Canadian Medal of  

          Honor.com

  • Sunday evening's blogs
  • graves, memorials and medals
  • About the Author
  • contact the Author
  • Home

part 3... "We'd seen more combat than the rest had seen pay days."

7/13/2013

0 Comments

 
The last two columns in this space have been about the Devil's Brigade and part of the story of a Vancouver Island resident by the name of Richard (Dick) Hilton. The real name of the brigade was the First Special Service Force and it consisted of over 3,000 Canadians and Americans, each supplying half. The men were specially recruited to take very tough and elite training, would form a multi-country force and be able to be sent into harms way in areas were the rest were incapable or mostly unwilling to go to get the impossible jobs done, done right, and quickly. Originally the plans were for Norway to contribute 1/3rd of the force but manpower problems resulted in it ultimately being just a Canada/US undertaking.

Yesterday's story left off with the Brigade finally having received the last of its training, graduating and marching out the front gates on their way to their first actually mission. 
Picture
The First Special Service Force was transported to San Francisco California to start their initial mission. But first they'd have to sail to Kiska, (shown as "B" above,) one of many in the Aleutian Chain of islands in Alaska. Once there they would join with some 34,000 other Canadians and Americans to land on the island. Prior to their arrival the island was shelled for  about three weeks. On arrival of the Brigade, it was soon discovered that the Japanese had abandoned the island in a thick fog... three weeks earlier. So the Brigade was ordered back to California. But according to William Story the men were given a couple of days leave in Alaska. Story was an Intelligence officer with the Brigade and was reached in Southern Carolina to talk to me about the war.

He was another Winnipeg man in the unit and  would later serve as the Executive Director  of the Association for these retired Brigade members for over 30 years. A few days ago I had the privilege of speaking with this 92 year old veteran and he seemed rather upset. Not at me, but his car. it needed new brakes. I can only hope to have that to complain about almost 30 years from now.
 
One of the American troops to remain at  Kiska throughout the war was none other than Sgt  Dashiell Hammett, later famed writer and Pinkerton Detective Agency operative who was thrown in jail briefly in 1951 for refusing to become a snitch during the McCarthy hearings.  And the commanding officer of the Canadian troops landing was a later Lt. Governor of BC and a Victoria Cross recipient from WW1 at Passchendaele. His name was George Pearkes, a Major General and ironically the 2nd of only two Victoria Cross recipients buried in the Victoria BC area. The other being WW1 Naval Lt. Commander Rowland Bourke who regular readers have read much about in this space.  

Picture
By 9 September 1943 the Devil's Brigade had landed back  in California ("A" above) and made their way to their familiar base in Fort Ethan Allen. The original plans for the brigade, before they were even  recruited, called for a parachute drop into Norway, but that plan got quashed and instead, as the song says, they went... "North to Alaska."  But within 2 months they would find themselves landing in Italy near a place called Camino, as marked above with a "B".  

The Allies had tried for months to liberate Rome but the geography of the area gave them serious trouble. It was very mountainous and on many of the peaks the German panzer divisions had dug in their heavy duty mortars and artillery pieces. Worse yet... any move on the lower levels for miles all around were under their close scrutiny from these high places. The Allies several times tried to make advances and were pushed back with heavy losses. But that was about to change when the Devil's Brigade came along. This is exactly what they trained so hard for, and bighting at the bit to get at. They were in their candy store finally.

The brigade had no less than 6 Colonels in the three regiments and headquarters and one of them, from Toronto, Lt. Colonel  McWilliams came up with a plan. Move in middle of night and climb the only side that the enemy would least expect. Put 3,000 men on top of that mountain and then spread out and attack by surprise. Sounds great till you considered that the approach on that side was a cliff rising at an angle of about 65 degrees.., and it went up, and up, and up till finally stopping at about the 1,000 foot level.

Picture










The high ground is Monte La Defensa.

The McWilliams plan was accepted, the men got ready and were trucked to about a 6 mile distance from the base of the mountain. From there the men had to make it on foot in the dark hours, and  get to the base of the mountain undetected. Still in pitch dark and a driving sleet of rain on a very cold winter's night, a handful of men had to scale the cliff without being seen, secure and drop the lines and get all  the men of two regiments...and their supplies up over the face of the cliff, and establish a foothold. 

But I'll leave this till the final blog on this subject tomorrow,

Bart







0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author;
     
    Bart Armstrong

    Archives

    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly