Ater World War II ended, a group of Fort Ord-based army officers were enjoying a drink in their favorite bar, under the Sausalito end of the Golden Gate Bridge, when a policeman walked in. His eyes scanned the dimly lit, smoky interior and settled on something that seemed out of place–a soldier with a mustache and two silver stars on each shoulder who looked much too young to be a major general. He was obviously an impostor.

Approaching him, the policeman asked to see some identification. The officer complied, handing his ID card to the policeman. The cop glanced at the photo on it and the rank–major general. ‘Damned good forgery,’ the cop told himself as he flipped the card onto the grimy floor. A split second later, the policeman was lying next to the ID card, his jaw already beginning to swell from the force of the blow that had just been delivered by the mustachioed general. The young man wearing two stars was, in fact, Maj. Gen. Robert T. Frederick, creator and commander of the 1st Special Service Force, one of the most feared–and most fearless–fighting units ever assembled.

Robert Tryon Frederick, son of a San Francisco doctor, impressed almost no one during his four years at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated 124th out of a class of 250 in 1928. The best that could be said of him was that he was an excellent organizer. The academy yearbook, The Howitzer, was not exactly effusive in its description of Frederick: ‘He has a natural and a modest personality that is bound to please.’

Frederick’s early military service was equally unremarkable. Following graduation he was assigned to the Coast Artillery, serving at Fort Winfield Scott in California. He toiled anonymously with that branch for over a decade, graduating from the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Va., in 1938. He then attended Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Two years later he was a major, shuffling papers in the operations department of the War Department General Staff.

By the time the United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, Frederick had been promoted to lieutenant colonel, but he was still shuffling papers at the War Department. One of his duties was to pass judgment on ideas submitted by naive but well-meaning civilians who wanted to contribute to the war effort.

In May 1942, Frederick reviewed a report that boasted a long list of endorsements–including those of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American General George C. Marshall, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The report detailed a plan (Project Plough) involving a diversionary invasion of Norway with a highly trained guerrilla band that would strike deep behind enemy lines. In his memo to his boss, Maj. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Frederick dismissed the idea as militarily unworkable.

The Army did not completely kill Project Plough; it opted instead to proceed with the planning stage, in order to cement British-American solidarity. When someone was needed to command the fledgling project, Eisenhower called Frederick into his office in early June and awarded him the job, declaring: ‘You take this Plough project. You’ve been over the whole thing. You’re in charge now. Let me know what you need.’

By late summer 1942, a unit of Americans and Canadians at Camp William Henry Harrison, near Helena, Mont., was training under the command of 35-year-old Colonel Frederick. Since there was no precedent for the type of multinational guerrilla force he was forming, Frederick was given carte blanche to build the unit as he saw fit. He envisioned three ‘mini-regiments,’ each with about 800 men divided between two (instead of the usual three) battalions. For his troops, Frederick wanted recruits who were strong, intelligent and accustomed to working out of doors in the harshest conditions. He and his staff officers combed American units training in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest for’single men between ages 21 and 35…within the occupational range of lumberjacks, forest rangers, hunters, northwoodsmen, game wardens, prospectors, and explorers’ and requested similar recruits from the Royal Canadian Army. The Canadian troops that soon began arriving at Camp Harrison were some of that nation’s finest volunteers. American unit commanders, on the other hand, were understandably reluctant to let their best soldiers go. As a consequence, many of the Americans ‘volunteered’ for the new unit were delivered to Helena directly from military stockades. It was an odd mix, but one that turned out to work surprisingly well in combat. Frederick immediately set about whipping his tough hombres into a cohesive military formation.

While the recruits were tough (one of the American officers reportedly kept a footlocker full of live rattlesnakes under his bed), the training was tougher. Reveille was at 0445 hours, and physical-fitness training lasted all day, with lectures extending well into the night. Instead of the normal marching cadence of 120 steps per minute, the unit marched at 140 steps per minute, and 50-mile hikes with full field gear were the norm. Every man–chaplains included–was required to become an expert with a wide variety of weapons, and knife-fighting techniques were taught with special relish. They learned how to kill silently with their bare hands and how to fight dirty, showing no mercy. They became demolition experts and skilled at using the enemy’s weapons.

Because they still expected to fight in Norway, cold-weather training was essential, and skiing and snow-shoeing went on throughout the bitter Montana winter of 1942-43. So did parachute training, for that was how they expected to enter Norway. Men who could not keep up the grueling pace or who ‘froze’ in the door of a Douglas C-47 during a jump were washed out. And Frederick pushed himself just as hard as he pushed his men.

The unit needed a name. ‘Braves’ became a sort of an unofficial moniker. But Frederick came up with ‘Special Service Force,’ which he preferred because it gave nothing away. Some people even thought it was part of the Army’s entertainment arm, the Special Services.

