No.10 (Inter-Allied) Commando 1942–45

Wars always bring disruption to the essentially conservative nature of armies, as they are forced to accept non-conformists into their ranks. A feature of World War II was the appearance of irregular forces, some of which remained in orders of battle after hostilities came to an end in 1945. For the British armed forces, the development of the Army Commandos in 1940 led to a permanent place in the post-war forces for the Royal Marines Commandos, whose story has been repeated and analyzed frequently. However, the special character of No.10 (Inter-Allied) Commando, which led inevitably to its disbandment soon after the end of the war, has sometimes had the result of its being regarded as somehow ‘outside’ the World War II British order of battle. So far only one book – the excellent 10 Commando, by Ian Dear (see Bibliography) – has examined the remarkable history of this unit, and the remarkable characters who served in its ranks, who faced even more complex dangers than their comrades-in-arms in other Commando battalions.

The fact is that these men, recruited from among those exiled or escaped from Occupied Europe, were as much involved in fighting the Germans, Italians (and even on one occasion, the Japanese) as the conventional ‘Free’ forces that gathered in Great Britain from 1940. Many of these foreign volunteers had left families at home at the mercy of the Third Reich; and those who made up its No.3 Troop, in particular, necessarily served under false identities. No.10 (Inter-Allied) Commando as a whole was not a secret unit in the true sense of the term; nevertheless, it has been far less publicized than the other Commandos, and thus its history has disappeared from popular consciousness more quickly and more completely. In the case of No.3 Troop, records were destroyed in 1945–46 to protect its former members from identification by Soviet agents, as the threat to the Western democracies changed.

It is hoped that this brief history of a remarkable Allied fighting unit will do something to revive its memory. To set it fully in context it should be read as a companion to Elite 64, Army Commandos 1940-1945, and Elite 57, The Royal Marines 1939–1993.