Really Enraged sent in some great pictures of The Devil’s Brigade in training.
The First Special Service Force, a group of 3,000 American and Canadian soldiers who fought in some of the most dangerous places on earth, trained not far from Last Chance Gulch at Fort Harrison in the middle of World War II. Nicknamed the “Devil’s Brigade,” or the “Black Devils” as one German officer reportedly called them in his diary, they were a fearsome fighting force designed to fight where no other group could.
Little is known about the shutterbug behind the following images. What is apparent is that the person documents, from intimate proximity, the training and preparation the force went through while in Helena.
The First Special Service Force Association obtained the digital negatives and supplied them to special forces historians at Fort Bagg. The negative have since been digitized, and this is one of the first times the images have been published for the public to view.
I would give a click over there. The pictures are something special, showing small town life and how it intersected with a special forces brigade training just a stone’s throw away.
from a different time … today they’d be pelted w/ bags of urine & feces & yelled at for being ‘fascists’
sick times we live in
2 questions:
why is that guy w/ the gas mask holding a huge tuning fork?
allowing children to play with machine guns!?!?!? … I’m soooo triggered!
That’s some weak shit .My father flew 36 straight missions in a B24. So don’t bring that drama class here.
Nice documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQeyyWxsMMY
I had too visit a man for work at his house about 15 years ago. He lives in a trailer park in sunnyvale. A nice park, he invited me in, and I saw he had a bunch of framed military items. One was a certificate with patches for the 1st SF. I had just seen the movie about so I got excited and asked if he was part of the devils brigade. He said he was, he wife have me a look that was part thanks and part “get comfortable, you’ll be here a bit”. That guy told me all about how he got involved, he knew how to ski when not many people did. Told me about his wounds, shot in the butt in Italy. Great day. Skipped my other appointments that day.
It’s easy to poke fun at the Canucks, but they gave some genuine warriors. In fact I think the current long distance sniper shot is held by a Canuck. I have a lot of friends in Canada, good guys.
Growing up in Reno, Nevada, I knew a man named Lewis “Whitey” Bowman, who was an American member of the First Special Service Force. He was in the FSS from beginning to end. He earned his sergeant stripes. Quite a guy. Later, I met two Canadians who were members during the same time in Montana and Italy, and they remembered him. Really tough men.
I try to not brag about other people’s exploits. Its weak.
Different world, different war, and different enemies, over seas and at home.
Tuff bastards all.
Essentially, they were an emergency, desperation unit raised when it looked like the Krauts might actually win. Most of their fighting was of the Ranger type and the survivors of Darby’s Rangers were dragooned into the unit to provide replacements.
Some thoughts on the unit
“2 questions:
why is that guy w/ the gas mask holding a huge tuning fork?”
In a gas attack the FIRST thing you do is mask up. The you give the alarm. Can’t yell very well in a mask so the audible alarm for gas is banging metal on metal to let others know.
Well, I was in The First Special Education Class at Our Lady of the Dripping Pustule Retard School in Scranton.
I meen, that counts fro sumpthin, don’t it?
Love it, great Photo’s !
If I remember correctly, they were trained by British SAS, which explains the guy(s) in berets and plaid pants.
I like the flame thrower; looks just like the weed burner I bought at harbor Freight.