Commandos and Rangers of World War II

by James D. Ladd

  The Japanese placed machine-guns on the spurs of the ridge and beat back three separate attacks—two by No.6 Troop of 1 Commando, who lost half the Troop, and one by a Troop from ‘No.42(RM)’. Twelve men were hit in succession at one bren position covering these assaults before the last Sherman still in action, its periscope shot away, got near the saddle in the afternoon and put shells fifty yards ahead of the exhausted remnants of No.4 Troop. At dusk, in the short tropic twilight, Thunderbolt fighter-bombers attacked the Japanese positions. These were deserted the next day when 5 Commando cleared the hill. The Commando Brigade lost 45 men killed and 90 wounded in what Lieutenant-General Christison described as their ‘magnificent courage on Hill 170’. The divisions of XV Corps were moving in, and the Matsu Detachment with the Japanese 154th Regiment Group withdrew, having prevented the destruction of their Division, which still held An Pass. But 300 Japanese dead were counted around No.4 Troop’s positions.

  3 Commando Brigade were withdrawn to India where they prepared to spearhead further landings in Malaya. Peter Young left them about this time to take command of 1 Commando Brigade in the United Kingdom. In preparation for these further landings, the Small Operations Group carried out a number of recces and diversions, the most ambitious of these reconnaissances being made on Phuket island near the narrow neck of land joining Thailand to Malaya. After the Allies entered Rangoon in an unopposed landing this was to be the next stage in the containment of Japanese forces in south-east Asia. Plans for the invasion of Malaya were being prepared while the Arakan was being cleared, and as the reconnaissance for the Molayan operations would possibly reveal Allied intentions too precisely, a series of diversionary raids were mounted by Detachment 385 under the command of the Small Operations Group. Other teams from SOG had already put ashore ‘jitter’ parties to keep the Japanese guessing where the next river crossing might be. B Group of the SBS had reconnoitred the Chindwin river crossing among other chores for the 11 (East African) Division between 11 November and 13 December of 1944. men of the SBS and Sea Reconnaissance Unit (SRU) had carried out similar work for Indian divisions’ crossings of the Irrawaddy in February 1945, when the canoeists also acted as guides to the craft approaching enemy riverbanks. And later that spring SBS and SRU parties on the Irrawaddy worked with 7 Indian Division, who held the right (west) flank of the 120-mile (190km) front after XXXIII Corps crossed this great river at four points. But by May, when monsoon rains made the river unnavigable for their small craft, the canoeists and swimmers were withdrawn.

  The SOG’s teams visiting Phuket island were led by Major Ian Mackenzie RE, who had been in the Normandy landings the previous summer when he guided ashore the 13/18 Hussars’ DD-swimming tanks on to Sword beach. The recce was intended to locate and assess air landing strips, so two RAF officers went with the teams of canoeists and engineers. After a 1,200-mile (1,900km) voyage in the submarines HMS Torbay and HMS Thrasher, No.3 COPP (Alex Hughes) made a periscope reconnaissance on the afternoon of 8 March, seeing some tents and huts near the beach. Nevertheless they paddled in that night from Torbay but the three-man canoe carrying Flight-Lieutenant Guthrie RAF, Captain Johns RE, and Sergeant Camidge RE became separated from the pair of two-man canoes. Alex Hughes lost touch with Captain Alcock, a Canadian, but both these canoes made their way back to the submarine. They had seen lights and activity in the Papra Channel, no doubt when the Japanese were passing supply lighters up the coast. Next night, when the two canoes came back, all these lights and others along the coast were out. Sentries no longer flashed their torches but the Thai garrison—normally allied to the Japanese—had men on the beach who were heard thudding over the sand. The swimmers completed their survey and came out.

  What happened to the three men in the larger canoe was learnt after the war. She capsized and was pushed ashore, Captain Johns and Sergeant Camidge being shot as they dived for the cover of the jungle when some sentries came up. Flight-Lieutenant Guthrie managed to hide for a day, but the next day he was spent and walked into a Thai village where he was captured.