Although most of Helena embraced the multinational force, a few locals caused problems. One night while the Americans and Canadians were drinking together at a bar, a handful of miners began making unflattering comments about some of the kilt-clad Canucks. While the Canadians stoically ignored the remarks, their Yank comrades beat the stuffing out of the miners. Shortly thereafter, American uniforms were issued to everyone in the force.

While the Yanks and Canucks generally got on well with one another (they were integrated in each platoon and company, not segregated by nationality), the Yanks were paid more than their northern neighbors, which caused some friction. What diffused the tension somewhat was that the Yanks were paid once a month and were usually broke a day or two after payday, but the more frugal Canadians were paid twice a month and always seemed to have a few extra dollars to loan to their comrades from the south.

As training for an invasion of Norway continued, contingency plans were considered for other missions–to drop the force into Romania to destroy German-held oil fields and pipelines; to descend upon Italy and destroy the electricity-generating capabilities in the mountainous north. Both plans were scrapped. The unit would now concentrate solely on Norway.

In the autumn of 1942, Frederick flew to England to work out what he thought would be last-minute details about the Norway operation, dubbed Operation Sledgehammer. Instead, he learned this mission also had been scrubbed.

Frederick was disheartened. What could he tell his men, whom he now regarded as potentially the most effective fighting unit ever assembled? The Allies were fighting in North Africa, a theater that had no use for the force’s winter training. Questions were raised about the need for the force at all during that period.

Returning to the States, Frederick discovered that the Canadian government was on the verge of pulling the plug on future Canadian participation in the amalgamated unit. General Marshall intervened, however, and persuaded the Canadians to stick with it.

Back in Montana, Frederick and his staff informed the Braves of what had transpired and assured them they would undoubtedly soon have a combat role. Their training began taking on a broader focus. Mountain climbing gained new emphasis, and the men perfected their skills at operating the Johnson light machine guns, flamethrowers, mortars, demolitions and a new shoulder-fired rocket launcher nicknamed the ‘bazooka.’ A new amphibious tracked personnel carrier, the T-24 (later standardized as the M-29) Weasel, also arrived.

Rumors of a variety of missions floated around Camp Harrison–the Caucasus Mountains, New Guinea and elsewhere. Yet the first overseas assignment turned out to be much closer to home, on the island of Kiska at the far end of the Aleutian chain, some 1,000 miles west of the Alaska mainland. The Japanese had captured nearby Attu Island, and it took a superhuman effort and many casualties for the Americans to retake the island. A larger, even better entrenched enemy was known to be waiting on Kiska.

In April 1943, the force left Montana to undergo amphibious training at Norfolk, Va. Frederick’s men performed so well that they completed their training a week before the course was scheduled to end. The men had grown bored with the training, which they considered too easy. For amusement they began picking on Marines in Norfolk, disarming them on the street. The Marine base commander was displeased by those shenanigans and ordered Frederick to curtail his unit’s extracurricular activities or his men would be thrown into the brig. Instead of complying, Frederick bet the Marine general $10 that his men could overcome the base’s tight security. The general took the bet. The next morning, Frederick drove the general around the base, showing him where his men had planted simulated demolitions during the night–including under the base commander’s own bed!

After Norfolk, it was on to Chesapeake Bay, where the force set more records in loading from transports into landing craft. Frederick’s men then moved to Fort Ethan Allen, Vt., where they practiced river-crossing techniques on Lake Champlain. They were then shuttled to the West Coast and, in July 1943, set sail with 40,000 other troops for the invasion of Kiska, the largest amphibious assault of the war up to that point. Paddling ashore in the dark in rubber boats, the men rapidly reached their assigned beaches, expecting the enemy to open up on them the moment they hit the shore. But all was silent. The 12,000 Japanese on Kiska had been secretly evacuated by sea a few days before the invasion forces landed. Some of the Allied units remained to garrison the barren, windswept island, while Frederick’s force was ordered to Italy, where it arrived two months after the nearly disastrous Allied landings at Salerno.

Lieutenant General Mark Clark’s Fifth Army–a mixture of American and British units–had run up against the German Gustav Line at the southern entrance to the Liri Valley. Rome lay less than 100 miles to the north, and Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s troops were determined to make the Allies pay in blood for each inch of ground. Stretching across the mountains and fields from the Ligurian Sea to the Adriatic side of Italy, the Gustav Line bristled with bunkers, pillboxes, minefields and gun emplacements. The Allies were faced with the challenge of trying to break through a nearly impregnable wall defended by a battle-hardened, well-entrenched enemy during what would be one of Italy’s worst winters.

