Macksey - Commando: Special Forces in World War II

Commando: Special Forces in World War II

Kenneth Macksey

Contents

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

MAPS

CHAPTER 1: BESIDE THE SEASIDE

CHAPTER 2: FIRST STRIKE

CHAPTER 3: FOURTH ARM OR MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

CHAPTER 4: MEN, WEAPONS AND CRAFT

CHAPTER 5: FROM Tomato to Dudley the Winter of Frustration

CHAPTER 6: THE SHADOW OF ABOLITION

CHAPTER 7: NEW DIRECTIVE, CHANGE OF DIRECTION

CHAPTER 8: TREND SETTERS

CHAPTER 9: WASTING ASSETS

CHAPTER 10: SECOND FRONT NOW

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW TEAM

CHAPTER 12: RAIDS SOUR WITH A PINCH OF SWEETNESS

CHAPTER 13: Biting

CHAPTER 14: MASTERPIECE AND MISHAP

CHAPTER 15: THE AMERICAN CONTENTION

CHAPTER 16: CANOEISTS, RAIDERS, RANGERS AND MARINES

CHAPTER 17: FRUSTRATION

CHAPTER 18: MUDDLE AT MAKIN

CHAPTER 19: DIEPPE THE ESSENTIAL EXPERIMENT

CHAPTER 20: SMALL RAIDING INTENSIFIED

CHAPTER 21: MEDITERRANEAN TURNING POINT

CHAPTER 22: BY HORSA AND COCKLE

CHAPTER 23: SETTING A NEW COURSE

CHAPTER 24: THE HORNETS NEST

CHAPTER 25: FLOW AND EBB IN THE PACIFIC

CHAPTER 26: OVERTURES TO INVASION

CHAPTER 27: MEDITERRANEAN RAIDERS PARADISE

CHAPTER 28: HIT AND MISS IN THE FAR EAST

CHAPTER 29: BEGINNING WITHOUT END

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTES

EXTRACT FROM Allies at Dieppe

ABBREVIATIONS

A

ABC American, British, Canadian

ACO Advisor on Combined Operations

AFHQ Allied Forces Headquarters (Mediterranean)

AJF Anti-Japanese Forces

ALC Assault Landing Craft

Amphib (Phib) Recon Patrol Amphibious Reconnaissance Patrol

Amtrack Amphibious tracked vehicle (see also LVT)

C

C Director of the Secret Intelligence Service (symbol for)

CAS Chief of Air Staff

CCO Chief of Combined Operations

CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff

CD Executive Director of SOE (symbol for)

Cdo Commando

CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff

C-in-C Commander-in-Chief

CNS Chief of the Naval Staff

CO Commanding Officer

Co Company (US)

COHQ Combined Operations Headquarters

COI Central Office of Information

COLO Combined Operations Liaison Officer

COPP Combined Operations Pilotage Party

COS Chief of Staff

COSSAC Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander

CTC Combined Training Centre

D

DCCO Deputy Chief of Combined Operations

DCNS Deputy Chief of Naval Staff

DCO Director of Combined Operations

DDCO Deputy Director of Combined Operations

DDOD(I) Deputy Director, Operations Division (Irregular)

Div Division

DNC Director of Naval Construction

DNI Director of Naval Intelligence

DZ drop zone

E

EPS Executive Planning Staff

ETO European Theatre of Operations

G

Gee A radio navigational aid

Gestapo Geheime Staatspolizei

GOC-in-C General Officer Commanding-in-Chief

GS(R) General Staff (Research) Branch

H

HLI Highland Light Infantry

I

Indep Coy Independent Company

IO Intelligence Officer

ISTDC Inter-Services Training and Development Centre

J

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JIC Joint Intelligence Committee

JPS Joint Planning Staff

L

LCA Landing Craft Assault

LCI Landing Craft Infantry

LCM Landing Craft Mechanised

LCN Landing Craft Navigation

LCP Landing Craft Personnel

LCS Landing Craft Support

LCT Landing Craft Tank

LRDG Long Range Desert Group

LSI Landing Ship Infantry

LST Landing Ship Tank

LVT Landing Vehicle Tracked (Amtrack)