  Ian Mackenzie had taken ashore his three canoes of Detachment 385 from HMS Thrasher intending to stay on shore for three days. His party left four men with Major J. Maxwell RM to guard the canoes and had made a recce of the airstrip, taking photographs and gathering soil samples, when on their first night ashore they were questioned by Thai police. Fishermen had seen the canoe camp where the raiders were spending the night. While Ian Mackenzie parleyed with the police as he was made to strip, a firefight developed and the Major skipped naked into the scrub. For the next 17 days the party made a series of attempts to reach the safety of several pre-arranged rendezvous off both north and south coasts of the island, but in brushes with Japanese patrols all were killed or captured. Marine B.P. Brownlie died when caught between two patrols after being ashore nearly three weeks. Major Maxwell and Colour-Sergeant Smith were executed in Singapore, along with another officer from SOG teams, in July 1945. Ian Mackenzie, Flight-Lieutenant B.Brown, and Corporal R.A. Atkinson were more fortunate: being prisoners of the Thais they survived captivity. This major disaster for SOG teams has been attributed by one expert to their attempt to land too large a party, for 20 men ashore were bound to attract the attention of local people. Although the submarines kept three rendezvous, the last nine days after the landing, and Alex Hughes and Captain Alcock paddled along the shore one night, the alternative evacuations failed probably because the men ashore were unable to find the correct rendezvous.

  At times the SOG teams courted local attention, and on the night of 18 April canoeists from ‘385’ landed on Kamorta island in the Nicobars, over 300 miles (480km) west of Phuket island. In the bright moonlight they steered a course towards Expedition Harbour to deceive any coast watchers who might have seen them as they came in from the submarine about an hour after midnight. They were in canoes and an Intruder inflatable with a spare Intruder that was ‘inflated on the way in—hell of a noise made by valves’. No one was on the beach, although they found many footprints and their CO records ‘I … smelt natives (you’ve no idea how it smelt) …’ They moved west along the jungle edge, with the men in two canoes ready to give covering fire from their Stens as the patrol from the Intruder made their way along the soft sand shore, but as they were in a confined area they did not stay ashore. Their CO, having sent the men back to the Intruder, fired several shots inland, but as no one came to investigate, after 15 minutes he moved back to the boat. There he fired more shots and ‘threw a grenade which failed to explode (bad maintenance!) …’. They left the spare Intruder ashore with a rip in its bottom, a copy of an intelligence questionnaire, a chart trace of the island, and some small items of stores. In all this detachment made some 17 raids, including their visit with No.3 COPP to Phuket island. They frequently landed from a specially designed 20-foot (6m) surf-boat with low freeboard and a 5hp petrol engine that was ‘quite easy to handle’. They were also landed from Catalina flying boats—a method pioneered in the Mediterranean—fitted with a platform from which quick release Mark III** canoes or inflatables were launched. On one of their raids they brought off a British officer and 20 Chins (of Force V?) who had made a 28-day patrol, having not eaten for the last five days. They were some 150 miles (240km) south of Akyab on the Bessein coast, the marines of ‘385’ on this occasion working with MLs of the Bengal Auxiliary Flotilla.

  In June 1945 Alex Hughes took No.3 COPP ashore with eight men in four canoes, landing on Morib beaches near Port Dickson where an amphibious assault by XXXIV Corps was planned to land over three beaches. The COPP obtained a detailed cross-section of the beach, including under-water gradients at several points, notes on the bearing surface of the beach with samples from above and below the waterline, and notes on the runnels above the water level. Details of underwater runnels and of a spit off the beach, tide heights and rates were recorded. A periscope photograph showing the beach silhouette was taken, and information was gathered on enemy coast watchers. When the canoes returne
d to their submarine, HMS Seadog, two were missing, a search failed to find them. But after some weeks with their new Allies, a ruthless crowd who burnt suspected spies with logs during interrogation before beheading them, the four COPPists reached home.

  By the time the war ended—the Japanese signed an armistice on 14 August 1945 after the atom bombs had dropped—the commando boating parties had perfected a submersible canoe, but so far as I can trace this was used in only one operation, in the South China Sea by a COPP team in September 1944. Airborne canoeists were also trained in the use of a folding canoe parachuted with them into the sea or a lake as the starting point for a raid.

