British Officers recruiting in Canada, December 1940 and later

Folks,

I am seeking information, documented or anecdotal, regarding the presence of British Officers and NCOs recruiting in Canada in 1940 for volunteers for "Special Service with HM Forces".

I have personal correspondence detailing the presence of British personnel at then Camp Borden, ON (and ostensibly other camps) during December 1940. I assume their recruiting extended to either side of that date.

Potential volunteers were singled out by their parent command and called for interviews with their CO and the visiting British personnel. The highest ranking British Officer was a Colonel according to my source. They were seeking single men with top-notch records and perhaps with prior service. Each man was interviewed separately, given about 15 minutes decide while another was interviewed, and then re-interviewed for their answers. Four of the five men interviewed with my source volunteered. After volunteering at Camp Borden and a short period of leave, my source tells me he and the three others joined nearly a company of men from regiments all over Canada near Ottawa (?) just after Christmas 1940.

The group was sub-divided into smaller groups of 36 or so. Their training continued at Camp Debert, NS, Quebec and western Newfoundland (opposed landings, cliff assaults, etc.) and as far northwest as Churchill, MB (skiing). Rumor among the men was that they were going to Scandinavia, but I doubt this was official; probably common sense and an educated guess considering the stage of the war.

Training was intensive to the extreme and casualties were sustained as live ammunition and explosives were the norm in their training. Many exercises had “welcoming committees” using live ammunition. After one particularly brutal exercise which resulted in several deaths the group of 36 my source was in was re-interviewed en masse by the same British Officers and were offered a chance to withdraw and RTU. I'm told none did from this group of now, 33 or so.

This group, or parts of it, continued to Scotland via Iceland where the training continued and got worse.

I have no evidence whatsoever that this group formed a commissioned Canadian unit per se and I'm not suggesting it did (although it would be easier to trace that way). More likely it served as a manpower source for existing British units (Commandos and the like).

There is evidence of individual Canadians serving with Commandos both early and late, but British records on this topic (Canadian participation) are woefully incomplete and inconclusive. I would not be surprised if this group(s) provided later volunteers for other special service/combined operations forces such as FSSF, No. 14 (Arctic) Commando and others, but this is 100% speculation at this juncture.

There is some discussion that members of this group may have been seconded to SOE or SIS (or other?) or at least used by these organizations in some fashion on raiding parties into occupied territory. I have no evidence of this except the word of authorities on these organizations, some of whom were participants themselves. Their comments to me were "this almost certainly is factual as described, but you'll likely never prove it".

I would appreciate your thoughts and recommendations on the pursuit of this topic to include names of personnel, locations, possible units involved, etc. I am seeking information from the late 1940 to early 1941 time frame, but will accept any thoughts of early or later periods if it helps distinguish a pattern.

Operations would have been, at a minimum, in Norway and Holland, and the raiding parties most likely composite British/Canadian. The utmost secretiveness was demanded and records kept to an absolute minimum, if at all. These operations DO NOT appear to be part of the plethora of information on the Commandos and other more publicized Combined Operations; Lofoten, Vaagso, Dieppe, etc. They appear to be more clandestine than that and been kept secret "for fear of embarrassing those with whom we were allied".

I am spreading the net far and wide on this topic. I have made multiple trips to Canada, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Holland and soon Germany for a look at any available archives, interviews with personnel who might have been involved and among researchers with similar interests and expertise.

Please forward this e-mail to any one you believe might be able to add something with particular emphasis on any of the original FSSF members or their families who might have started out being recruited like this.

If anyone has contact information from Mr. John Nadler (author of Perfect Hell) I would appreciate it.


v/r

Jeff O'Connell
Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
West Africa