The Daring Dozen Page 7

  Allied to this vision was Stirling’s character, his determination, defiance, humour and his unshakeable belief in his conviction. As Sir Fitzroy Maclean – who served with the SAS in 1942 – said in Stirling’s eulogy: ‘There was about him, as about many great men, an element of mystery, an intangible quality, akin perhaps to what [T.E.] Lawrence called “the irrational tenth, like the kingfisher flashing across the pool”.’43

  * Davies was one of the original members of the SAS and was killed in Germany in April 1945

  * Note that it was not until September 1942 that L Detachment was expanded into the 1st Special Air Service Regiment, abbreviated to 1SAS.

  EDSON RAFF

  82ND AIRBORNE

  To his men Edson Duncan Raff was known as ‘Little Caesar’ and to the rest of the US Army his men were known as ‘Raff’s Ruffians’. Both monikers were uttered with respect, and not a little affection, for in World War II Colonel Edson Raff proved himself an outstanding leader of men, and the soldiers who served under him fought with courage from North Africa to Normandy and on into Germany. As the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Raff led the first American airborne operation of the war as part of Operation Torch in November 1942. Later he saw action in North-West Europe where he combined great personal courage with astute military thinking, and in the years after World War II Raff was at the forefront of the development of American Special Forces.

  Edson Raff was born in New York City in November 1907 to Edson and Abell Raff, one of four children. Little is known of his formative years, other than that he attended a small preparatory school in Winchester, Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley Academy, where he excelled at sport and was captain of the cadet force. The academy’s superintendent was a reserve colonel. ‘From that tough old guy I learned three things,’ recalled Raff years later. ‘One, I don’t give a damn for any man who doesn’t give a damn for me; two, be able to look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell; three, Stonewall Jackson’s battles in the Shenandoah Valley [during the American Civil War], which I remembered in Tunisia later on.’1

  In 1928 Raff enrolled in the Military Academy at West Point and five years later he graduated, one of 347 graduates whose passing-out parade was attended by Douglas MacArthur, Chief of Staff of the US Army. For the next few years Raff’s military career meandered slowly along, and when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the act that triggered the outbreak of World War II, he was a junior infantry officer and stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

  Raff subsequently claimed in his wartime memoirs, We Jumped to Fight, that in August the following year he noticed an article in the New York Times about the raising of a test platoon of American parachutists at Fort Benning, Georgia. The one officer and 48 men had been assigned to the Infantry Board from the 29th Infantry Regiment following the War Department’s decision the previous January to explore the possibility of American airborne troops.

  ‘Not being sure if a first lieutenant of infantry having a C.A.A [Civil Aviation Authority] commercial pilot’s license and a yen for adventure possessed the necessary qualifications I nevertheless decided then and there to be a parachutist,’ wrote Raff in his memoirs.2

  Raff fired off letters, the first to the Adjutant General in Washington requesting his ‘six month extension in the Hawaiian Department be curtailed immediately’, the second to the Chief of Infantry asking for permission to join any putative paratroop unit. The Adjutant General denied his request and the Chief of Infantry, Major General Stephen Odgen Fuqua, prevaricated and said he’d be in touch.

  Six months later Raff did receive a new posting, but it was to the 23rd Infantry at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and not to the airborne unit he so craved. For two miserable months Raff undertook ‘field manoeuvres in the Texas rattlesnake country’ until one day an order arrived, stating simply: ‘Detailed to report not later than June 1st [1941] to the 501st Parachute Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia.’

  Raff arrived in Georgia in a state of high excitement and was cordially welcomed by his commanding officers, Lieutenant Colonel William Miley, and Lieutenant Colonel William Lee, head of the Provisional Parachute Group, who had taught Raff tank tactics at the Infantry School in 1937.