M

MA Military Assistant

MAS Motoscafo Anti-Sommergibile (Italian MTB)

MEW Ministry of Economic Warfare

MFV Motor Fishing Vessel

MGB Motor Gun Boat

MIR Military Intelligence Research Branch

ML Motor Launch

MLC Mechanized Landing Craft

MO Military Operations Branch

MTB Motor Torpedo Boat

O

OG Operations Group

OSS Office of Strategic Services

P

PT Boat Patrol Torpedo Boat

PW Prisoner of War

Q

QH Gee receiver set

R

RA Royal Artillery

RAC Royal Artillery Corps

RAF Royal Air Force

RAN Royal Australian Navy

RANVR Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve

RE Royal Engineers

RHLI Royal Hamilton Light Infantry

RM Royal Marines

RMBPD Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment

RN Royal Navy

RNR Royal Naval Reserve

RNVR Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

RNZNVR Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve

RTR Royal Tank Regiment

RTU Return to Unit

RV Rendezvous

RWK Royal West Kent Regiment

S

SAS Special Air Service

SBS Special Boat Section

SEAC South East Asia Command

SGB Steam Gun Boat

SIS Secret (or Special) Intelligence Service

SOE Special Operations Executive

SOG Special Operations Group

SSRF Small Scale Raiding Force

U

UDT Underwater Demolition Team

USAAF United States Army Air Force

USMC United States Marine Corps

USN United States Navy

V

VCCO Vice-Chief of Combined Operations

VCIGS Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff

VCNS Vice-Chief of Naval Staff

W

W/T Wireless Telegraphy

X

X-craft Miniature submarine

INTRODUCTION

The majority of the campaigns conducted by the Western Allies during World War II were, at their start, Combined or Joint Service operations. In the aftermath of that war many books some fact, some fiction described individual battles with a plethora of detail concerning acts of individual gallantry by the men of special organizations. The name Commando, which had stimulated popular imagination and raised the hopes of the hard-pressed British people in the desperate days of 1940, had by then gained world-wide acceptance as symbolic of elitism among fearless and ruthless fighting men. And yet, among the Official Histories published on both sides of the Atlantic, not a single one describing the work of the Combined Operations Organizations was commissioned. Instead the story was deliberately merged with Campaign Histories. As a result, the numerous minor hit-and-run operations which featured in all theatres of war were either totally omitted or reduced to a footnote, treatment which, in terms of history, was both an injustice and an obfuscation. For no matter how lightly separate raids may have weighed in the scales of a total war, or how localized the impact on friend or foe of pinprick skirmishes, the accumulated effect of raiding was important at times vital. By the same token, the omission from most histories of the intensive but frequently abortive attempts to launch all manner of raids has left behind an impression of irrational inactivity in the prosecution of the war, which was quite untrue and demands explanation.

It is also often forgotten that the causes of shortcomings in the publication of recent history are often the result not only of the demand to protect national security, but also the need to avoid defamation of living individuals. Much that should be revealed in the interests of clarity and of history has to be suppressed; and the primary losers are those among the generation who made that history, who are denied a full understanding of what it was about. Of course the rules which, to all intents and purposes, banned examination of official records of World War I, let alone World War II, had largely been relaxed by 1973 on both sides of the Atlantic, and the more recent publication of the British Official History of Intelligence has performed another important service. Meanwhile the death of many of those concerned minimizes the risk of libel actions against historian or publisher.

Documents about the intrigues, vacillations, misunderstandings, prejudices and political as well as military confrontations which were the daily chores of Combined Operations Headquarters and the bedevilment of even the smallest operation are available to demonstrate why it was that many hitherto inexplicable dramas occurred. Repeatedly it is the negative aspects which are the most revealing. Certainly, in the context of amphibious hit-and-run raiding, the unpublicized stories of the raids which did not take place often throw more light on the causes of hesitations and apparent contradictions than do current explanations of those which did.