No. 5 Commando was a battalion-sized commando unit of the British Army during the Second World War.
Formed in July 1940, the unit took part in a couple of small-scale raids in France in 1941 and contributed some personnel to Operation Chariot before taking part in the landings on Madagascar in 1942. In late 1943 it was sent to India with the rest of the 3rd Special Service Brigade and subsequently took part in operations in Burma throughout 1944 and 1945.
Following the end of the war the unit undertook occupation duties in Hong Kong where they were amalgamated with No. 1 Commando on 23 March 1946 to form 1/5 Commando before eventually being disbanded in February 1947.
Background The commandos were formed in 1940, by the order of Winston Churchill the British Prime Minister. He called for specially trained troops that would "develop a reign of terror down the enemy coast".Chappell, p.5 At first they were a small force of volunteers who carried out small raids against enemy-occupied territory,Chappell, p.3 but by 1943 their role had changed into lightly equipped assault infantry which specialised in spearheading amphibious landings.Moreman, p.8
The man initially selected as the overall commander of the force was Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, himself a veteran of the landings at Galipoli and the Zeebrugge raid in the First World War.Chappell, p.6 Keyes resigned in October 1941 and was replaced by Admiral Louis Mountbatten.
By the autumn of 1940 more than 2,000 men had volunteered for commando training, and what became known as the Special Service Brigade was formed into 12 units called commandos.Haskew, p.48 Each commando would number around 450 men commanded by a lieutenant colonel. They were sub divided into troops of 75 men and further divided into 15-man sections. Commandos were all volunteers seconded from other British Army regiments and retained their own cap badges and remained on their regimental roll for pay.Moreman, p.12 All volunteers went through the six-week intensive commando course at Achnacarry. The course in the Scottish Highlands concentrated on fitness, speed marches, weapons training, map reading, climbing, small boat operations and demolitions both by day and by night.van der Bijl, p.12
By 1943 the commandos had moved away from small raiding operations and had been formed in brigades of assault infantry to spearhead future Allied landing operations. Three units were left un-brigaded to carry out smaller-scale raids.Moreman, pp.84–85
No. 5 Commando It was initially formed at Bridlington 23 July 1940 from volunteers for special service from units in Western Command.Moreman 2006, p. 12. In October, when the commandos were reorganised into "Special Service" Battalions, No. 5 Commando was amalgamated with No. 6 Commando becoming a company-sized element in the 5th Special Service Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Fetherstonhaugh, based at Helensburgh in Scotland.Moreman 2006, p. 18. In March 1941, the battalion was broken up again into its constituent parts and No. 5 Commando was re-raised under Lieutenant Colonel William Sanguinetti on 26 February 1941,William Scurfield Swire Sanguinetti. formerly of the Hampshire Regiment. They also moved to Barrhead and then Falmouth.
Early raids No. 5 Commando's first operations were undertaken on the night of 30–31 August 1941, when two parties of fifteen men carried out landings near Hardelot and Merlimont in France as part of Operation Acid Drop. The objectives of the raids were to generally harass the garrison and to carry out reconnaissance and gather intelligence. In the end, however, they spent only half an hour ashore and failed to make contact with the defenders before re-embarking on their landing craft.
Later, in March 1942, No. 5 Commando provided a troop of demolition experts to take part in Operation Chariot, the raid on St. Nazaire.Saunders 1959, p. 70. These men were attached to the force under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Newman, who was the commanding officer of No. 2 Commando, which provided the main assault force for the raid. Involving the ramming of a destroyer, into the gates of the drydock at St. Nazaire in France in order to prevent it being used as a base for the Tirpitz, the raid was later described as the "greatest raid of all".Chappell 1996, p. 19.Saunders 1959, p. 68.
Madagascar In early 1942, the British began an operation to seize the island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.Chappell 1996, pp. 22–23. Due to heavy German U-boat and aerial activity in the Mediterranean the main shipping route to India at the time was around the Cape and there were concerns following the advance of the Japanese throughout southeast Asia, that if the Japanese were able to capture the port at Antsirane and the anchorage in Diego Suarez bay then they would be able to disrupt the sea lanes of communication between Britain and the subcontinent.Brayley 2002, p. 13.Saunders 1959, p. 86.
Following the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir a pro-Vichy government had been installed on the island, and the British concern about the island being occupied by the Axis grew. As a result, on 5 May 1942, an amphibious force consisting of three infantry brigade-groups with naval and air support undertook Operation Ironclad.The 29th Brigade was independent brigade group for this operation, while the 5th Division consisted of the 13th and 17th Brigade Groups. For this operation, No. 5 Commando, numbering some 365 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel W. Sanguinetti, was attached to the 29th Brigade and landing ahead of the main force near Courrier and Ambarata Bays on the northern tip of the island and roughly to the west of Diego Suarez, they carried out a raid on a French coastal artillery battery.
