Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [14]
On the Allied side, there was also a great deal of SOF activity. A number of American units came into the public focus as “special.” There were names such as the Devil’s Brigade, Merrill’s Marauders, Darby’s Rangers, and the Alamo Scouts. These units were not unlike the German commando units under Witzig and Skorzeny. They were highly trained light infantry schooled in quick-strike operations. Considered one of the forerunners of our current Special Forces was the First Special Service Force, a joint U.S.-Canadian unit. Organized in July 1942 at Fort Harrison in Montana, this was an airborne unit that cross-trained in mountain and amphibious warfare. It saw action in Italy and France before it was inactivated in 1944. Today’s Special Forces trace their modern military lineage to the 1st Special Service Force. The 2nd and 5th Rangers were activated in June 1942 and scaled the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc during the invasion at Normandy. They went on to fight throughout western Europe. In the China-Burma-India theater, there was the three-thousand-man 5307th Composite Unit, or Galahad Task Force. Called Merrill’s Marauders by the press, this unit fought many engagements with the Japanese in the jungles of Burma. Also operating in the Pacific were the Alamo Scouts and the 6th Rangers, both formed by Lieutenant General Walter Krueger. The most storied action of these units was the rescue of American POWs at the Japanese prison camp at Cabanatuan, in the Philippines.
On 30 January 1945, 128 men from the 6th Ranger Battalion, with a contingent of the Alamo Scouts, rescued 512 American POWs from the Japanese prison camp at Cabanatuan during the closing days of the Second World War. The 6th Battalion was commanded and trained by a tough, no-nonsense lieutenant colonel named Henry Mucci. The attack on the POW compound itself was led by the unflappable Captain Robert Prince, a quiet Stanford graduate. The Alamo Scouts guided the Rangers through Japanese lines and close to camp for a night attack. The force executed a clever diversion and made a coordinated assault. It was over in twenty minutes. The Rangers escorted and carried the freed Americans back through enemy lines to safety. While it was true that the Japanese were reeling under the combined forces of the American advance in the Philippines, the fact remains that there were over 8,000 Japanese troops within a five-mile radius of the Cabanatuan prison compound, and that the Rangers were outnumbered two to one in the camp. Accounts vary, but between 300 and 500 Japanese were killed by Rangers and partisans with the loss of only 2 Rangers. It was a magnificent raid—a classic that’s been studied by generations of special operators. This was one of the few actions in the Second World War with joint, combined support. Reconnaissance and diversion sorties were flown by Army Air Corps P-61s and Filipino resistance forces served in a diversionary role and as a blocking force. This daring rescue is the subject of the bestseller Ghost Soldiers, by Hampton Sides, and the movie The Great Raid.
These are only a few of the Ranger/raider-type special operations of the Second World War. Perhaps the best text on raids is SPEC OPS, by Bill McRaven. This book details these and other modern special operations raids. Again, raids and other direct-action operations are within the Army Special Forces charter. But Special Forces are not Rangers, and this is not what makes the Special Forces special. The Second World War did, however, provide the first examples of the work currently being done on a regular basis by modern Special Forces.
Spectacular raids and daring rescue operations were not all that were SOF related in World War II. This global conflict saw campaigns that were characterized by the same “by, with, and through” conduct of war that characterizes Special Forces today. This new way of fighting was pioneered by a military-style organization, but it was no mere offshoot or modification of the conventional military. In 1941, an imposing