Commandos and Rangers of World War II

by James D. Ladd

  The 1st and 3rd Battalions lost 60 per cent of their numbers killed or wounded, and only 18 of the survivors escaped capture, the 4th Battalion lost 60 men killed and 120 wounded with five company commanders being killed. The remainder of the 4th Battalion fought on in the beach-head for 60 days attached to the US 4th Paras. Then 190 survivors of the original 1st Battalion were sent home to train others, and those who had joined in North Africa transferred to the 1st Special Force (the North Americans).

  2nd Ranger Battalion

  Formed in the USA during April 1943 when 500 men were selected from 2,000 volunteers, the Battalion completed training in the States that November—having established a US army record of 15 miles (24km) in a 2-hour speed march. They crossed the Atlantic in the liner Queen Elizabeth and were based at Bude (Cornwall) in the spring of 1944, with a spell in civilian billets on the Isle of Wight where their allowance was US $4(£1) a day. They completed their cliff-climbing exercises at Swanage (Dorset) and sailed for Normandy on 5 June 1944.

  D, E and F Companies landed from the carriers HMS Amsterdam and HMS Ben My Chree, at the base of Pointe du Hoc cliffs, these they climbed with some difficulty when the rocket fired ropes were waterlogged—see Chapter 11. The companies drove the enemy from the battery positions and established a perimeter for aggressive patrolling, some Sections reaching the main road beyond the battery’s inland defences. Here D Company on the right, E in the centre and F on the left set up a semi-circle of defence positions, destroying four unmounted 155mm guns before accurate 88mm fire stopped any movement in the forward positions. The Germans got behind them, cutting these forward Sections from the command post on the point. Nevertheless they withstood these attacks and a patrol re-established contact with the rear Sections about 2200 hours.

  Before dawn on D + 1 the second of two strong German attacks overran D Company, and the Companies shortened their perimeter by falling back on the reserve Sections at the point. Naval gun fire and accurate small arms fire from the rangers broke up further enemy attacks during the rest of D + 1, and in the evening strong patrols went out to successfully destroy an ammunition dump and a German OP. On D + 2 when the companies were relieved, they were down virtually to the strength of single Sections, E Company having one officer and 19 enlisted men.

  Replacements were trained during July and August before the Battalion’s next action protecting the US 29 Division’s right flank in the attack on Brest (Brittany). This pocket of 20,000 Germans included many of General Ramcke’s parachute division who made good use of the long-established defences. The Rangers’ patrol were in contact with these defenders from 20 August, and in two days of stiff fighting on 1 and 2 September. The Battalion advanced some 1,000 yards (0.5km) on the 5 September but were under heavy artillery fire for several days before reaching the area of the Lochrist (Graf Spee) battery on 8 September. Next day Lieutenant-Colonel James Rudder led his 2nd Rangers in a successful attack, the Battalion securing the battery by mid-day. 1,800 prisoners were taken at the battery and in mopping up Le Conquet peninsula. Before the port was finally taken on the 18 September, however, the American assault divisions of the Ninth Army lost almost 10,000 killed, but the port installations were destroyed by Allied shells and bombs covering the attacks.

  The 2nd Rangers moved east to Paris and on through Luxembourg. They were camped deep in the Huertgen forest of Germany on 6 December. Snow had fallen earlier in the day, but the long huts were warm if dimly lit by ‘No.10 can’ heaters filled with dirt soaked in petrol—like desert cookers. That evening the Battalion moved at 15 minutes notice, trucks and a final approach march bringing them through Bradenberg to the outskirts of Bergstein at 0430 hours (7 December). A, B and C Companies deployed south and west of the town, while D, E and F moved through it to prepare for an assault on a hill beyond the town. Several units had failed to capture this high ground overlooking the Germans at Schmidt and the Roer dams.

  E Company opened the road to the hill at 0730, and D and F passed through to seize the hill by 0830. Withering fire pinned down all three companies who had lost half their strength by 1100 hours before a slight easing in the bombardment enabled them to improve their positions. E. Company went forward to reinforce the men on the hill and the following morning a second major attack was repulsed, evacuating the wounded to the forward aid station at the church was difficult—some wounded had lain on the hill all night—but they were at last got out when American artillery fire at 0800 hours cut the road from the north, the German attacks dying away. The battle reopened in the afternoon when for three hours German 88mm and SP guns and 150 infantry tried to retake the hill, getting within 100 yards of the air-post church at its foot. Their last attack was stopped by artillery at 1800 hours, although General Model offered special awards to any unit retaking the hill. The rangers held on and were relieved on 9 March.