It was the first major amphibious operation carried out by Allied forces in the war. At dawn on 5 May, after the transport vessels and their escorts had managed to slip through a stretch of water previously thought impassable due to the presence of reefs, the commandos embarked upon assault landing craft and proceeded to their landing beach down a channel that had been swept clear of mines by a small force of corvettes. Landing at the base of a cliff, which they then proceeded to scale, they achieved complete surprise over the French officers and colonial troops manning the two guns. At dawn they were counter-attacked by a platoon-sized element of French colonial troops against which the commandos carried out a bayonet charge, targeting the non-commissioned officers leading the attack and after they had been killed the remaining defenders laid down their weapons and surrendered. The commando casualties were described as being only "very light" in the brief engagement.
For the next two days, the commandos continued operations around Cap Diego as the main force, having landed at Ambararata, drove towards the port of Antsirane, attempting to take it from the rear—on the opposite headland across the channel from Cap Diego, to the south—capturing Fort Bellevue and the airfield in the process. As part of these operations the commandos marched from where they had landed at Courrier Bay across the isthmus that separated the Cap D'Ambre from the larger land mass to the south, and moved to Cap Diego where they carried out mopping up operations and were briefly engaged with a French Foreign Legion troop and in the battle that followed about 50 legionnaires were wounded.
On 8 May 1942, following an amphibious assault by Royal Marines which were landed from the destroyer HMS Anthony, Antsirane fell and the anchorage captured; the Vichy French forces, however, continued to resist, and having withdrawn to the south, a prolonged land campaign began, although hostilities remained at relative low-intensity level, consisting mainly of delaying tactics on the part of the French.
No. 5 Commando then went briefly to Mombassa where they carried out rehearsals for the next phase of the campaign which, for the commandos, came on 10 September 1942 when they carried out a landing at Majunga, which was another port on the western coast of the island. The plan called for a dawn landing at the docks, but after some of the landing craft broke down they were delayed and the landings took place later in the day without the cover of darkness. As the defending French colonial forces opened up on the landing craft with four machine guns, the support vessels fired on the shore in an effort to provide cover to the assaulting troops, which took a number of casualties as they stormed the quayside. Once ashore, the commandos took control of the local post office, severing communications with Tannanarive, before storming the Governor's Residence and raising the Union Jack.
Later they returned to the anchorage at Antsirane and embarked upon the destroyers HMS Arrow, Active and Blackmore. Escorted a naval force consisting of the battleship HMS Warspite, the aircraft carrier Illustrious as well as three cruisers and 14 destroyers, they took part in a landing at Tamatave, where the garrison surrendered after a heavy naval bombardment, before beginning the advance on Tannanarive, in conjunction with troops from the King's African Rifles who struck out from Majunga. On 18 September, after the French rejected a proposal for an armistice, they took part in another landing, this time at Ambalavo. In October, before the fighting ended—the French finally surrendered on 5 November 1942—the commandos embarked for the United Kingdom, arriving there in December.
Although in the end they were involved in only limited combat, the experience that the commandos gained from this proved valuable later on when they were deployed to the Far East to fight against the Japanese.
India and Burma
1943–44 By 1943 the commando concept had evolved from the original purpose of small-scale raiding and a re-organisation was undertaken in which the units were organised into formed brigades with administrative, transport and other support elements being inserted into the formations, which became part the divisional-sized Special Service Group headquarters under the command of Major General Robert Sturges.Chappell 1996, p. 30.The Special Service Group, and the individual brigades, were later renamed to replace the title Special Service with Commando. This organisation was responsible for administering all the commando units in the United Kingdom (later Europe), Italy, and the Far East. Laffin 1999, p. 18. As a result of this, now commanded by Lieutenant Colonel D.M Shaw, No. 5 Commando became part of the 3rd Special Service Brigade under the command of Brigadier Wilfred Nonweiler,Wilfred Ivan Nonweiler, later major general. along with Nos. 1, 42 (Royal Marine), and 44 (Royal Marine) Commandos.Chappell 1996, p. 28.
In November 1943 the brigade embarked for overseas and after a five-week voyage No. 5 Commando, as well as No. 44 (Royal Marine) Commando, arrived in Bombay, India on 19 December 1943 where they became part of Mountbatten's South East Asia Command, which had been set up earlier in the year.Saunders 1959, p. 304.No. 1 and 42 (Royal Marine) Commandos were diverted en route, after their ship was bombed and they were forced to put into Alexandria while repairs were undertaken. As a result, only half the brigade took part in the initial fighting it undertook, and it was not until September 1944 that all the units were together again. Saunders 1959, p. 304. They moved by rail from Bombay to Poona where they took up residence at Kedgaon and undertook amphibious landing practice at the Combined Training Centre that had been established at Lake Kharakvasla.