Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406030105
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The first Allied unit to enter Rome as the Germans withdrew was the First Special Service Force. It was a little-known joint U.S. and Canadian airborne commando unit, a forerunner of today's U.S. Army Special Forces - the "Green Berets."
The memory of the First Special Service Force, nicknamed "Devil's Brigade," is carried on by the First Special Service Force Association, located in William Story's home at Smith Mountain Lake near Moneta.
For Story's native Canada, World War II began in September 1939. After Germany invaded Poland and France, Great Britain and British Commonwealth countries declared war on Hitler's regime.
Story joined the Winnipeg Light Infantry in 1940. He was in British Columbia waiting to go to officers' candidate school when he accepted a chance to take paratrooper training.
Because Canada had no paratrooper training facilities of its own, Story and other volunteers found themselves aboard a train in August 1942 headed south. They thought they were going to Fort Benning, Ga., where U.S. paratroopers normally were trained. But the train pulled into Fort William Henry Harrison, an old National Guard base near Helena, Mont.
Story was in the First Special Service Force, an idea of the combined operations command of British Gen. Lord Louis Mountbatten. An officer on Mountbatten's staff had decided there was a need for a unit trained to fight in snow, because three-fourths of Europe was snow-covered four months of the year.
The idea of a multinational force appealed to Allied leaders, particularly U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was eager to get U.S. forces involved in the war. Because Britain could not provide the men to fight beside the Americans, Canada agreed to do it.
Two Canadians were put with two Americans to a tent. The soldiers of the two countries got to know each other quickly. After the Canadians shed their tam-o'-shanters, kilts, shorts and leggings, one couldn't distinguish a Canadian from an American on Last Chance Gulch, Helena's main street.
The training in Montana was so rigorous that they had no time for kitchen duty and had other soldiers waiting on them, Story said. Two days after his arrival, Story began parachute training with an instructor from Fort Benning.
The unit also was trained in mountaineering, skiing and hand-to-hand combat. Amphibious assault training and training in small-unit tactics followed at bases in the East.
But the three main missions for which it was formed were ruled out for various reasons.
A plan to blow up power plants in Norway was abandoned because the Norwegian government objected. The plants were powering iron ore mines and heavy water manufacturing for the German atom bomb project.
A second mission, to parachute into Romanian oil fields that were supplying Germany, was called off when defenses were bolstered there. A third plan, to attack Italian power stations in the Alps, also was dropped.
Missions then were found for Story's unit in the Aleutian Islands and in Italy.
Assigned to Gen. Mark Clark's 5th Army, the force first entered combat on Dec. 3, 1943, when it scaled the Italian peak of Monte La Difensa south of Cassino and took the German defenders by surprise. Several mountaintop battles followed.
Story said his scariest time in combat occurred at La Difensa, when a barrage of German rockets, called "screaming meanies," came down on a terraced field next to him.
Next, Story was sent to the Anzio beachhead south of Rome. Taking over what was left of the 1st Ranger Battalion as replacements, they were on the beachhead without relief for 99 days.
Every night, they patrolled, Story said. Blackening their faces, they would harass the Germans blocking the way out of the beachhead. It was there they earned their nickname, "The Devil's Brigade."
The First Special Service Force was the first to enter Rome in numbers. It captured seven bridges over the Tiber River before being relieved, Story said.
While the fighting in Italy continued, Story and the rest of the American-Canadian unit took part in the invasion of southern France in August and drove to the Italian-French border. At a small town there, they were disbanded on Dec. 5, 1944. After D-Day, the time for small unit operations was over.
"It was a real shocker," Story said. "You talk about strong men weeping."
There was a parade. The troops were lined up and the Canadians were ordered to fall out.
Story saw more action with a British airborne unit in Germany.
After the war, he earned an MBA from the University of Chicago and went to work in public relations for the American metal industry in Washington. Retirement brought him to Smith Mountain Lake.
The force's association has 1,400 on its mailing list and has several local chapters, the biggest of which is in Helena, where its first reunion was held in 1947.
There has been a reunion every year since then. This year's will be in October in Columbus, Ga.
by CNB