  Later that spring they moved further east—Leipzig, Meresburg, and into Czechoslovakia where the Battalion was stood down at Pilsen and disbanded about June 1945.

  3rd Ranger Battalion

  Formed in North Africa from volunteers around a nucleus of 1st Rangers. Major Herman W. Dammer led them ashore Licata in Sicily on 10 July—see Chapter 8.

  A radio patrol of the Battalion Signals Officer and two NCOs went further west on the night of 16/7 July, with vehicles of the 3rd Reece Troop. Two miles south of Agrigento they were caught by 15 light tanks, but the ranger sergeant got a grenade into the open turret of the leading Renaultf tank which then ran out of control into the crater of a blown bridge. Two other tank crews were captured. The skill of the rangers’ patrols and their daring, kept down casualties to 12 in their first eight days on Sicily.

  The Battalion served in Italy with the 3rd and 4th Rangers (see above) and in the fateful infiltration to Cisterna on 30/1 January 1944.

  4th Ranger Battalion

  Activated on 29 May 1943 by Fifth Army Special order of 19 April, 31 officers were transferred from the 1st Rangers, and Lieutenant-Colonel Roy Murray was promoted from captain to command this Battalion. Their landings at Gela are described in Chapter 8, and their service later in Sicily and in Italy as part of Darby’s ranger force is briefly described above. In attempting to breakthrough to the 1st and 3rd Battalion on the Cisterna road (30/1 January 1944), they—the 4th Battalion—were at first checked by machine-gun fire. Then A and B Companies put in an attack to the west of the road but were again held by heavy machine-guns’ fire, E Company managed to take two of these position and some houses overlooking other Germans 150 yards away. They were within 200 yards of the German defences but could not break through. At 1100 hours that morning two Ranger Cannon Company 75mm SP guns and 4.2in mortars supported an attack on enemy buildings, but mud and mines limited the two half-tracks’ movement. Nevertheless, with the support of E Company’s machine guns, F and C Companies got along the ditch east of the road and by mid-day had taken buildings on both sides of the road ‘after heavy fighting’. Mines lying on top of the road were quickly cleared, and the half-tracks’ fire prevented the enemy leaving the cover of ditches and buildings beyond the rangers’ advance. Two light tanks came up to help D Company consolidate the position, the action report concluding ‘our casualties were high’.

  During February and March in the Anzio beach-head, the Battalion reports include many references ‘intermittent artillery fire laid on our positions all day’. After leaving Anzio the battalion was disbanded.

  5th Ranger Battalion

  Activated on 1 September 1943 at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, the Battalion’s 34 officers and 563 enlisted men arrived in the UK in March, Major Max F. Schneider was appointed CO while the Battalion was in training, first in Scotland, then at Braughton (Devon) before going to Swanage.

  They boarded their British carrier ships on D-5 for the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 described in Chapter 11. They had some 60 casualties on this D-day. On the night of D + 1 Sergeants Moody and McKissick got a field telephone line to the 2nd Rangers on Point du Hoc—Moody
was later killed and McKissick severely wounded. The Battalions relieved the 2nd Rangers on the Pointe on D + 2; and with two half-tracks (from the 2nd) A, C, and F companies captured their 105mm howitzers at Maisy; on D + 4 C. D and F Coys took the coastal defences from Grand-champ les Baines to Isigny, meeting little resistance. The Battalion received a Presidential citation for their actions on 6 June.

  A Brest the Battalion captured Le Conquet in a 2-hour assault and La Mon Blanche with less opposition. On 17 September, attacking pill boxes defending Fort du Portzic, a 40lb (18kg) charge failed to break open one steel-and-concrete strong point. So that night at 2140 a 11-man patrol placed two 40lb and two 50lb charges of C-2 explosive on the concrete and covered these Beehive-type charges with 20 gallons of a petrol-and-oil mix. Half an hour later the pyre went up burning for 40 minutes. The Germans then placed machine guns outside other posts to prevent further demolitions, but the defenders were demoralised by the great explosion and were relieved to surrender next day.

  During October and November the Battalion provided the security guard for Twelfth Army Group’s HQ in Belgium. In December they were attached to the Sixth Cavalry Group of General Patton’s Third Army, with many individual companies working with particular troops of tanks.