  Summarising the Burma campaigns in the British official history—The War Against Japan Volume IV, p.430, HMSO—the authors point to the relatively few large formations of Special Forces employed in late 1944 and 1945 by comparison with those in the field in the spring and early summer of 1944. They feel this bears out General Sir Claude Auchinleck and General Sir George Giffard’s contention that ‘a well-trained standard division could carry out any operational task with little special training, and underlies the waste of manpower in forming forces fitted for particular tasks which, as opportunities for their use in the role for which they are designed are likely to be limited, may spend the greater part of the period of hostilities in inactivity’. I will come back to these arguments in the final chapter, but before considering them, the exploits of the 6th Rangers in the Philippines illustrate the value of Special Forces, albeit created from a regular unit.

  THE PHILIPPINES, 1944 TO 1945

  Although the last few headhunters were still practising their rites until just after World War II, the people of the Philippine islands 600 miles (960km) from China, had been in contact with Europeans since at least the 16th century. Amoung these diverse people, some Americans escaped from Bataan in 1942, and led guerrilla bands over the vast mountain ranges and 7,100 islands that abound in the 114,830 square miles covered by the Philippines.

  The Japanese, ruling through the Philippine government, had some success in restraining activity, but the insurgents’ attacks on informers and spies in part obliged the population to support the guerrillas; when the Americans landed, there were 20,000 on Luzon alone.

  Liberating the Philippines would place the Americans across the Japanese supply routes for oil and other raw materials from Indonesia. Therefore, after securing their approaches from possible air attack, American forces from the central Pacific joined with General MacArthur’s men from the south-west in landings at Leyte Gulf on 20 October 1944. They advanced rapidly. At sea, a few nights after the landing, the Americans drove off Japanese warships in the last major action between surface ships during World War II. The Japanese kamikaze pilots, however, attacked both fleet and transports with some success.

  Belatedly the Japanese decided to fight the decisive battle for the Philippines on Leyte and brought in reinforcements through Ormoc. For a time the Americans were held by difficult and easily defended terrain, but on 7 December the US 77 Division landed four miles (6km) south of this major base and Ormoc fell on 10 December, the island being secured by the end of the month.

  Mindoro (262 air miles, 420km north of Leyte) was captured on 15 December as an airbase to cover the landings to be made in Lingayen Gulf on Luzon. Little resistance was met on Mindoro, nor on 9 January 1945 were the initial Lingayen Gulf landings seriously opposed, for on Luzon the Japanese had insufficient troops to defend the central plain—let along the whole island—after reinforcing Leyte. Kamikaze planes and 70 small suicide boats made the only attacks on the transports in the Gulf.

  The Japanese withdrew to strongholds in the mountains north, east and south of the plain. Manila fell to the Americans in mid-March, but the island was not completely cleared of defenders, despite some 50,000 Japanese being killed by guerrillas, in addition to those killed by regular forces. On Luzon, as elsewhere, many Japanese defences were either taken at leisure or left to surrender after the August atom bombing of Japan and the Japanese capitulation on 14 August 1945.

  CHAPTER 13

  Philippine Adventure

  Three minesweepers headed through rough seas into Leyte Gulf on the morning of 17 October 1944. They were followed by five APDs, the assault destroyers carrying companies of the 6th Rangers, their attached field hospital, and the 10th Signal Platoon. The gales of the previous few days had abated and as the naval task force began their bombardment in clear weather at 0900 hours, the assault craft were already running in towards the north-west shore of Dinagat island south of Leyte 43 miles (69km) long and some 8 miles (14km) wide with a wooded north-south ridge rising to 3,000 feet (1,000m) in the north. The beaches appeared ideal for a landing as these first Allied ground troops redeemed General MacArthur’s promise to ‘come back to the Philippines’. But as they neared the shore the craft, probing their way slowly through narrow channels in a coral reef, grounded 100 yards from the beach. The rangers waded ashore, some being tumbled over by the heavy surf, others falling into deep holes probably made by the earlier bombardment, and at least one man advanced into the jungle with only his trench-like and hand-grenades.