  On 4 June Raff began training to become a paratrooper. He and his fellow recruits began with physical training, such as long runs and calisthenics ‘to harden the muscles’ as well as learning the parachute roll on landing. ‘Our class started like all the others before us, full of vim and raring to jump’ wrote Raff in a letter to an aunt on 26 June 1941. ‘It wasn’t long before most of us realized the course was downright hard labor … in the rest period we’d make a rush for the water spigot to drink until all the perspiration just lost could be replaced and the vicious circle would start once more – sweat and drink, sweat and drink.’3

  From rolling around on mats, the aspirant paratroopers progressed to leaping off raised platforms, first 3ft and then 5ft in height. The next jumps were from a dummy fuselage, from where the troops learned not just how to land but also how to leap into space, individually and en masse. After the fuselage the instructors had the recruits use a ‘Lulu’, a contraption that Raff explained to his aunt: ‘It’s a trolley affair on an inclined rail down which rolls the would-be parachutist hanging in a suspension harness. At some uncertain moments during the downward roll the instructor gives a jerk on a control in his hand releasing the student. No one ever knows when he’ll be released so all during the roll he has to be prepared to land feet apart, then make the somersault. Most of the time we were eating sawdust from the pit into which we drop.’

  If there was sufficient wind at Fort Benning, the recruits would don parachutes and allow themselves to be dragged across the grass so they could learn how to arrest the chute in a heavy breeze. They were also given endless lessons in folding and packing the ‘silk’, with their instructors telling the volunteers that his parachute was as important to an airborne trooper as a rifle was to an infantryman.

  Having learned how to leap from a 90ft tower, the day arrived when Raff and his fellow recruits were given the chance to make their first jump proper. Raff, who was known by his middle name of ‘Duncan’ to family members, described the experience to his aunt:

  Our novice jump took place on a day which was clear and still. The engines of two C-39 transport planes warmed up as we lined up for inspection … when we passed over a certain spot on the ground, lieutenant Walters, the jumpmaster said, ‘Number One, stand up!’ The first man stood on his feet. Walters looked him over, then gave the command, ‘Hook up!’

  Number One snapped the static line attached to his parachute on the steel anchor cable running down the centre of the transport. Next came the command, ‘stand in the door!’ The student obeyed; for a few tense seconds he stood there ready for the leap into space. Then lieutenant Walters said ‘Go!’ Out went the tyro on his first trip to mother earth. The rest of us watched him gradually lose altitude and disappear far to the rear of the plane … then came number Seven. ‘captain Raff, stand up!’ yelled lieutenant Walters.

  ‘Hook up!’

  I hooked up.

  ‘Stand in the door!’

  There I stood, looking out at the earth moving slowly by 1,500 feet below. My hands lightly touched the metal fuselage, ready to make the push off. The propeller wash (we call it the ‘prop blast’) came through the door in intermittent gusts. Thus, on the threshold of a new world, I waited for the fatal ‘go’.

  I felt a tap on my right leg. Walters was saying ‘Go! Go!’ and out I went.

  Deep down a submerged voice seemed to be counting ‘one thousand, two thousand, thr-’ but before I could finish ‘three thousand’ there was a jerking on my shoulders and I knew the chute had opened. It was a peculiar pain, strangely exhilarating. In spite of the frequent shoulder bruises from the opening jar the real joy of having that ’chute open knows no bounds. There was plenty of time to gaze around as a slight breeze drifted the chute
and me to the south. After looking up at the canopy to see that it was completely open, I tried some turns and slips. Then I gazed around some more … I noticed as I looked down that the earth seemed to be coming up toward me. The speed of its approach increased and, for the first time, I realized my drift was rearward. Working the risers (they run from the shoulders to the lines running down from the chute) I prepared to land. Both feet hit the ground at once, then a backward somersault, and the jump was over. The grassy field underfoot felt solid and good.4

  Having qualified as a parachutist, Raff was appointed executive officer of the 504th Parachute Battalion on 6 December 1941. The following day the Japanese air force attacked Pearl Harbor on what President Franklin Roosevelt declared to be a ‘day of infamy’. On 8 December the United States of America declared war on Japan and three days later a similar announcement was made concerning Germany.

