For fans of The Greatest Generation, Ghost Soldiers, Flyboys and Band of Brothers comes this splendid account of America's first Special Forces unit, the First Special Service Force.
They were a team of commandos considered the forefathers of the Green Berets and credited with turning the tide of the Italian campaign in the Second World War.
It's 1942 and Hitler's armies stand astride Europe like a colossus. Germany is winning
on every front. This is the story of how one of the world's first commando units,
put together for the invasion of Norway, helped turn the tide in Italy.
1942. When
the British generals recommend an audacious plan to parachute a small elite commando
unit into Norway in a bid to put Nazi Germany on the defensive, Winston Churchill
is intrigued. But Britain, fighting for its life, can't spare the manpower to participate.
So William Lyon MacKenzie King is contacted and asked to commit Canadian troops to
the bold plan. King, determined to join Roosevelt and Churchill as an equal leader
in the Allied war effort, agrees.
One of the world's first commando units, the First
Special Service Force, or FSSF, is assembled from hand-picked soldiers from Canadian
and American regiments. Any troops sent into Norway will have to be rugged, self-sufficient,
brave, and weather-hardened. Canada has such men in ample supply.
The all-volunteer
FSSF comprises outdoorsmen - trappers, rangers, prospectors, miners, loggers. Assembled
at an isolated base in Helena, Montana, and given only five months to train before
the invasion, they are schooled in parachuting, mountain climbing, cross-country
skiing, and cold-weather survival. They are taught how to handle explosives, how
to operate nearly every field weapon in the American and German arsenals, and how
to kill with their bare hands.
After the Norway plan is scrapped, the FSSF is dispatched
to Italy and given its first test - to seize a key German mountain-top position which
had repelled the brunt of the Allied armies for over a month. In a reprise of the
audacity and careful planning that won Vimy Ridge for the Canadians in WWI, the FSSF
takes the twin peaks Monte la Difensa and Monte la Remetanea by storming the supposedly
unscalable rock face at the rear of the German position, and opens the way through
the mountains.
Later, the FSSF will hold one-quarter of the Anzio beachhead against
a vastly superior German force for ninety-nine days; a force of only 1,200 commandos
does the work of a full division of over 17,000 troops. Though badly outnumbered,
the FSSF takes the fight to the Germans, sending nighttime patrols behind enemy lines
and taking prisoners. It is here that they come to be known among the dispirited
Germans as Schwartzer Teufel (""Black Devils"") for their black camouflage face-paint
and their terrifying tactic of appearing out of the darkness.
John Nadler vividly
captures the savagery of the Italian campaign, fought as it was at close quarters
and with desperate resolve, and the deeply human experiences of the individual men
called upon to fight it. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with
veterans, A Perfect Hell is an important contribution to Canadian military history
and an indispensable account of the lives and battlefield exploits of the men who
turned the tide of the Second World War.
