Canada, however, was initially slow to react to the commando concept. Moreover, its commitment to creating an elite commando unit in World War II did not last very long, a reality that betrayed the nation’s underlying sentiment toward SOF-type units. In fact, the government’s creation of the Canadian “Viking Force” was actually a response to public criticism at home and the opportunity the British raiding program provided. Major-General Harry D.G. Crerar, reacting to public criticism and government pressure to get Canadian troops into the fray, since they had been in England for almost two years and had still not engaged in battle with the enemy, took the initiative as the acting commander of the Canadian Corps and spoke to his immediate superior, Lieutenant-General Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of the South-Eastern Army in England, about utilizing Canadian troops in a commando role.
Montgomery was not a proponent of SOF forces, but he did see raid ing as a means to instil offensive spirit and combat experience within his command. As such, Crerar did not have a hard sell. “I believe that occasions will increasingly present themselves for small raids across the Channel opposite the Army front,” Crerar argued, “in default of a reputation built up in battle, the [Canadian] Corps undoubtedly would receive great stimulus if, in the near future, it succeeded in making a name for itself for its raiding activities — a reputation which, incidentally, it very definitely earned for itself in the last war.”
Montgomery replied, “Your men should be quite first class at raiding” and he gave Crerar the green light to run Canadian raiding activities from the port of Newhaven.[34]
Crerar lost no time and on March 6, 1942, discussed raiding operations with the director combined operations, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Mountbatten was initially reluctant to accept Canadian participation in raiding because he felt that it would dilute the role of the British Commandos, who had a monopoly on the activity. However, Mountbattten was well attuned to political realities and made an exception. He laid out two conditions for the Canadians:
1 ample time should be allowed for proper organization and training — this was stated to be six to eight weeks; and
2 the enterprise should be known only to the Corps commander, BGS (brigadier general (staff)), and a limited number of his own (Mounbatten’s) staff.[35]
That afternoon, a second meeting between Crerar, BGS Guy Simonds, and Brigadier J.C. Haydon, commander of the special service force (SSF), transpired.[36] In this forum the senior officers present reached a decision to create a Canadian commando unit of two hundred men, who were to start training by mid-March .
The Canadian commando unit, named Viking Force, was based on 2nd Division. Within a fortnight, 267 volunteers from the division were training at Seaford in the muddy estuary of the Cuckmere River in Sussex. The Viking Force organization was based on the British Commandos but was on a smaller scale. The headquarters section was led by a major and comprised twenty-four all ranks. A further thirty-six officers and men staffed the support squadron (i.e., intelligence, signals, and medical). The remaining 130 personnel were divided into two troops, each consisting of five officers and sixty men. The Viking Force placed heavy emphasis on firepower. In addition to the standard .303 Lee Enfield rifle, each troop carried four Bren light machine guns and eight Thompson submachine guns, as well as two anti-tank rifles and a two-inch mortar.
Within days of the commencement of training, instructors whittled the large group of volunteers down to its official strength of 190 all ranks. From April 4, 1942, personnel from the SSF joined the men of Viking Force to increase the intensity of the training and begin to turn them into hardened commandos. The commanding officer (CO) responsible for whipping the Canadian neophyte commandos into shape was Major Brian McCool of the Royal Regiment of Canada.
During the last half of April 1942, training intensified. It now included speed marches with weapons and sixty-pound rucksacks, river crossings, leaping from crags into sand pits fifteen feet below, cliff climbing, and night manoeuvres. If the men did not get back to the beaches in time to be ferried to the mother ship during these training exercises, they had to swim back with their full equipment .
On April 30, Montgomery visited Major-General Andrew McNaughton, the Canadian Corps commander, and they agreed that the Canadians should form the main striking force for a planned raid on the French port of Dieppe. That same day, McNaughton’s headquarters issued a training instruction to enlarge the scale of combined operations training. This new direction was designed to cover the training of 4 and 6 Brigades for the large conventional raid planned on Dieppe. Therefore, before Viking Force was even fully established, BGS Simonds already laid the blueprint for its demise. “Personnel of detachments which have completed [combined operations/commando] training in accordance with Instruction No. 7,” he ordered, “will be returned to parent units and employed as a cadre to develop combined operations techniques within the latter.”[37]
As a result, Viking Force became swept up in the preparations for Operation Rutter (i.e., the Dieppe raid), and the intensive training that had been reserved for the elite of Viking Force was now extended to the entirety of 4 and 6 Brigades. Quite simply, Major McCool and his cadre became instructors for the others. In this regard, from the end of May to the beginning of July the Viking Force cadre became key to the efforts to help 4 and 6 Brigades master the rigours of amphibious warfare.
However, with the emphasis on conventional forces to take over the raiding role it was not surprising that Crerar wrote on June 4, 1942, “The opportunity to land on enemy shores may not long be denied us.” He added,
The training of detachments, units and formations of the Canadian Corps, with this end in view has already proceeded some distance.… It is the intention that it shall be carried through to the stage when every formation of the Corps is thoroughly capable of taking full part in operations involving the landing on beaches in enemy occupation, and the rapid seizure and development of “bridgeheads.”
He ended his missive with a revealing, “There must be no need for the Canadian Corps to call upon outside, and special ‘Commando’ units for assistance in initial beach-landing operation.”[38]
The new Canadian approach was a polar opposite to the original intent. Viking Force had been intended as a hard-hitting group of specially trained raiders whose job was to inflict damage on the enemy in limited operations using surprise as a major element and then employing their skills to withdraw before enemy had time to recover. Diluted among the battalions in 4 and 6 Brigades during the ill-fated Dieppe raid on August 19, 1942, the original Viking Force commandos were never given the opportunity to do the job they had been trained for. In the aftermath of the disastrous raid, no effort was made to resurrect Viking Force.[39]
However, the Dieppe raid did lead to the establishment of another SOF-like Canadian organization, namely the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) Beach Commandos. Their genesis stemmed from the Dieppe raid, where Royal Naval (RN) Beach Parties (“C,” “D,” and “H”) were responsible for disembarking troops and vehicles from assault landing craft, organizing and supervising suitable “beach” areas, and loading serviceable vessels at the time of withdrawal. Of the two hundred navy personnel assigned to the Beach Parties during the Dieppe raid, sixty-three became casualties. As a result, all three RN Beach Parties had to be totally reconstituted. Not surprisingly, soon after Dieppe the Admiralty decided to change the Combined Operations Beach Party Branch name to “Naval Commandos.” Accordingly, the Admiralty directed that twenty Beach commandos would be required for the invasion of Occupied Europe (i.e., two each for three assault divisions, one per assault brigade, with 100 percent spare in reserve).[40]
The RCN soon created its own capability and