  The declarations of war affected Raff little in the short term. In March 1942 the 504th Parachute Battalion was renamed the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Parachute Infantry* and Raff – now a major – was appointed its commanding officer. He trained his men at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, night and day, recalling in his memoirs that ‘when I told them that we were going places some day, that our battalion would do any and all jobs, fighting either the Japs, the Germans or both, if I had to volunteer to do it, they cheered’. Behind his back, however, Raff had been christened ‘Little Caesar’ for the relentless way in which he drove his men. They respected their chief’s toughness and his willingness to train alongside his men, but they disliked his autocratic style of leadership. Unlike the democratic Evans Carlson, who at the same time was whipping his 2nd Raider Battalion into shape in California, Raff believed unequivocally in the military chain of command and he did not tolerate indiscipline from the men in his battalion.

  In May 1942 Raff received orders to ship out for England, and the new airborne battalion did so in the utmost secrecy. Before leaving Fort Bragg they removed all airborne insignia from their battledress and travelled to New York as an infantry battalion. On 6 June Raff and his men sailed from New York on board the erstwhile luxury liner, Queen Mary, and by the end of the month they were encamped on the sprawling Berkshire estate of Chilton Lodge, a 16th-century manor house that belonged to Mrs Jean Ward, the daughter of Whitelaw Reid, who was the US Ambassador to Britain from 1905 to 1912. Mrs Ward loaned the house’s extensive grounds to the American military for the duration of the war and Raff’s battalion was the first unit to take up occupancy in the Nissen huts erected on the estate.

  Upon arrival in England, Raff (now a lieutenant colonel) came under the operational command of Major-General Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning of the British 1st Airborne Division. Raff welcomed the association and in the weeks that followed he learned much from his Allies. A two-week field exercise was conducted in Devon and the American paratroopers travelled to the British parachute training school in Ringway, Manchester, to practise low-level drops from 650ft.

  Despite the rigorous training there was still no indication that the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry would soon be in action, and by late July 1942 the men were suffering from every soldier’s worst enemy – boredom. Raff’s men chafed at the inactivity, as Baron Frederich von der Heydte’s had in the weeks before the invasion of Crete 15 months earlier, though at least the American airborne troops had a plentiful supply of local girls on hand to help while away the hours off-duty.

  When Raff and his men were waiting impatiently to put their training to the test, events that were unfolding elsewhere would grant them their wish. On 13 August Lieutenant General Dwight Eisenhower, who had arrived in England two months earlier in command of American forces, was appointed to command Operation Torch, a mission designed seemingly to appease Stalin, who for several months had been pressing the Americans and the British to open a second front to ease the pressure on Soviet troops engaged in repulsing the German invaders on the Eastern Front.

  The Americans believed the best course of action would be a landing in northern France in September 1942, codenamed Operation Sledgehammer, but the British convinced their Allies that they lacked the men and equipment to successfully establish a foothold in France. In addition the British were still fighting Axis forces in North Africa, and their priority was to win that campaign so that they could control the Mediterranean. Eventually the Americans agreed to Operation Torch, an invasion of French north-west Africa, understanding that with the whole of Africa in their possession they could use the continent as another base from which to attack Germany.

  The great imponderable concerning Operation Torch was the French and how they would react. Though France was now governed by the collaborative Vichy government, many of its overseas territories were Vichy in name only, with French soldiers desperate to fight against the Germans.

  The Allies drew up a plan for an invasion of French north-west Africa in November, in which three task forces would seize the main ports and air bases in Morocco and Algeria, enabling the invasion force to then strike east into Tunisia and attack the German forces – which by that time were in retreat from Egypt following the British Eighth Army offensive at El Alamein in late October. The ultimate aim of Torch was to crush the Axis forces in a pincer with the British applying the force from the east and the Americans from the west.

  Eisenhower tasked Major General Mark Clark of II Corps with planning the airborne phase of Operation Torch. Clark had seen the potential of paratroopers from the very first days of their existence in the States, and at his headquarters in Norfolk House in London he devised a mission for Raff’s battalion.

