The 1st Special Service Force was an elite joint American–Canadian commando unit in World War II, formed by Lieutenant Colonel Robert T. Frederick of the Operations Division of the U.S. General Staff.

This was part of the British approach to encouraging innovative warfare methods and weapons during World War II, which was personally backed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

While working for the British Combined Operations Command, Pyke devised a plan for the creation of a small, elite force capable of fighting behind enemy lines in winter conditions.

This was to have been a commando unit that could be landed, by sea or air, in occupied Norway, Romania, or the Italian Alps for sabotage missions against hydroelectric plants and oil fields.

Pyke requested that a tracked vehicle be developed especially for the Norwegian operations, capable of carrying men and their equipment at high speed across snow-covered terrain.

Pyke suggested that Allied commandos be parachuted into the Norwegian mountains to establish a covert base on the Jostedalsbreen, a large glacier plateau in German-occupied Norway, for guerrilla actions against the German army of occupation.

Pyke persuaded Mountbatten that such a force would be virtually invulnerable in its glacier strongholds and would tie down large numbers of German troops trying to dislodge it.

With input from an international team that included Canadian inventor George J. Klein,[6] Studebaker subsequently created the T-15 cargo carrier, which later became the M29 Weasel.

[7] Generals Marshall and Eisenhower had already discussed PLOUGH with the British high command and were unwilling to give up a chance to open an American front in Europe.

[14] Following initial training period in Montana, the FSSF relocated to Camp Bradford, Virginia, on 15 April 1943, and to Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, on 23 May 1943.

Members of the FSSF also wore a red, white, and blue fourragère, lanyard, or shoulder cord made out of parachute suspension lines.

American members of the FSSF arrived for training in Helena in standard U.S. Army attire: green twill coveralls, some wearing khaki pants and fatigue hats.

The scouts reported to Lt. Col. T. C. MacWilliam (who would lead the 2nd Regiment's assault on La Remetanea) that the best way to approach the entrenched enemy was up an almost vertical escarpment over the right of the hill mass.

After reaching the base of the mountain and having had a single night's rest, 2nd Regiment (600 men total) began their ascent of La Difensa on 2 December at dusk under cover of a heavy artillery barrage.

Initially, the soldiers were given the order to hold their fire until 6 AM, but the Germans noticed the Allied movent after some FSSF men tripped over loose gravel while moving along the mountaintop.

During the Monte la Difensa campaign the 1st SSF units engaged suffered 77% casualties: 511 total, 91 dead, 9 missing, 313 wounded with 116 exhaustion cases.

Radcliffe's men passed by the now silent machine gun bunkers and reached the summit without firing a single bullet, the Germans taken by total surprise.

[42] The Special Force brigade was withdrawn from the mountains in January and, after bringing in new replacements for their previous losses, on 1 February was landed at the beachhead created by Operation Shingle at Anzio, south of Rome.

[43] However, there was insufficient time to train the new additions to the same high level of skill as the first generation of FSSF soldiers, and Frederick reported that the capabilities of the Brigade were no longer as finely prepared for special assignments.

Its literal translation is actually "The thick end is coming soon", implying that a larger force was on its way imminently, placing these stickers on German corpses and fortifications.

On 14 August 1944, the 1st SSF, now restored by recruitment to a 2,000-man unit, landed on the islands of Port Cros and Île du Levant during Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France.

Villeneuve-Loubet holds a special place in the history of the force, not only because the unit was broken up there, but also because it is one of the villages that the 1st SSF had the hardest time capturing in southern France, on 26 August 1944.

Frederick had come to believe that the Force was now reliant upon assisting units of artillery and tanks, due to the type of assignments they were now being given, and were no longer utilizing special operations skills.

Some American members were sent to airborne divisions as replacements, others to Ranger Battalions, and still others formed the 474th Infantry Regiment, which served with the Third United States Army and performed occupation duty in Norway.

The First Special Service Force was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Silver-Gilt Star, as well as the US Distinguished Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism.

A large number of the "Devil's Brigade" members were honored for their acts of valor, including Tommy Prince, Canada's most decorated First Nations soldier of World War II.

[53] Also, U.S. member Wendell C. Johnson (Fifth Company, Third Regiment, serial # 37 168 437), risking his life to save a fellow Black Devil, walked into a minefield and brought his brigade comrade to safety.

[55] The Devil's Brigade is a 1968 film starring William Holden, Cliff Robertson, and Vince Edwards, focusing on the force's training and deployment to Italy.

The 1968 film Anzio featured Peter Falk as Corporal Jack Rabinoff, who identified himself to co-star Robert Mitchum as a member of the American-Canadian 1st Special Service Force.

The Marvel Comics character Wolverine claimed several times that he was a member of the Devil's Brigade during the war — being Canadian-born during the last years of Queen Victoria's reign, it fits.