The unmitigated success of the French Canadians raiders forced the British to develop a similar capability of their own. One of the first efforts was in 1744, in the North American theatre of operations, as part of the larger War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). During this conflict, the British presence in the Maritimes was once again prey to the marauding Abenakis and Mi’kmaq war parties that were aligned with the French. As a result, an “independent corps of rangers,” also known as the corps of New England Rangers, was raised. Two companies were recruited and deployed to Annapolis, Nova Scotia, in July 1744 to reinforce the garrison. In September, a third company arrived, led by Captain John Goreham.
Goreham’s command composed of sixty Mohawk and Metis warriors. Familiar with the Native way of war, they swiftly engaged the French and their Native allies. Massachusetts governor William Shirley commended Goreham and his Rangers for their success, stating that “the garrison is now entirely free from alarms.”[8] The majority of the companies later returned to Massachusetts, where they originated, leaving Captain Goreham and his company to patrol Nova Scotia alone from 1746 to 1748. Their success was such that Shirley wrote, “the great service which Lieutenant-Colonel Gorham’s Company of Rangers has been to the Garrison at Annapolis Royal is a demonstration of the Usefulness of such a Corps.”[9]
Goreham’s Rangers continued to serve on the volatile frontier. Prior to the onset of the French and Indian War, also known in its global context as the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), Goreham’s Rangers were used to protect the British settlements in Nova Scotia against Native raids. However, with the official outbreak of the war, they became increasingly involved in military operations, specifically because of their expertise at irregular warfare.[10]
Despite their prior success, Goreham’s Rangers were eclipsed in the war by a British creation aimed at matching the effectiveness of the French Canadian raiders in the strategically important Lake Champlain theatre of operations. What the British eventually created was the legendary Rogers’ Rangers. In the early stages of the war, when fortunes seemed to be against the British, Robert Rogers’s knowledge and experience with the “haunts and passes of the enemy and the Indian method of fighting” soon brought him to the attention of his superior, Major- General William Johnson.[11] By the fall of 1755, Rogers was conducting dangerous scouts deep behind enemy lines. Rogers’s efforts soon earned him an overwhelming reputation. These efforts also led Major-General William Shirley, then the commander-in -chief of the British Army in North America, to argue:
It is absolutely necessary for his Majesty’s Service, that one Company at least of Rangers should be constantly employ’d in different Parties upon Lake George and Lake Iroquois [Lake Champlain], and the Wood Creek and Lands adjacent … to make Discoveries of the proper Routes for our own Troops, procure Intelligence of the Enemy’s Strength and Motions, destroy their out Magazines and Settlements, pick up small Parties of their Battoes upon the Lakes, and keep them under continual Alarm.[12]
By the winter of 1756, Rogers’s bold forays with his small band of unofficial rangers behind enemy French lines were regularly reported in newspapers throughout the colonies. They provided a tonic to a beleaguered English frontier. In March 1756, Major-General Shirley, ordered Rogers to raise a sixty-man independent ranger company that was separate from both the provincial and regular units. As such, it was titled His Majesty’s Independent Company (later Companies) of American Rangers. His unit was directed to scout and gain intelligence in the Lake Champlain theatre, as well as “distress the French and their allies by sacking, burning, and destroying their houses, barns, barracks, canoes, battoes … to way-lay , attack, and destroying their convoys of provisions by land and water.”[13]
The reputation and accomplishments of the rangers soon had an impact on British officers. All wanted rangers to accompany their expeditions as a foil against the enemy’s Canadians and Natives, and because of the rangers’ ability to navigate and survive in the merciless wilderness.
Without doubt, Rogers’ Rangers, as they became universally known, brought to life the ranger tradition in North America and ensured it would forever endure. Their deeds and prowess have with time become legendary, even if this is not fully deserved.
Indeed, Rogers was repeatedly bested by his Canadian counterparts and normally suffered horrendous casualties. Generals Jeffrey Amherst and Thomas Gage considered the Canadians superior to the American Rangers.[14] In addition, throughout this period, Goreham’s Rangers were also active. In 1758, they played an important part in the capture of the strategic Fortress of Louisbourg and a year later assisted in the expedition against Quebec. In fact, at the end of the conflict the British high command rated Goreham’s Rangers, although rarely mentioned, as the most highly rated ranger organization employed during the war.[15]
Nonetheless, Rogers’ Rangers, led by the very adventurous, courageous, and exceptionally tough Robert Rogers, created a very romantic image that seemed to both symbolize, as well as define, the strength of the American ranger.
And the American rangers, together with the Canadian rangers, established a tradition of adventurous, if not daring, action that was very aggressive and always offensively minded. The ranger tradition that was created also valorized the concept of individuals who were seen as mavericks, outside of conventional military institutions and mentality — men who were adaptable, robust, and unconventional in their thinking and war fighting; men who could persevere against the greatest hardships and despite an inhospitable environment and merciless enemy, achieve mission success.[16]
* * *
The tenacious spirit engendered by the rangers in the eighteenth century would remain with Canada’s warriors and be resurrected in future generations. The more contemporary component of Canada’s SOF legacy coincided with the explosion of special operations forces at the commencement of World War II (WWII). In essence, modern-day SOF are largely a phenomena of this era.
Paradoxically, they were largely born in crisis from a position of weakness. They were created to fill a specific gap. In the immediate aftermath of the early German victories, the Allies found themselves devoid of major equipment, with questionable military strength, and on the defensive throughout the world.[17]
Despite the still smouldering British equipment on the beaches of Dunkirk, the combative new prime minister, Winston Churchill, declared in the British House of Commons on June 4, 1940, “We shall not be content with a defensive war.”[18] He was well aware that to win a war meant ultimately offensive action. Only through offensive action could an army provide the needed confidence and battle experience to its soldiers and leaders. Furthermore, only offensive action could sustain public and military morale. Also, offensive action represented a shift in initiative. Striking at the enemy would force Germany to take defensive measures that would demand a diversion of scarce resources.
That afternoon, Churchill penned a note to General Hastings Ismay of the War Cabinet Secretariat, “We are greatly concerned … with the dangers of the Germans landing in England,” he wrote, “… why should it be thought impossible for us to do anything of the same kind to them?” He then added, “We should immediately set to work to organize self-contained , thoroughly equipped raiding units.”[19] After