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An all too obscure vignette of Canadian military history is our involvement in a super-elite, American-Canadian commando unit — The “First Special Service Force” — during the Second World War. It was formed in July 1942 from carefully screened Canadian and U.S. volunteers, many of whom were formerly hard rock miners, explosive specialists, skiers, parachutists, hunters and rugged individualists. Popularized in a somewhat distorted 1968 Hollywood movie as “The Devil’s Brigade,” the unit became better known and feared by the Axis and Allies alike as the “Black Devils.”

Conceived in part by Winston Churchill as part of his Special Operations plan to “set Europe ablaze,” the unit trained first in the mountains of Montana, where it was rapidly moulded into one of the most highly skilled and successful combat units to serve in World War II. Its motto was “more sweat on the training field means less blood on the battlefield.” Strenuous 100-mile speed marches were the norm. The men were all specially trained in hand-to-hand combat with all kinds of weapons and explosives along with innovative all-terrain vehicles like the Weasel designed especially for their daredevil initiatives. They bonded tightly through intensive training and dedication to the Force. The rigorous training routine sifted the hard from the soft, fully integrating Canadians and Americans together down to the platoon level. Many accepted with alacrity at the outset that their tasks were to be essentially suicide missions.