The Commandos formed during the Second World War, following an order from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in June 1940 for a force that could carry out raids against German-occupied Europe.

Their operations ranged from small groups of men landing from the sea or by parachute to a brigade of assault troops spearheading the Allied invasions of Europe and Asia.

Under the command of Major Ronnie Tod it was an offensive reconnaissance on the French coast south of Boulogne-sur-Mer and Le Touquet.

The operation was a limited success, and the only British injury was a bullet graze to Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke (who was there as an observer), while at least two German soldiers were killed.

[7] A second and similarly inconsequential attack, Operation Ambassador, was launched on the German-occupied island of Guernsey on the night of 14 July 1940, by men drawn from H Troop of No.

[8] In February 1941, a force of commandos under Colonel Robert Laycock was sent to the Middle East to carry out raids in the eastern Mediterranean.

[11] In April, Layforce received orders to begin carrying out raids on the Afrika Korps lines of communication along the North African coast.

[12] The appearance of the commandos behind their lines forced the Germans to divert the main part of an armoured brigade from where they had previously been undertaking offensive action around Sollum, in order to defend against further raids.

They were deployed to the island to carry out raids on the German lines of communications with a view to either turning back the invasion or enabling an evacuation to take place.

[14] By 31 May the evacuation from Crete was drawing to a close and the Commandos, running low on ammunition, rations and water, fell back towards Sphakia.

Laycock and some of his headquarters, including his intelligence officer Evelyn Waugh managed to get out on the last ship to depart, however the vast majority of the Commandos were left behind.

[19] The operational difficulties that had been exposed during the Bardia raid, combined with the strategic imperatives that had developed as the situation in the Middle East had evolved, and the overarching inability of the high command to fully embrace the commando concept had largely served to make the force ineffective and as a result the decision was made to disband Layforce.

In the end, however, they spent only half an hour ashore and failed to make contact with the defenders before re-embarking on their landing craft.

The raid prompted the Germans to reinforce the garrison occupying Norway by an extra 30,000 troops, upgrade coastal and inland defences, and send a number of capital ships to the area.

62 Commando carried out a raid in neutral Spanish Guinea, when they seized an Italian liner, a German tanker and a yacht from Santa Isabel.

The destroyer HMS Campbeltown had 24 Mark VII depth-charges (41⁄4 tons) cemented below decks behind the forward gun support.

Eight hours later, delayed-action fuses set off the explosives in the Campbeltown which wrecked the dock gates and killed some 360 Germans and French.

Among participants in the raid two commandos Lieutenant Colonel Augustus Charles Newman and Sergeant Thomas Durrant together with three members of the Royal Navy were awarded the Victoria Cross, while 80 others received decorations for gallantry.

4 Commando supported by 50 men from the Canadian Carleton and York Regiment and some Royal Engineers, took part in Operation Abercrombie a raid on Hardelot, France.

A fighting patrol of 12 men sent to destroy the searchlights reached their objective but had to retire before pressing home their attack due to lack of time remaining signalled by the re-call rocket.

10 (Inter-Allied) Commando and 50 United States Army Rangers, landed in force and destroyed their target, the artillery battery at Varengeville and most of No.

The raiders were landed by submarine and succeeded in blowing up pipelines, turbines and tunnels, effectively destroying the generating station and the aluminium plant was shut down permanently.

They managed to sink several ships using limpet mines, but were captured and eventually taken to Sachsenhausen and Belsen Concentration Camps where they were executed.

These raids under the code names of Hardtack and Tarbrush were for beach reconnaissance, for the purpose of bringing back photographs and examples of mines and obstacles that had been laid.

[42] Notably the Poles captured a German-occupied village alone when the 2/6th Battalion Queen's Regiment failed to reach a rendezvous on time.

[citation needed] In the India / Burma theatre 142 Commando Company also operated in conjunction with the U.S. unit Merrill's Marauders.

46(RM) Commando (part of 4th Special Service Brigade) landed at Juno to scale the cliffs on the left side of the Orne River estuary and destroy a battery.

47(RM) Commando (part of 4th Special Service Brigade) landed on the west flank of Gold Beach and captured Port-en-Bessin.

After a fierce three-day battle, the Commandos succeeded in clearing the spit separating the lagoon from the Adriatic, so securing the flank of the 8th Army and fostering the idea the main offensive would be along the coast and not though the Argenta Gap.

During the operation, Corporal Tom Hunter of No.43 Commando (RM) earned a posthumous Victoria Cross for conspicuous gallantry when he single-handedly cleared a farmstead housing three Spandau machine guns, then engaged further Spandaus entrenched on the far side of the canal from open ground.