SAS and Special Forces in World War II

An NCO from 13e Démi-Brigade Légion Étrangère (13e DBLE), proudly holds the brigade flag atop a truck in the North African desert, 1942.

UNITS

LAND

The Belgian SAS

The French Foreign Legion

French Special Air Service

AIR

Normandie-Niemen Squadron

BELGIUM AND FRANCE

Their countries overrun by the Nazi aggressors, a large number of fighting men from Belgium and France found their way to Great Britain and enlisted in a variety of units, some retaining the distinction of their national origin, while others became members of the British military. Throughout the war, the soldiers of the SAS, the French Foreign Legion, and the Normandie-Niemen Squadron resisted the enemy and upheld their national honor, contributing significantly to the Allied victory and the liberation of their native lands.

THE BELGIAN SAS

FOUNDED: 1942

STRENGTH: 120

THEATRE: WESTERN EUROPE

In the spring of 1940, France and the Low Countries fell victim to the marauding German Wehrmacht following an extended period of inactivity along the Western Front which had become known as the 'Sitzkrieg'. Within a matter of weeks German forces had reached the English Channel, compelled the British Expeditionary Force to evacuate the European continent at Dunkirk, and taken hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Organized resistance crumbled and the Belgian armed forces effectively ceased to exist.

Although their country was overrun, a large number of Belgian expatriates enlisted in the armed forces of the British Commonwealth, fighting in the air, on land and at sea. Often, these patriotic Belgians became members of standard British units. One exception, however, was the Belgian Independent Parachute Company (BIPC), which was formed at Malvern Wells, Worcester, on 8 May 1942, upon the order of Henry Rolin, the Undersecretary of Defence for the Belgian Government in exile.

Company A, 2nd Battalion Belgian Fusiliers, which consisted of volunteers from North and South America, and a platoon of the 1st Battalion Belgian Fusiliers consolidated with former members of the Belgian armed forces to form the BIPC, and paratroopers won their wings at the Ringway Parachute School in 1942. Further training took place in company with units of the British Special Air Service (SAS) at such locations as Inverlochy Castle in Scotland. By February 1944 the BIPC was formally absorbed into the SAS. Captain Eddy Blondeel, a resident of Ghent and an engineer in peacetime, commanded the unit, which was designated '5 SAS' and numbered about 130 men.

Members of 5 SAS participated in numerous operations behind German lines in the summer of 1944. Belgian SAS troopers often operated in small groups, disrupting enemy supply and communications, gathering intelligence, inflicting casualties and supporting advancing Allied units. In July 1944, during Operations Chaucer, Bunyan and Shakespeare, three teams of six men were dropped into northern France on reconnaissance missions. In August, three groups of 15 soldiers parachuted into the Perche hills in support.

The largest Belgian airborne action of the war occurred in August when 80 troopers parachuted into France east of the Falaise Pocket, from which thousands of retreating German troops were attempting to escape a rapidly closing trap. During Operation Trueform, members of 5 SAS harassed the enemy at every opportunity and kept Allied commanders apprised of the direction of German troop movements.

The Belgian SAS used heavily-armed jeeps that were ideal for quick raiding in the fighting that occured in the low countries in the spring of 1944.

ALLIED AND ORGANIZED

When eight members of 5 SAS parachuted into the Ardennes Forest of France on 15 August and moved across the border into Belgium, they became the first Allied soldiers to enter that country in more than four years. Soon after, a group of 11 soldiers were mistakenly dropped east of the enemy's Westwall defences, becoming the first organized Allied formation to enter Germany in World War II.

Several groups of SAS men fought in the Ardennes with highly mobile Jeeps, which had been parachuted to them. These Jeeps, equipped with Vickers machine guns, facilitated the hit-and-run tactics of the SAS. The Belgians took a heavy toll in the Ardennes, killing approximately 300 Germans and destroying 100 vehicles along with large stores of supplies. Near the Belgian town of Peer, elements of 5 SAS attacked a well protected battery of heavy artillery, destroying numerous guns and killing 52 Germans, with the loss of only a single trooper.

