Vaagso (Norway) Raid: Ch. 3. Commando Operations
I was watching an episode of World War II in Color on the Military Channel last night, which included a discussion of the formation and employment of the
British Commandos as a means to bring the war to Germany after the fall of France.
pps 9-10 wrote:The term [commandos] was first used by the Boer guerrillas in South Africa. The Boer commando units consisted of field cornetcies (150 to 200 men), v/hich were subdivided into corporalships of about 25 men. The Boer units were loosely organized and disciplined. They were irregular guerrillas in the traditional sense of the term, depending on nationalism and the ineptitude of the British for success. Both were available in abundant supply. Their World War II counterparts were just the opposite. The men of Combined Operations were professional soldiers, picked from the Independent Companies that had been raised for the Norwegian expedition and from volunteers. They were subject to military discipline and training, which, if unorthodox, was still of a professional military caliber. ] They qualified as guerrillas only in the sense of professionals fighting la petite guerre or kleinkreig ("little war"), a conflict or strategy waged within the scope of a larger conflict or strategy. The commandos of World War II were a product of both traditional skirmishing tactics and modern technology. The hybrid was created for the purpose of striking back at the Germans. Raiding was one meâns of doing this. An army does not have to do things in a big way to hurt the enemy; anything that drains the enemy's resources is justifiable military action. Temporary occupation of enemy territory, such as Churchill envisioned, is one way. Even less
ambitious raid can cause the enemy more loss than he inflicts, hurting him both materially and psychologically. This application of "little war" can also drain and overextend his resources. In 1940 raiding was one of the few options open to Britain for bringing military force to bear against the enemy. This was to be done initially by ten commando units (35 officers and 500 men each), ten troops of 50 men to a commando [unit].
Commando operations in Norway by Simon Orchard provides a nice summary of the 10 commando operations that the UK, Canadians and Norwegians took against German forces in Norway. 4 of 10 of these operations involved significant number of commando raiders (i.e., 800, 1500, 800 & 300 men). I thought I had remember from the WW-II in Color episode that Germany stationed 250,000 men in Norway throughout the war. In searching to try to confirm this number I found an article on
Norway's liberation that puts that number at 360,000 to 400,000. Specifically,
It was widely feared that the war would end differently. Such apprehensions had a basis in arithmetic - the Germans had a huge concentration of armed forces on Norwegian soil. As many as 400,000 men- members of the German army, navy and air force - were stationed in Norway and when the Third Reich's collapse drew near, there were still 360,000 enemy troops in the country.
Regardless, British and Canadian commando operations supported by Norwegian resistance fighters caused Hitler significant grief. Enough grief for him to station 5 to 7 corps worth of troops there for the entire way and, from
British Commandos,
"In October 1942 Hitler issued his famous "Commando Order," which called for the execution of all Allied commandos and paratroopers captured by the German Army. Failure to obey this order was punishable by court-martial. No specific penalty was specified, but disobeying the order amounted to disobeying a direct order from the commander-in-chief. It was obeyed in all theaters except North Africa, where Rommel was the commander. The members of these special forces were entitled to full rights as prisoners of war by the Prisoner of War Convention of 1929, and a number of Germans who obeyed the order faced war crimes charges at the end of the war. Hitler's order amounted to an official German recognition of the commandos and their potential to damage the German cause. The commandos were quick to realize this."
