Post by volkssturm on Oct 1, 2019 22:57:47 GMT -5
My current reading, "The Force" by Saul David, about the First Special Service Force, a mixed American-Canadian unit that was trained for arctic and mountain warfare. Pretty light reading, with a lot of comments and quotes from people who were there.
So far I'm only up to the beginning of 1943 but the first part of the book about the origin and early training of the unit is interesting, perhaps in a way the author didn't intend. It's something of an example of the kind of thinking that was common in the early days of the war, when the allies were struggling and looking for anything that would give them an edge. The origin of the 1st SSF came about as an idea from a British scientist/inventor Geoffrey Pyke. Pyke is better know for the proposal to build a giant aircraft carrier out of ice. Pyke conceived the idea of building a specialized armored vehicle that could travel over snow and using it with specially trained troops to attack hydroelectric stations in Norway or the Romanian mountains in winter. Churchill liked the idea, particularly as it applied to Norway. One of the pet project Churchill favored was invading Norway. The idea was pitched to the Americans and Canada. The US chiefs of staff agreed to have an American company (Studebaker in the end) design and build the vehicle, which resulted in the M29 Weasel. The Canadians agreed to provide volunteers for a multi-national unit. The Americans agreed because it kept the British happy and made for some good PR, but were kind of skeptical of the idea. So they formed a parachute-ski-mountain trained commando unit.
Eisenhower was still in Washington at this point. When the plan was finalized he handed it to Lt. Col Robert Frederick to assess. Frederick return an analysis that basically said this is stupid idea that will get everyone killed because even if you get them to Norway or Romania you won't be able to get them back. Eisenhower chewed him out and said you can't say that because the British won't agree. So Frederick massaged his analysis into something acceptable. Then he began maneuvering to get command of the unit. Because a specialized unit reporting directly to Army Ground Forces and with a generous budget, what's not to like.
So it's late 1942 and the unit is training in Montana and now Colonel Frederick goes to England for discussions of missions. the head of SOE says "Thanks a lot but we've got all those objectives covered." The head of the Norwegian Army in exile says "Thanks, but we don't really need you." Churchill is still hoping for "Operation Jupiter", the invasion of Norway, but that's not happening any time soon. Pyke has resigned from the project to work on other ideas. So the British, who started the whole thing, have no use for them. Frederick reports back to Washington where they toss around disbanding the unit, sending it to the South Pacific (a waste of their training), or keeping it and looking for another use for their snow and mountain training. General Marshall decides on the latter because they'd had so much publicity it would look bad to trash can it. Ultimately they ended up in the mountains of Italy and then formed part of an ad hoc paratroop unit for the invasion of southern France.
So far I'm only up to the beginning of 1943 but the first part of the book about the origin and early training of the unit is interesting, perhaps in a way the author didn't intend. It's something of an example of the kind of thinking that was common in the early days of the war, when the allies were struggling and looking for anything that would give them an edge. The origin of the 1st SSF came about as an idea from a British scientist/inventor Geoffrey Pyke. Pyke is better know for the proposal to build a giant aircraft carrier out of ice. Pyke conceived the idea of building a specialized armored vehicle that could travel over snow and using it with specially trained troops to attack hydroelectric stations in Norway or the Romanian mountains in winter. Churchill liked the idea, particularly as it applied to Norway. One of the pet project Churchill favored was invading Norway. The idea was pitched to the Americans and Canada. The US chiefs of staff agreed to have an American company (Studebaker in the end) design and build the vehicle, which resulted in the M29 Weasel. The Canadians agreed to provide volunteers for a multi-national unit. The Americans agreed because it kept the British happy and made for some good PR, but were kind of skeptical of the idea. So they formed a parachute-ski-mountain trained commando unit.
Eisenhower was still in Washington at this point. When the plan was finalized he handed it to Lt. Col Robert Frederick to assess. Frederick return an analysis that basically said this is stupid idea that will get everyone killed because even if you get them to Norway or Romania you won't be able to get them back. Eisenhower chewed him out and said you can't say that because the British won't agree. So Frederick massaged his analysis into something acceptable. Then he began maneuvering to get command of the unit. Because a specialized unit reporting directly to Army Ground Forces and with a generous budget, what's not to like.
So it's late 1942 and the unit is training in Montana and now Colonel Frederick goes to England for discussions of missions. the head of SOE says "Thanks a lot but we've got all those objectives covered." The head of the Norwegian Army in exile says "Thanks, but we don't really need you." Churchill is still hoping for "Operation Jupiter", the invasion of Norway, but that's not happening any time soon. Pyke has resigned from the project to work on other ideas. So the British, who started the whole thing, have no use for them. Frederick reports back to Washington where they toss around disbanding the unit, sending it to the South Pacific (a waste of their training), or keeping it and looking for another use for their snow and mountain training. General Marshall decides on the latter because they'd had so much publicity it would look bad to trash can it. Ultimately they ended up in the mountains of Italy and then formed part of an ad hoc paratroop unit for the invasion of southern France.