The Canadian – American 1st Special Service Force
By John Dudek @ The Wargamer
Freezing rain and biting sleet pelted the men of the elite Canadian-American 1st Special Service Force (aka The Devils Brigade) as they climbed the ice slick ropes up the steep side of Monte la Difensa Italy on the night of 2 December 1943. After hours of climbing the sheer rock mountain walls with their weapons and heavy packs strapped onto their backs, the men of the Second Regiment reached its summit and deployed, going to ground to lie motionless in holes and defiles well above the dug-in German positions further down the mountain. Before long the men lying absolutely still on the ground, were encased in a thin rhyme of ice. They were nearly completely glazed over as they waited patiently for the remainder of their men to join them and begin the attack on the clueless Germans still sleeping below. In the wee hours of the morning, and at the appointed attack hour, the Forcemen, with their faces blackened with boot polish, arose in a body and low-crawled to enter the German defensive trench works, silently slitting the throats of every sentry they encountered. The Germans, still fast asleep in their bunkers, at first remained completely unaware of their enemy’s presence. Around 0600 hours, one of the advancing Forcemen tripped a loose shale of rock sending a cascade of gravel and rocks noisily rattling downhill. One of the surviving German sentries popped a parachute flare skyward, bathing the mountain top in unworldly magnesium light and the fight was on. Both sides exchanged grenades, their targets illuminated only by explosions or the constant popping of aerial flares. A 1st SSF captain was trying to take a surrendering German prisoner when the German’s comrade sprang from his hiding place and shot the officer point-blank in the face, killing him. From then on, Frederick’s men took no prisoners unless specifically ordered to do so for interrogation purposes.
