Commandos Fruit

Commandos Fruit tastes sweet

The previous page was: "Commando's Camera"

Commandos Fruit; On 23rd October 1943, the British Broadcasting Corporation announced that Brigadier R.E. Laycock, D.S.O. had been appointed to succeed Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten as Chief of Combined Operations with the acting rank of Major-General.

The Commandos now had a new chief, thirty-six years of age; one who had been in their ranks from the beginning and was familiar with the Commandos activities.

Lord Louis had seen to it during his tenure of command that all Commandos should develop and prosper. "When they were first raised, Commandos were composed almost entirely of soldiers, with just a sprinkling of Royal Marines, until they formed their own Commando Units, on 14th February 1942," he recorded. "This seemed to me to be a mistake, for it was above all the Royal Marines who, by virtue of their soldier-sailor training, should be eminently suited for Combined Operations and Raids."

Commando's Camera Operation-Frankton Commandos-Camera

Now as Mountbatten flew eastwards

To take command of all operations against the Japanese, a still wider field; was opening for him. He left behind a man determined that the Commandos should be used in the best possible way for the best possible purpose. This would not be as easy as it appeared.

By the autumn of 1943 the Commandos were well established in the hearts and imaginations of the general public, and in the esteem of the Armed Forces. So much so, that when the surviving officers of No. 2 Commando were sent round Italy, Sicily and North Africa they were embarrassed by the reception they received.

"We had," said Tom Churchill, "an enormous response to our call for more Commandos to fill our depleted ranks." "If we had taken everybody who had put his name down we could have built three new Commando Units, let alone one."

The Army Commandos were

Recognised as the Special Service Brigade. The Royal Marines Special Service Brigades had been well organised since they were established in 1939 but neither the Army Commandos or the Royal Marine Commandos was big enough to operate on their own, now that there were so many Commando operations available.

It was accordingly agreed to expand all of the Commandos into a Special Service Group, making it compatible in strength to an Infantry Division.

Major-General Sir Robert G. Sturges, K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O., himself a Royal Marine, took Command of the Special Services Group.

He formed them into four Special Service Brigades, each composed of two Army Commandos and two Royal Marines Commandos, with a combined Army and Royal Marine Headquarters.

Laycock had now reached the level of Chiefs of Staff. Struges was the equivalent of the commander in the field, he had as his deputy Lieutenant-Colonel J.F. Durnford-Slater.

Of the four brigades, the second, was made up of the Commando Units in Italy and the Mediterranean, this was put under the command of Tom Churchill, who was promoted to Brigadier.

There remained two problems

The administration, and the replacement of the wastage caused by active service. The Army Commando was a modern guerrilla and was therefore provided with no more than they themselves could carry or use, at most, in forty-eight hours.

In practice all went well so long as the role of the Commando was strictly confined to raiding. When used as an infantry of the line the Army Commandos organisation proved quite inadequate. There were not enough cooks and other tradesmen behind them to ensure an acceptable level of comfort and efficiency.

The Royal Marines had from the beginning an administrative troop which proved to be of much value. They were entirely backed by the Royal Navy with the stores and equipment they required.

The Royal Marines Commandos did not have the same problems as the Army Commandos, they could go into combat anywhere and in any conditions and at any time; because their organisation was complete.

By the end of 1943

And for the rest of the war, the organisation of a Army Commando became more fixed and tended to resemble that of a battalion of the line.

These new arrangements were not entirely satisfactory; it gave rise to grumbling among the ranks; many preferred the old carefree days when orders for an operation could be set down on a half sheet of paper.

A Troop leader could dismiss his troops in Halfia, and tell them to turn up on the Suez Canal, and they would muster there.

It was the same old story of organization treading upon the heels of inspiration.

The Commando Soldier had to regard himself as expendable, and he had to accept there would be heavy casualties, as a matter of course. Only men eager, of their own free will, to embrace this hard way of serving their country could expect to do so satisfactorily.

Nevertheless, the replacement of casualties in the Army Commandos remained a problem to the end.

The problem of replacing losses

In the Royal Marines Commandos was comparatively simple, for they were not all composed of volunteers, though some were found in their ranks. Casualties were accordingly replaced as required by the ordinary process from the Royal Marine Corps.

On taking up his appointment as deputy commander, Durnford-Slater found that a certain amount of feeling existed between the two types of Commandos. The Army Commandos were intensely proud, and rightly so, of the fact that they were hand picked men chosen from a very large number of volunteer applicants.

The Royal Marines were inclined to point out that amphibious warfare had been their special prerogative for over two centuries and that now at last, owing to the change in the nature of war, they were quite capable of fulfilling their ancient role.

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Rivalry between two 'corps d' elite'

May create difficulties for the conscientious historian anxious to hold the balance between them, but it never interfered with the efficiency of either, in the battle field. On the contrary it enhanced it, and that as far as Britain and her Allies were concerned was all that mattered.

As the months went by and each was given more and more opportunities to discover the qualities of the other, mutual criticism dwindled till it became no more than gossip in which the units of a successful army indulge, and which probably does more good than harm.

To know a tree by its fruit is advice backed by the supreme authority of Holy Writ. The fruit of the Commandos, Army and Royal Marine alike, was the sweet fruit of victory.

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