Canada's Military is "Bankrupt"

[lucky wilbury]

bump because this topic came up in another thread

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Mr Grimsdale
(Abstract) Overall Canadian troops are very good. When the Third Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry were in Afghanistan, the U.S. command were so impressed by them that they redesignated them as SF and had them working with Delta teams. When it came time to select the ORBAT for Iraq, the organising "commitee" included 3 PPCLI on the ORBAT of one of the divisions as SF. When the Canadian Forces liasion officer who was at that meeting pointed out that Prime Minister Cretien in his infinite wisdom had decided not to provide Cdn military support for the caper, they were quite put out that they couldn't have 3 PPCLI. That says 2 things, the Canadian government is a joke and secondly that Canadian troops are highly regarded for their individual skills and ability.

Very true indeed. As I stated in the other thread, U.S. commanders were impressed with the performance of the Canadian light infantry and their Snipers in Afghanistan.

Before you hicks (like Elvis) :D beat up on the Canadians and start up the retarded "let's invade Canada" bantor, you should read a little about a fierce WWII unit called the 1st Special Service Force that was a joint U.S.-Canadian special operations unit somewhat equivalent to the Army Rangers today.

There is also a pretty good 1968 film starring William Holden, Claude Aikens, and Richard Dawson (the origional Family Feud host). The film is erronoius in its highlight of the U.S.-Canadian feuds and the portrayl American "volunteers" as criminals (I think this was a take off on "The Dirty Dozen" which came out the same year)
Devil's Brigade

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


[edit]
General information
The volunteers for the 1600 man force consisted primarily of enlisted men recruited by advertising at Army posts, stating that preference was to be given to men previously employed as lumberjacks, forest rangers, hunters, game wardens, and the like. The 1st Special Service Force was officially activated on July 20, 1942 under the command of Lt. Colonel Robert T. Frederick. Force members received rigorous and intensive training in stealth tactics, hand-to-hand combat, the use of explosives for demolition, amphibious warfare, rock climbing and mountain fighting, and as ski troops. Their formation patch was a red arrowhead with the words CANADA and USA. They even had a specially designed fighting knife made for them called the V-42.

[edit]
History
Their first scheduled operation was code named "Project Plough," a mission to parachute into German-held Norway to knock out strategic targets such as hydroelectric power plants. This operation had to be abandoned but in October of 1943 the commander of the US Fifth Army, Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark, brought the 1st Special Service Force to Italy where its members demonstrated the value of their unique skills and training. At Monte la Difensa they immediately earned a reputation for being able to take impenetrable objectives when no one else could. Here, in the dead of winter, the Special Force wiped out a strategic enemy defensive position sitting high atop a mountain surrounded by steep cliffs. Previously, American forces had suffered many casualties in futile attempts to take the important target. This incident was the basis for the 1968 motion picture titled "The Devil's Brigade."

During Operation Shingle at Anzio, Italy, 1944, the Special Force were brought ashore on February 1st, after the decimation of the U.S. Rangers, to hold and raid from the right-hand flank of the beachhead marked by the Mussolini Canal/Pontine Marshes, which they did quite effectively.

It was at Anzio that the enemy dubbed the 1st Special Service Force as the "Devil's Brigade." The diary of a dead German soldier contained a passage that said, "The black devils (Die schwarze Teufeln) are all around us every time we come into the line." The soldier was referring to them as "black" because the brigade's members smeared their faces with black boot polish for their covert operations in the dark of the night. Canadian and American members of the Special Force who lost their lives are buried near the beach in the Commonwealth Anzio War Cemetery and the American Cemetery in Nettuno, just east of Anzio.

The first unit sent into Rome, the Devil's Brigade were given the assignment of capturing seven essential bridges in the city to prevent the Germans from blowing them up. During the night of June 4th, members of the Devil’s Brigade entered Rome. After they secured the bridges, they quickly moved north in pursuit of the retreating Germans. The following morning, throngs of grateful Romans lined the streets to give the long columns of American soldiers passing through the city a tumultuous reception. War photographers captured the scenes of joy on film to be seen back home, but the soldiers who actually liberated the city had passed through Rome during the early morning hours in darkness and near silence and were again in fierce combat with the Germans along a twenty-mile front on the Tiber River.