  On 9 February, attached to the US 94 Infantry Division, they took over an 11,000 yard (10km) front near Wehingen and attacked north-west towards Oberleuken across ‘another tank ditch’. F Company’s leading sections found themselves in an electrically controlled mine field under heavy enfilade machine-gun and mortar fire, but were extracted by other companies’ assaults. On 23 February the Battalion was sent into 9 Division’s bridgehead across the Roer, which had been in spate after the Germans blew the discharge apparatus to twok reservoirs creating a long-term flood of water that delayed the Americans two weeks. The Battalion, under shell fire, crossed the only bridge—a jitter-bugging footbridge over the strong current—and were infiltrated through the enemy lines for a 48-hour operation. They marched for 9 hours through the winter night taking great care to make no noise. At 0735 hours, dawn on 24 February, they halted.

  A patrol recced the route forward, before the Battalion advanced in a T-formation with D, E, C, Companies from left to right across the top and F, B and A forming the column. Every few hundred yards there was a skirmish. That night they held defensive posts in and around some houses 1300 yards (1.2km) from the Irsch-Zerf road, and by 0830 on 25 February the Battalion was covering the road; they got their mines out; caught some German vehicles and walking wounded evacuating down the road. Two strong counter-attacks in the late afternoon were held although two tanks supported the German infantry. The American 294th Field Artillery provided invaluable support, their FOO calling down fire to break up further attacks being made by the German 136th Regiment of the Second Mountain Division. On the morning of 28 February the Rangers attacked the high ground to the south, being checked once on its heavily wooded slopes by rockets, they were finally held near the hilltop. Over 1,100 rockets and large shells fell on the Battalion’s position that night but the signal log for 1 March beings ‘0015 … 3 AAA guns knocked out and the other hit but can still fire the one. CO … 0805 HQ personnel—cooks, mechanics, etc—for combat and send them to my forward CP. CO … 0905 initial contact (with relieving force) has not been reported … 1525 1st Bn 302nd Inf (relieving force) back at line of departure … 2105 no artillery in last hour.’ They had held ground dominating the German supply route west of Zerf, easing the passage of the American armour’s breakthrough. The Battalion was finally relieved on 3 March some 9 days after they set out on their infiltration.

  During April they took 1,000 Germans to see Buchenwald on General Patton’s orders. On 21 April they rode on the 3rd Cavalry’s tanks and took a bridge across the Danube, against minor resistance. On VE day they were in Reid (Austria), the Battalion being disbanded early in June (last Unit diary entry 31 May).

  6th Ranger Battalion

  The six rifle companies HQ, HQ company and medical detachment of this Battalion were formed from the 98th Field Artillery Battalion on 20 August 1944 in New Guinea. They came ashore on Dinagat on 17 October, three days before the main forces’ first Philippine landings—see Chapter 13. On 14 November they were relieved and spent the next two weeks near Tanuan, beside the Leyte HQ of the US Sixth Army, acting as a guard force they moved with this HQ to Tolosa and also guarded a ‘Sea Bee’ naval construction force building an airstrip at Tanuan (the former HQ site).

  In the Lingayen Gulf landings on Luzon, 9 January 1945, the Battalion came ashore at White beach. XIV Corps bore the brunt of the drive on Manila. During this the 6th Rangers made their well organised rescue of American prisoners from behind the Japanese lines—see Chapter 13. For this action their CO, Colonel Henry A. Mucci, was awarded the DSC, every officer received the Silver Star and every enlisted man the Bronze Star. Later that Spring B Company trekked 250 miles (400km) behind the Japanese lines in a 28-day recce of Aparri, and prepared the landing zones for paras to drop in the final Philippine operation.

  The Battalion was disbanded at Kyoto (Japan) on 30 December 1945. But the Ranger tradition is carried on in the 1970s at Fort Benning, Georgia.

  1st Special-Service Force

  (The North Americans)

  In an order of 16 June 1942 General Marshall, Chief of the American Staff, assigned Lieutenant-Colonel Robert T. Frederick to the Plough Project—the use of snow vehicles for raids, suggested by COHQ, and Americans and Canadians volunteered. The Unit’s name ‘was picked out of the air’ and a hunt began for suitable equipment, as in July 1942 there was no standardised Arctic equipment—reindeer suits were on a 2-year delivery!