  What he produced was a daunting challenge for Raff. Flying 1,500 miles from England to Algeria, his men would seize the military airfields of La Sénia and Tafaraoui and thereby prevent French fighter planes from attacking the main invasion fleet as it came ashore. No large-scale airborne assault had ever flown such a distance to its target but despite that, and the fact his men had no combat experience, Raff had every confidence in his battalion, informing Clark in a note:

  There is no doubt in my mind that we can accomplish the mission, provided:

  (1) we get a break by the Air Corps and (2) by the weather. And provided

  (3) I am permitted to command my paratroopers when we hit the ground.5

  Granted permission to lead his men into battle – and ordered not to disclose to them their destination until instructed – Raff returned to his battalion’s training camp and pushed the men even harder, telling them they would soon see action. They asked where, but Raff refused to reveal the target, leading his paratroopers to speculate on where they might be headed. Most guessed France, but there were one or two extravagant claims suggesting they were to drop into Berlin and kill Hitler himself. In his memoirs Raff described how ‘all our battalion training and manoeuvres were directed towards the accomplishment of the mission … [we] hiked across country the exact distance [we] actually would march to the objective, which, in the exercises was always an airfield with planes to be destroyed thereon. The remainder of the battalion moved the same distance it would have to move, then assumed firing positions which were similar to the ones to be taken on D-Day.’6

  They practised jumping at night, as they would have to do in Algeria, and before long Raff’s battalion could land in any given area and be assembled within 20 minutes. ‘Little Caesar’, though he didn’t let on, was delighted with the discipline and professionalism of his battalion.

  Hours were spent studying models of their target (whose identity was still unknown to the men), with everyone from company commanders to buckshee privates instructed in their own individual task. ‘It was also intended,’ commented Raff, ‘to divert personnel from rushing into the first fight they heard or saw, thereby forgetting their primary role.’

  Shortly before the battalion flew to Ireland for a final dress rehearsal, a war correspondent from Time magazine visited Chilton Foliat to watch the battalion at work. The article appeared in the ed
ition dated 12 October, and described Raff’s men as ‘swashbuckling Hell’s Angels’. The article continued:

  [They] make up the most justifiably pampered outfit in the A.E.F. [American Expeditionary Force]. U.S. paratroopers get top pay—$50 extra for men, $100 for officers. They were the first taken off the monotonous English ration and given American victuals, including Southern fried chicken; they have the most cats & dogs (which they carry around in musette bags and take up in their planes), the smartest outfits (sleek high boots for town wear) and the latest and best equipment (including the 4-lb., 30-calibre automatic carbine, light field pieces, mortars, grenades, knives, bayonets, Garands and antitank guns).

  Their leader, Lieut. Colonel Edson Raff, 34, fatalistically explains the extra fire power: ‘We want to keep from being eliminated any quicker than we have to.’ Chafing to become advance agents of a second front, the troops keep on jumping, make exhaustive night marches over stone-wall-patched English fields, learn to use knives, to drive continental locomotives. When not included in the Dieppe raid the jumpers moped. One drank himself into the town jail.

  Upon arrival in Britain the doughboy jumpers went to work at their 800-ft jumps (U.S. Army minimum). Tommy counterparts were making jumps from even lower altitudes. Sensitive Colonel Raff cabled for permission to lower the jumps and shortly made a new record for the lowest (secret) mass jump without casualties.

  Although Colonel Raff is a physical culturist and does not smoke, drink or play cards, his men have more than usual liberty. They gamble extra pay as they must soon gamble their lives. The galloping dominoes were so profitable for one Alabaman that he sent $4,000 home to the folks. After a round of poker, blackjack and craps the cash-lousy chutists took over an entire hotel for a clambake. Camaraderie between officers and men is encouraged by Colonel Raff, whom they call ‘Little Caesar.’ He is tough enough himself not to lose authority by personal contact. Says Raff: ‘In a plane, I’m just another guy named Joe.’7