Following the taking of Italy, on August 14, 1944 the Brigade was shipped to Iles d'Hyères in the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Southern France. As part of the U.S. 7th Army, they fought again with distinction in numerous battles. On September 7th, they moved to the Franco-Italian border in what is called the "Rhineland Campaign." Members of the Brigade, usually traveling by foot at night, made their way behind enemy lines to provide intelligence on German positions. This operation not only contributed to the liberation of Europe, but the information Brigade members were able to pass back to headquarters saved many Allied soldier's lives.

The Devil's Brigade, a one-of-a-kind military unit that never failed to achieve its objective, was disbanded by the end of the War. However, in 1952 Col. Aaron Bank would create another elite unit using the training, the strategies, and the lessons learned from the Devil's Brigade's missions. This force would evolve into specialized forces such as the Green Berets, Delta Force, and the Navy SEALs. In Canada, today's elite and highly secretive JTF2 military unit is also modeled on the Devil's Brigade. Like World War II, Canadian JTF2 members and American Delta Force members were united again into a special assignment force for the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

In September of 1999, the main highway between the city of Lethbridge, Alberta Canada and Helena, Montana in the United States was renamed the "First Special Service Force Memorial Highway." This highway was chosen because it was the route taken in 1942 by the Canadian volunteers to join their American counterparts for training at Fort Harrison.

A large number of the Devil's Brigade members were honored for their acts of valor, including Tommy Prince, Canada's most decorated aboriginal soldier of WW II.

[edit]
Battles of the First Special Service Force :
Aleutians Campaign, 1943 :

Kiska & Little Kiska - August 15-August 19, 1943
Segula Island - August 17, 1943
Italian (Naples-Foggia-Rome) Campaign 1943-1944 :

Monte la Difensa - December 3-December 6, 1943
Monte la Remetanea - December 6-December 9, 1943
Monte Sammucro - December 25 (Christmas Day), 1943
Radicosa - January 4, 1944
Monte Majo - January 6, 1944
Monte Vischiataro - January 8, 1944
Anzio - February 2-May 10, 1944
Monte Arrestino - May 25, 1944
Rocca Massima - May 27, 1944
Colle Ferro - June 2, 1944
Rome - June 4, 1944
Southern France, (Alpes-Maritimes) Campaign, 1944 :

Iles d'Hyères - August 14-August 17, 1944
Grasse - August 27, 1944
Villeneuve-Loubet - August 30, 1944
Vence - September 1, 1944
Drap - September 3, 1944
L'Escarène - September 5, 1944
La Turbie - September 6, 1944
Menton - September 7, 1944
Rhineland Campaign, 1944 :

Franco-Italian border - September 7 - November 30, 1944
Motion Picture :

The Devil's Brigade (1968) - starring William Holden, Cliff Robertson, Vince Edwards
Books :

Joseph Springer, The Black Devil Brigade: The True Story of the First Special Service Force , (Pacifica Military History, 2001).
Robert Todd Ross, THE SUPERCOMMANDOS First Special Service Force, 1942-1942, An Illustrated History (Atglen, PA Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2000).
Robert H. Adleman, and Colonel George Walton, The Devil's Brigade (Philadelphia., PA: Chilton Books, 1966).
Robert D., Burhans, "The First Special Service Force: A Canadian/American Wartime Alliance: The Devil's Brigade" (Washington: Infantry Journal Press Inc. 1947)

Retrieved from

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh


There is also a pretty good 1968 film starring William Holden, Claude Aikens, and Richard Dawson (the origional Family Feud host). The film is erronoius in its highlight of the U.S.-Canadian feuds and the portrayl American "volunteers" as criminals (I think this was a take off on "The Dirty Dozen" which came out the same year)
Devil's Brigade

Got it on DVD, actually. I'm a Military History buff, including books and movies and military board games.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Got it on DVD, actually. I'm a Military History buff, including books and movies and military board games.

I have to get that on DVD.

They were notorious for slitting the throats of unsuspecting German soldiers in their foxholes and writing "the worst is yet to come" in German on their forheads and placing the following sticker on them:

Shoulder sleeve patch of the 1st Special Service Force. Properly designated as the 1st Special Service Force, the Devil's Brigade was a joint World War II American-Canadian commando unit trained at Fort Harrison near Helena, Montana in the United States.