four years he was the commander of the 1st Special Service Force, a unit so feared by the Germans that Frederick and his men were nicknamed ‘the Black Devils’, a sobriquet in which they revelled. Intended as a US-Canadian special winter warfare unit, the 1st Special Service Force fought in the bitter Italian campaign of the winter 1943/44, and Frederick’s ‘devils’ played a vital role in the landings at Anzio. An unassuming but fearless Special Forces brigadier who often commanded his troops from positions of exceptional danger, it was Frederick’s fighting record that earned him his place in military history, with Winston Churchill calling him ‘the greatest fighting general of all time’.
The inventor Geoffrey Nathaniel Pyke was an opinionated, argumentative, dogmatic English eccentric who rarely washed or shaved. Having read law at Cambridge, the physically fragile Pyke found work as a war correspondent during World War I, later working as a financier and educator before turning his first-class mind to invention.
The Times of London would describe him in his obituary as ‘one of the most original, if unrecognized figures of the present century’ and certainly Pyke was one of the first men in the 1930s to realise the extent of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany. He was also able to grasp quicker than most what would happen to British cities if the German Luftwaffe launched the same intensity of bombing raids that they had on Spain during the Civil War. It was Pyke’s suggestion (which was ignored) that the chalk deposits in Wiltshire and Devon should be hollowed out and used as shelters for Londoners.
Pyke was 45 when war broke out in 1939, a middle-aged man bitter and disappointed that none of his ideas had received the acclaim he believed they deserved. But still he persevered and in 1940 produced a paper in which he outlined how a force of highly trained soldiers could wage a guerrilla war behind German lines with the aid of his mechanical innovation.
The paper was timely, coming shortly after Winston Churchill had replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister and instructed the War Office to raise a commando force. Yet despite this the paper received a muted response from the military and Pyke was left once more to fume against those who failed to recognize his genius. Then, in October 1941, Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed Chief of Combined Operations, and among his tasks was the initiation of British commando attacks against German targets in Europe.
Mountbatten learned of Pyke’s memo from the previous year and invited him to his headquarters to hear more. Within minutes Mountbatten was convinced that Pyke was on to something; having first explained to Mountbatten that 70 per cent of Europe was covered in snow for five months of the year, Pyke unveiled the mechanical innovation that would enable the British to exploit the continent’s weather to their advantage: a motorized snow plough capable of travelling across the icy terrain at great speeds. Pyke’s plan was for a small force of highly trained soldiers to parachute into Norway, Denmark and the Alps, along with several of the snow ploughs, and then attack key German targets such as bridges, tunnels and hydroelectric plants that the British feared would be used in the production of atomic weapons. With the Germans possessing no comparable form of winter transport they would have to counter the saboteurs by drafting in large numbers of troops, thereby causing them maximum inconvenience.
Pyke was thrilled that his intellect had at last been recognized. Within a short space of time he had his own office at Combined Operations HQ and answered to the title ‘Director of Programmes’ as he began work on ‘Project Plough’.
On 11 April 1942 Mountbatten briefed Churchill on Project Plough at a meeting in which President Franklin Roosevelt was represented by Harry Hopkins, his unofficial emissary in London, and General George Marshall the
The inventor Geoffrey Nathaniel Pyke was an opinionated, argumentative, dogmatic English eccentric who rarely washed or shaved. Having read law at Cambridge, the physically fragile Pyke found work as a war correspondent during World War I, later working as a financier and educator before turning his first-class mind to invention.
The Times of London would describe him in his obituary as ‘one of the most original, if unrecognized figures of the present century’ and certainly Pyke was one of the first men in the 1930s to realise the extent of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany. He was also able to grasp quicker than most what would happen to British cities if the German Luftwaffe launched the same intensity of bombing raids that they had on Spain during the Civil War. It was Pyke’s suggestion (which was ignored) that the chalk deposits in Wiltshire and Devon should be hollowed out and used as shelters for Londoners.
Pyke was 45 when war broke out in 1939, a middle-aged man bitter and disappointed that none of his ideas had received the acclaim he believed they deserved. But still he persevered and in 1940 produced a paper in which he outlined how a force of highly trained soldiers could wage a guerrilla war behind German lines with the aid of his mechanical innovation.
The paper was timely, coming shortly after Winston Churchill had replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister and instructed the War Office to raise a commando force. Yet despite this the paper received a muted response from the military and Pyke was left once more to fume against those who failed to recognize his genius. Then, in October 1941, Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed Chief of Combined Operations, and among his tasks was the initiation of British commando attacks against German targets in Europe.
Mountbatten learned of Pyke’s memo from the previous year and invited him to his headquarters to hear more. Within minutes Mountbatten was convinced that Pyke was on to something; having first explained to Mountbatten that 70 per cent of Europe was covered in snow for five months of the year, Pyke unveiled the mechanical innovation that would enable the British to exploit the continent’s weather to their advantage: a motorized snow plough capable of travelling across the icy terrain at great speeds. Pyke’s plan was for a small force of highly trained soldiers to parachute into Norway, Denmark and the Alps, along with several of the snow ploughs, and then attack key German targets such as bridges, tunnels and hydroelectric plants that the British feared would be used in the production of atomic weapons. With the Germans possessing no comparable form of winter transport they would have to counter the saboteurs by drafting in large numbers of troops, thereby causing them maximum inconvenience.
Pyke was thrilled that his intellect had at last been recognized. Within a short space of time he had his own office at Combined Operations HQ and answered to the title ‘Director of Programmes’ as he began work on ‘Project Plough’.
On 11 April 1942 Mountbatten briefed Churchill on Project Plough at a meeting in which President Franklin Roosevelt was represented by Harry Hopkins, his unofficial emissary in London, and General George Marshall the
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