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Trenchead
09-14-2013, 20:19
I am relatively new to this forum and SF culture in general. In being dedicated to attaining the green beret I have not only PT’ed myself daily to an extent in which most people would define as ludacris, but I have also taken it upon myself to tackle the vast extent of knowledge and history surrounding SF (searching for it is almost as difficult as absorbing it). I was fortunate enough to travel to Paris, France this summer, and while there I went to Invalides. Invalides was a hospital that Napoleon built for the injured in his army, but more importantly is now a vast historic museum on warfare. While there, in the WWII exhibit, I stumbled upon a French shout out to the OSS and Operation Jedburgh.

“In September 1943, the Allies decided to constitute one hundred officers teams to be dropped in France to arm and train the maquis, and coordinate their actions. Each one was constituted by a French, an American, and a British, among whom a radio operator. It was the JEDBURGH project. 285 volunteers, all hardened combatants, followed in England, at Milton Hall near Peterbourgh, a three month intensive drill. They will have to command civilian people, to deal with the maquis leaders… The teams were constituted by affinity. Colonel Musgrave, the school commander, decided, in April 1944, the creation of a badge of the SPECIAL FORCES.
The drops spread from June 6th to November 1944, in Bretagne to forbid the troops to strengthen Normandy, in the South-West, in the East of France to create an insecurity state among the enemy and to control the Belfort pass, in the Rhone Valley to make easier the advance of the Allies landed in Provence.
All perfectly marched, in spite of numerous situations caused by the populations, the ground, the enemy, and the men in the maquis who refused to work in Germany, whose training required efforts and cleverness. The result gave a high value information in favor of the Allies. Receving ten thousand weapons, the maquis caused five days delay to the German reinforcements in Normandy, enabling the Allies to ensure consolidation of their beachheads.
First experience of a combined cooperation at the men’s level, it was the one of a methodically organized guerrilla, thanks to drops and to the radio. After the German capitulation, 44 French JED were volunteers to fight against Japan. Dropped into the far east the suffered very heavy casualties.”

As you can see the French to English translation was not proper to say the least. Just passing along what I’ve stumbled upon in my search. All in SF makes more sense in light of its past.

The Reaper
09-14-2013, 21:23
Good find, thank you.

Do us a favor and put a little effort into completing your profile.

Appreciate it.

TR

Richard
09-15-2013, 07:57
To go along with the first post, a name familiar to those of the 1st Special Forces Regiment.

One of the teams operating in advance of Seventh Army was Team Packard. Deploying from Algiers on the night of 31 July {1944}, Packard, under Capt. Aaron Bank, jumped into the Lazare Department, a region of forested mountains and small cities near the Rhone Valley. Caught in the middle of various political squabbles between Communist and Gaullist partisans, they provided assistance to both groups but worked more closely with the non-Communist elements, initially arming and training them, and then accompanying them on occasional forays against railroad bridges and tunnels. When the Germans began to withdraw following Patch's breakout from the ANVIL beachhead on 19 August, the partisans stepped up the tempo of their operations, harassing the Germans with roadblocks and ambushes and providing intelligence and all possible assistance to the advancing Allied forces. To the end the various resistance factions continued to compete with one another, each attempting to be the first to liberate the French cities and towns. Exuberant Frenchmen feted Bank's team with wine and food and even offered free service at a local bordello. By 3 September few Germans remained in the area, and the team drove to Grenoble to await further orders.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/70-42/70-423.htm

The pic is a Jedburgh trooper preparing for a parachute deployment into enemy held territory.

Richard

SF_BHT
09-15-2013, 08:49
Trenchead

Just an observation. The term SF Baby denotes one of two things.

1. Your father was SF.
2. You entered the Army with a contract for SF and made it all the way through the Q and are a graduate on a team. This is the normal use of the term.

Unless you are in a #1 status you might want to edit your profile...
Good luck getting into the 19th SFG

Nice post.

Trenchead
09-15-2013, 18:47
Ha true SF BHT I have not graduated the Q course. Consequence of hastily filling out my profile… In the past soldiers were not permitted to enter into the Q course unless they had two prior years of military experience, or so Linda Robinson says in Masters of Chaos on page 16.

http://books.google.com/books?id=52Wyc-O8s0AC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=linda+robinson+masters+of+chaos+%22SF+babies%22&source=bl&ots=31aUM1TYsX&sig=iUxKbCJbJeRe4DZlPJYLi8ToQsI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=f1E2UsT2GuHqiQLW34Ew&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=linda%20robinson%20masters%20of%20chaos%20%22SF% 20babies%22&f=false

I guess you would not call every 18 X-ray at the start of the Q course an SF baby, but instead just a baby. I’ll correct my profile accordingly. Thanks for the heads up.