In support of Operation Market-Garden, the airborne invasion of the Netherlands in September 1944, the Belgian SAS troopers were dropped at numerous key positions. Before withdrawing in the spring of 1945, these men aided the escape of British airborne troops through German lines and transmitted intelligence on enemy troop dispositions. Another group parachuted into the Netherlands in October and remained there until the following April, training members of the Dutch resistance. One 5 SAS trooper was captured, brutally interrogated, and executed on 10 April.

ARMOURED JEEP

The heavily-armed Jeeps used by the SAS were driven into combat during operations involving only ground movement or parachuted to the soldiers during airborne missions. These rugged vehicles were reinforced with steel plating for added protection and armed with twin .30-caliber Vickers or Browning machine guns, or a combination of the two. With all guns in action, a single Jeep could fire up to 5,000 rounds per minute. The Vickers K weapon, originally an aircraft weapon, was well adapted to the hit-and-run tactics of the SAS. In order to carry the necessary fuel, food, and water, eeps were stripped of non-essential parts, including windshields, radiator grill bars, and bumpers. By the summer of 1942, the SAS operated 15 specially equipped jeeps in North Africa.

DESPERATE FIGHTING

In the autumn of 1944, the men of 5 SAS were transferred to a Belgian base and reorganized for a primary mission of reconnaissance. The desperate fighting during the Battle of the Bulge required the unit to deploy in heavily armed Jeeps as a screening force for the right flank of the British 6th Airborne Division, while gathering intelligence and making contact with the left of the hard pressed US Army in the Ardennes.

Following its withdrawal to the Belgian port city of Antwerp, 5 SAS participated in Operation Larkswood in support of Canadian and Polish armoured and infantry units in the Netherlands. The paratroopers met stiff resistance from a German naval unit fighting as infantry at Oosterhesselen and along the approaches to the town of Winschoten. During the Allied advance into Germany, 5 SAS was involved in bitter clashes with German troops as the Canadians and Poles pushed toward Emden and Wilhelmshaven. Two Belgian troopers were killed in action during the final week of the war.

Immediately after the unconditional surrender of Germany, 5 SAS was designated for counterintelligence work and aided in efforts to apprehend fugitive leaders of the former Nazi government. The Belgians participated in the capture of Admiral Karl Doenitz, successor to Adolf Hitler, and members of his government at Flensburg. They also arrested Alfred Rosenberg, the leading Nazi philosopher and Reich Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories. A Belgian SAS member was among a group of men who surprised Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, arresting him in his pyjamas in a Hamburg apartment.

From July 1944 to May 1945 the soldiers of 5 SAS constituted the only Belgian unit employed regularly in combat. Casualties suffered during operations in Western Europe totalled 16 killed and 58 wounded.

THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

FOUNDED: 1931

STRENGTH: 2000

THEATRES: NORTH AFRICA, ITALY

Already a legendary fighting force at the outbreak of World War II, the French Foreign Legion was formed more than a century earlier, in the spring of 1831. At first, the nature of global war and the numerous nationalities represented within the ranks of the Legion posed problems for the French Government.

In particular, large numbers of Germans had traditionally served in the Legion, and on the eve of the war as much as 80 per cent of its noncommissioned officers were German. It quickly became apparent that the German intelligence service, the Abwehr, had begun to infiltrate the Legion, spreading Nazi doctrine, coercing and intimidating otherwise loyal German and non-German Legionnaires alike. The French Government dealt with this internal threat in part by dispatching many Germans to desert posts in North Africa or the Middle East. Elements of the Foreign Legion were also deployed as garrison troops on the Maginot Line, the string of fixed fortifications which stretched along France's border with Germany from the Swiss frontier to Belgium. Foreign Legion units were stationed in numerous locations around the world when the war began, and fighting men from as many as 50 different nations populated new Legion regiments, which were activated in the autumn of 1939.

At the Battle of Gazala, the Legion played a crucial role in holding the Allied extreme left flank to protect the strategically important...