  By 1230 hours all the companies were ashore and the Battalion command-post established. A Company and an attached B Company of the US 21st Infantry Battalion formed a beach-head perimeter while C, E, and F Companies moved north along the coast towards Desolation Point. Within half an hour they came on an enemy camp near Kanamong Point, some two miles (3km) north of the landing-beach, and found the bivouac had been abandoned in great haste. The Japanese—as they did in most retreats—had left scattered about many papers, from which the unit was identified as the island’s garrison; its two roles were reporting air and sea activity, and attempting to secure the island against guerrillas. There was no opposition, except from Japanese aircraft, the rangers in the beachhead were able next day to continue unloading stores.

  They had landed three days before A-day (the American equivalant of their Allies’ D-day). Dinaget was 50 miles (80km) from the main Japanese base on Leyte, and although the Battalion had no anti-aircraft guns ashore, and were uncertain of the enemy’s strength, ‘there was no evidence … of undue concern amoung the men’. They had waited two years for action and under Colonel Henry Mucci were ‘old soldiers’, for the 6th Rangers were formed initially from men of the 98th Field Artillery Battalion.

  That afternoon, Wednesday (A-2, 18 October), the companies came back from Desolation Point, having found the pillboxes abandoned on this northern tip of the island. Repassing the empty camp at Kanamong Point, they had time to search it thoroughly, and a folded American flag was found in a Japanese officer’s locker. His souvenir was the first Old Glory recovered in these islands.

  During the two days of Tuesday and Wednesday (A-3 and A-2), other rangers had been on Homonhom island (to east) where B Company landed, and some 12 miles (19km) further east, on Suluan island, D Company were ashore. Both companies destroyed enemy radar and observation posts, and were looking for plans that might show that land-fired sea mines were expected in Leyte Gulf. However, there were no such mines. The detached companies rejoining the Battalion, the company of the 21st Infantry re-embarked. That same Wednesday afternoon, C Company returned to Desolation Point to guard naval personnel setting up navigation aids for the main fleet of transports. In the early evening, about 1800 hours, Captain Hemingway, an American Air Force officer at the time of the Bataan surrender in April 1942, came into the beach-head with 36 of his men. The rangers were the first Americans he had seen in more than two years as a Filipino guerrilla leader. He confirmed that the Japanese garrison force was the only one on the island, although from time to time others came across in small boats from the mainland. However, apparently only the garrison force infiltrated the position of C Company around the Pointe that night before being driven off, leaving one man dead.

  On Thursday morning (A-1) both A and D Companies were taken on the USS Crosby, APD-17, six miles (10km) down the coast t
o the village port of Loreto. They received a friendly reception, spending a couple of hours in the area, and learnt that the Japanese had not been there for about eight weeks.

  On 20 October landings began on Leyte’s eastern shore where the US X Corps landed at 1000 hours south of Tacloban at the head of the gulf. Air raids over the rangers’ beach-head stopped for a few days as the Japanese concentrated their efforts on the main assault force, drawing off the American carrier fleet. A second Japanese naval force came up the Surigao Straits between Dinagat and Leyte, but the battleship Yamashiro was lost with almost all her crew in an action with American battleships. Many Japanese sailors struggled ashore near Loreto, where C Company were stationed to prevent Japanese reinforcements joining the Dinagat garrison which had taken to the hills, and the company spent a couple of days rounding up the shipwrecked sailors, many of whom, once ashore were armed and ready to fight. Some escaped into the jungle, but 10 were captured. While they were being shipped to Leyte, two Japanese planes attacked the LCI transport and almost half the crew were killed or wounded. Ranger Technician Fifth Starkovich was also wounded and his fellow prisoners’ guard, Technician Third Roth, manned one of the craft’s .50in (13mm) machine-guns.

  The weather in the Philippines was constantly wet through October when the 6th Battalion was patrolling from Loreto, the men being supplied by dugout canoes sailing from the original beach-head. Patrolling through deep swamps, in heavy jungle, and on steep mountainsides led to most of the men having skin infected with fungus; many had worn through the soles of their boots. Nevertheless, morale was high, and the first issue of candy and tobacco came in on 31 October when a supply a ten-in-one rations also made a welcome change from C rations. Fresh medical supplies for the 10th Portable Hospital, who had landed with the rangers, were parachuted in on 12 November.