On November 22, 1943, the 1,800-man-strong 1st Special Service Force (1st SSF) was attached to Maj. Gen. Fred L. Walker’s 36th Infantry Division, a National Guard outfit from Texas. The 1st SSF was to spearhead the Fifth Army’s drive against Monte la Difensa and Monte la Remetanea, about four miles south of a village called San Pietro. The two rugged mountains guarded the entrance to the Mignano Gap, southeast of Cassino, which was scheduled to be assaulted by the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division. It was a tough assignment for an outfit that had never seen combat.

The attack was set for December 2. Since Monte la Difensa was closer to the Allied lines, it would be the first assaulted. The 3,120-foot mountain is an impressive sight, with a 200-foot cliff starting at 2,000 feet above sea level on its north side and six ledges rising above it, each roughly 30 feet apart. On top of the mountain were veterans of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. The Germans had already repulsed other Allied attempts to take the high ground, and corpses littered the slopes. Frederick personally reconnoitered the mountain, along with a handful of his best men, looking for routes to the top.

At dusk on December 1 the Braves were hiking 10 miles through a cold downpour while artillery shells from both sides shrieked overhead. As the troops neared the mountain, Allied shells plastered it. ‘It looked like the whole mountain was on fire,’ said one man.

Throughout December 2, Frederick’s men dug shelters into the mountainside, to await the order to begin the attack on the 4th. As darkness descended, the Americans and British began a fearsome barrage. Before dawn on the 4th the SSF emerged from their holes, their faces blackened with burnt cork, their weapons loaded, their knives sharpened to a fine edge. Sensing imminent attack, the Germans brought down artillery and mortars on the most likely approach routes.

With ropes where necessary, men of the 1st SSF’s 2nd Regiment, many lugging machine guns, climbed for hours with stiff, frozen hands to finally reach the rain-slicked, rocky ledges above the sheer cliff. They lay there as still as stones and were soon glazed over, encased in icy shells. The men were so close to the German positions that they could smell food being cooked and hear the enemy cursing the steady rain. Right behind the advance elements came Frederick and his staff.

At the appointed hour, the men slithered from their rocky perches into the entrenchments of the German outposts, silently slitting the throats of the guards. No one was supposed to fire until 0600 hours, but when a section of loose rock clattered down the cliff, the Germans were alerted and began sending flares up and shells down. Bullets rattled and whined back and forth in the dark. Both sides exchanged grenades, their targets illuminated only by explosions or the constant popping of aerial flares. A 1st SSF captain was trying to take a surrendering German prisoner when the German’s comrade sprang from his hiding place and shot the officer point-blank in the face, killing him. From then on, Frederick’s men took no prisoners unless specifically ordered to do so for interrogation purposes.

Frederick was in the thick of the fight, giving orders, repositioning machine guns and firing at the enemy with his own .45. Two hours after the battle began it was over. Those Germans lucky enough to be alive scrambled down the mountain as fast as they could. Thinking that the enemy would probably stage a counterattack against his men, whose supplies were running out, Frederick radioed the troops below to begin hauling supplies to the summit, a six-hour trip. When the pack mules were unable to make the steep climb, men lugged the food, water and ammunition on their backs, each man making two or three climbs a day and returning with dead and wounded.

Although Monte la Difensa was in American hands, the Allied position was not as secure on the other nearby peaks. The British had taken a neighboring mountaintop monastery, only to lose it to a German counterattack. Instead of waiting for the anticipated German counterattack on la Difensa, Frederick decided to attack Monte la Remetanea at dawn the next day.

That night was wretched. Cold, unrelenting rain beat down on the unprotected men, as did an unending rain of German mortar shells and rockets from the new multibarreled Nebelwerfer rocket launchers nicknamed’screaming mimis’ by the Americans. The force’s 1st Regiment, commanded by Lt. Col. Alfred C. Marshall, began to take casualties from the shelling.

Because of the heavy enemy fire, the SSF assault on Monte la Remetanea was delayed for a day. A thick fog settled over the mountain, providing the 1st SSF concealment but no cover. Moving out one by one, or in small patrols, Frederick’s men crept through the fog to kill Germans in their foxholes, up close and personal. Soon the entire southern slope of the mountain was in 1st SSF hands. At nightfall, Frederick directed his assistant commander, Colonel Paul D. Adams, to round up 15 cases of bourbon to warm and reward his men. The Fifth Army filled the requisition without hesitation.

The next day, the 1st SSF moved out to eliminate a particularly troublesome group of Germans located in a monastery in the saddle between two hills. Although outnumbered 4-to-1, the men filled the air with their battle cries and savagely attacked the enemy positions. German soldiers who failed to retreat were killed on the spot. No prisoners were taken.

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