  Three Regiments were raised from volunteers. The snow warfare project was dropped—see Chapter 9—and the Regiments reorganised for combat rather than sabotage raids. In August 1943 they landed in the Aleutians where the Service battalion was organised with companies of cooks, bakers and parachute packers etc.

  The Force landed in Italy in the early winter of 1943 and in December fought in the Naples-Foggia compaign—Monte La Difensa 3-6 December, Monte La Rementanea 6-9 December, Monte Sammucro (Height 720) on Christmas Day. Early in January they fought at Radicose, Monte Majo, Monte Vischiataro and on 2 February moved into the Anzio beach-head (see Chapter 9) where the Force held the right-hand sector for nearly 4 months. On 2 June they moved to Colle Ferro and two days later entered Rome, the Force was by now 2,400 strong.

  In August they were in the so-called ‘champagne landings’ of Southern France coming ashore on Iles d‘Hyeres on 14 August and moved north—Vence 1 September, Mentone 7 September—beforek they were disbanded in the Mentone area. By this date they had suffered 2,300 casualties, mainly in the Italian mountains. During January 1945, 74 officers and 612 enlisted men along with 7 Ranger officers and 427 rangers who had survived Anzio, transferred to the 47th Infantry Regiment (Separate).

  American Air Commando

  Led by Colonel Cochran USAAF, these fliers took the Chindits into Burma in 1944, supplied them by air, flew out the wounded and gave air-to-ground support. Flying from jungle airstrips with their single-engined high wing Vultee L-5 light planes, there were occasions when these planes were caught on the ground as Japanese fighters strafed the Chindits’ defensive boxes. The Air Commando were given protection by Spitfires of the 81st and other RAF Squadrons, however the withdrawl of part of this cover led to much of the light aircraft stores being destroyed outside Broadway box in March 1944. A few days later Mustangs of the Commando shot up an attacking ground force, after an RAF pilot had made a ground recce from the box before being flown out to brief them. The Japanese withdrew from the perimeter and the box was later evacuated on 13 May before they could mount a fresh assault.

  The success of this integration of ground and air forces contributed to the development of such techniques, a feature of World War II.

  Merrill’s Marauders

  Brigadier-General (later Major-General) Frank D. Me
rrill raised this 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) from volunteers in the South-west and South Pacific theatres, they trained in India under the overall supervision of Major-General Wingate, for long-range penetration. From February to May 1944 they carried out five major and thirty minor engagements mostly against the Japanese 18 Division, as these 3,000 raiders penetrated the Japanese controlled areas from the Hukawng Valley in northern Burma to Myitkyina on the Irrawaddy, taking the airfield at Myitkyina with it all-weather strip, Their Distinguished Unit Citation reads ‘ … the United States first ground combat force to meet the enemy on the continent of Asia … after a brilliant operation on 17 May 1944 [they] seized the airfield … an objective of great tactical importance …’ The raiders’ operations had been co-ordinated with the advance of Chinese divisions under the American General Stilwell’s command, clearing north-east Burma mountains and jungles of Japanese to open the supply road from Ledo to China.

  They were disbanded on 10 August 1944 but immediately reformed as an infantry regiment of Mars Force fighting in Burma till July 1945. In 1953 the Marauders were reformed as the 75th Infantry Regiment with colours carrying a Burma/India streamer.

  Allied Special Forces—Small Operations Units

  British Independent Companies

  Nos. 1 to 11 formed in late spring 1940 for ship-based raiding operations to harass possible German supply routes in Norway. Four companies landed between 4 and 9 May 1940 in the Mo/Bodö area protecting the southern flank of the Allied landings near Narvik (North Norway).

  The Companies provided the nucleus of several Commandos formed later that summer. One record shows a No.12 Independent Company but this does not appear to have been operational.

  Australian Independent Companies

  The first four Companies were raised in Australia in the winter of 1940/1. Detachments from 2/1 Company provided the Australians’ most northerly line of watchers in island posts along more than 1,000 miles (1,600 + km) of the Pacific Ocean from Manus (Admiralty Islands) through Kavieng and Namatanai on New Ireland. Buka (Bougainville), Villa (New Hebrides) to Tulagi in the Solomons. These men gave warning of the Japanese advances in December/January of 1941/2. There were only 2 survivors of the detachment on Amboina, 500 miles north of Darwin, for those not killed in Japanese attacks were massacred while prisoners of war. The Sections at Manus and Buka, however, managed to get into the hills where they continued to watch and report. Survivors of 2/1 Company joined 2/3 as the first Company was not reformed.