FEARSOME BLACK DEVILS

An all too obscure vignette of Canadian military history is our involvement in a super-elite, American-Canadian commando unit — The “First Special Service Force” — during the Second World War. It was formed in July 1942 from carefully screened Canadian and U.S. volunteers, many of whom were formerly hard rock miners, explosive specialists, skiers, parachutists, hunters and rugged individualists. Popularized in a somewhat distorted 1968 Hollywood movie as “The Devil’s Brigade,” the unit became better known and feared by the Axis and Allies alike as the “Black Devils.”