Commandos

He's called up in 1939, and he quickly gets attracted to the unconventional style of, you know, military operations.

His best mate, well, one of his best mates from school was a chap called Robert Laycock, who've-- Bob Laycock, who founded the, was one of the founding fathers of the, um, Commandos and joined them.

David Stirling was a friend of his from before the war and said, you know, "I tried everything I could to get Brian to join L Detachment," the first iteration of the SAS.

"He was my top chum, but, uh, was ill," and he, he got these rather ghastly sores, and they thought he had diphtheria.

And-

Cavalry

... and see, this is amazing because if you think about the, the, you know, he's at school, you know, he knows Stirling, he's, you know, he's mates with the f- the guy who's, who's in the Commandos.

Of course, Niven famously goes and works for Phantom a-and never talks about it.

...

the British Commandos and the Paratroopers, so that opens up the door, I believe, for an elite American force such as maybe the Rangers.

Um, same with Soviets.

Maybe we'll see some kind of, uh-

He made a formal proposal along these lines to President Roosevelt in December 1941.

In January, the younger Roosevelt wrote to the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps and recommended creation of a unit for purposes similar to the British Commandos and the Chinese guerrillas.

These ideas were appealing at the time because the war was going badly for the Allies.

The Germans had forced the British off the continent of Europe, and the Japanese were sweeping the United States and Britain from much of the Pacific.

The military forces of the Allies were too weak to slug it out in conventional battles with the Axis powers, so guerrilla warfare and quick raids appeared to be viable alternatives.

The British Commandos had already conducted numerous forays against the European coastline, and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill enthusiastically endorsed the concept to President Roosevelt.

The Marine Commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, allegedly succumbed to this high-level pressure and organized the Raider Battalions, though he himself thought that any properly trained Marine unit could perform amphibious raids.

That scenario is mostly accurate, but it tells only half of the story.

When he didn't have to, he would go out on patrols.

uh with his fellow commandos uh in case there were casualties um i mean after all he had himself completed the insanely tough royal marine commando course alongside them and he didn't think it was his place uh to be back at base uh waiting for patience amongst the comrades uh that he had with him to be produced for him he thought he should be out there with it with the and but the time for which he will always be remembered came in the aftermath of argentina's completely unjustified invasion of the falklands in 1982 under the military junta that reigned there then he was uh leading light in british plans to liberate the islands uh from their invaders in the from the outset and he carefully made arrangements as the senior doctor of three commando brigade to convert the commandeered cruise ship hss canberra into a field hospital and all those plans had to be binned because his commanding officers decided that the risk of argentine aerial attacks meant that she would be have to be parked a minimum of 200 miles offshore which, to state the obvious, is completely suboptimal for a medical center for casualties and triage.

So zero notice.

He finds himself ashore with his medical colleagues, with the British troops that landed at Ajax Bay.

Against a ruthless enemy and in one of the world's most unforgiving environments, these men launched daring amphibious assaults deep into Japanese-held territory, turning the tide of the Burma campaign and delivering a devastating blow to the Imperial Japanese Army.

Military historian Lucy Betteridge Dyson has written a book on this subject titled Jungle Commandos, and Emily Briggett spoke to her to find out more about some of the pivotal moments of this forgotten front of the Second World War.

Thank you so much for joining me today to talk all about the experiences of the Commandos and their allies in Burma, specifically those in the Third Arakan Campaign.

Now, some of our listeners may be familiar with this, some of them may not be.

How has this particular campaign been remembered? Or perhaps might the right word be overlooked?

Yes, absolutely.

So my grandfather was a captain in 44 Royal Marine Commando.

So I grew up hearing all about Kangaw, Hill 170, and I remember at school when we used to talk about the Second World War, and I would say, "Oh, my granddad was in the Commandos," and the response would be, "Oh, was he at D-Day?" And, and I'd be like, "Oh, no, he was in Burma," and you'd just get blank looks back at you.