Devil's Brigade to get own tartan

[Biathlonman]

This story is in Canadian papers today - my one question is whether these old commandos, who get fewer every year, will last long enough to wear this tartan. If you recall the Hollywood movie The Devil's Brigade, this is the same unit.

"An elite unit of Second World War commandos with a reputation for daring and stealth that earned it the nickname The Black Devils is being honoured with the creation of an original Scottish tartan.

A new tartan design will be filed with the Scottish national tartan registry for the First Special Service Force, a Canadian-American unit created in 1942 and disbanded after barely a year of intense warfare.

The creation of the tartan is being spearheaded by the Helena, Mont.-based Shining Thistle Pipe Band and the First Special Service Force Association, which represents the remaining members of the unit and their descendants. The force trained at Fort William Henry Harrison in Helena before heading into combat.

"We want to not only recognize and honour them, but to hear their stories before they are lost," said Bill Woon, the executive director of the association and the son of a Canadian member of the commando unit.

Mr. Woon's father, a miner and a soldier from Coldwater was one of the 2,300 men -including 800 Canadians -who volunteered for the elite unit. Only about 1,400, including Mr. Woon's father, survived the war.

Only 231 veterans of the unit are still alive, of whom 85 are in Canada.

"We've lost 20 just in the last year," said Mr. Woon, whose own father passed away more than 40 years ago.

Operating under heavy secrecy, the joint team of Canadian and U.S. soldiers -the precursor of modern special forces, including Canada's JTF2 and the U.S. Navy Seals -was originally trained for a mission to attack Hitler's forces through Nazi-occupied Norway. Soldiers with experience as miners, farm-ers, hunters and lumberjacks were recruited to create a group rigorously trained in stealth tactics, hand-to-hand combat, explosives, skiing, parachuting, rock-climbing, amphibious and mountain warfare.

The force specialized in guerrilla tactics, and was designed to operate behind enemy lines and covertly strike strategic positions.

After the Norway plan was scratched, the unit deployed to Italy in November 1943, tasked with eliminating German mountain defences. Under extreme conditions, the unit climbed Monte la Difensa all night through thick fog and deep snow to take the strategic outpost in a daring pre-dawn raid.

"It sounds like fiction, but it was one of the most brazen battles in the war," said Mr. Woon.

Hollywood even took notice, when the assault on Difensa became the basis for the 1968 film titled The Devil's Brigade.

But it was their real-life exploits that made them a frightening and deadly military unit.

While holding a beachhead at Anzio, south of Rome, in February 1944, the unit conducted daring guerrilla raids under cover of darkness, killing or terrorizing Nazi troops.

One story told about the unit claims Allied troops discovered the journal of a dead German soldier, who wrote about his fear of the First Special Service Force.

"We never see them, we never know where they come from," wrote the young soldier. He called them the "Black Devils."

Bolstering their fearsome image, the force left stickers depicting the unit's red arrowhead symbol and a German phrase that said: "the worst is yet to come" on the corpses of dead enemy soldiers.

"They'd leave some of the sleeping German soldiers alive," said Mr. Woon. "When they woke up, they'd find their buddies dead with these stickers stuck to them."

"It was a powerful form of psychological warfare."

Despite the successes, the unit was not destined for a long existence.

After entering Rome as the first liberators of the city, the force was deployed to France by the summer of 1944. By December, the unit was disbanded, and the remaining members were redistributed to their respective national services.

The surviving members of the tight-knit unit have been gathering every year since 1947, alternating between sites in Canada and the United States.

Pipe band major Beth Foster, who launched the tartan idea, said it is a good way to honour the men.

Historically, tartans represented the warrior clans that populated the Scottish Highlands. That tradition continues today, with many modern military units having official tartans, including Canada's air force.

The unique tartan designed for the force contains red, white and blue for the U.S. and Canada flags -Canadian troops fought under the Union Jack at the time -gold for the unit patch colour and black for the Black Devils moniker.

A Tennessee designer helped create the pattern and the fabric is being loomed in Scotland.

Ms. Foster said she hopes to unveil the tartan at this year's unit reunion, being held this August in Edmonton."

[WVHighlander]

Good to hear this. Some gross historical inaccuracies in this paper piece on the 1st SSF aka die schwarzen Teufel aka die Teufel Brigada (Devils Brigade).

The 1 SSF is the precurser to the Canadian SOF forces, great blokes, and the US Army's Special Forces. (Seals came from the UDT units of WWII). In fact, the crossed arrows were the symbol for the 1SSF and is currently used in the US Army's for the Special Forces. (Oh, and there is only 1 "emphasis" Special Forces the others are Special Operations Forces.)

The 1 SSF was led by Robert Tryon Frederick who would go on to be the most wounded general in WWII receiving 8 purple hearts.

It is fantastic to hear these guys are getting this honor.

De Oppresso Liber

[Lallans]

Always nice to hear of such an honour and the Devil's Brigade is of particular interest to film-going Canadians as one of the few where they couldn't, and therefore didn't, change the Canadian participants to Americans or British when they made the movie.

It does seem a shame though that so many of these types of things happen just after most of those being so-honoured have died of old age.