bed, the wardrobe, the drawers, he broke the whole bloody lot, and then piled it in a heap in the middle’.3
The hotel owner was apoplectic on discovering the vandalism and Mayne was summoned to a meeting with Jock Hartley, manager of the tour party, in the hotel garden. Whatever was said, Mayne took it badly, judging that the room had got what it deserved. When the tourists assembled after lunch to take the bus, Mayne was missing. He reappeared three days later, just in time to help the Lions beat Natal 15-11, a game in which he was described by one South African newspaper as ‘the outstanding forward’. Eventually Mayne disclosed to Jenkins, an experienced and talented full-back whom the Irishman admired and respected, details of his three-day escapade. Having found a bar in which to drown his sorrows, Mayne had got talking to a local farmer, then ‘the two of them had a few drinks and decided to go on a bit of a thrash. They had ridden on horseback to a village where a dance was being held. They rode straight into the hall, across the dance floor and then back out again, chased by several irate villagers.’4
The Daring Dozen Page 13
