It was a name intended to strike fear into the heart of the enemy, first recorded – or so the long-debated story goes – in the pages of a German officer’s journal. The entry, said to be discovered beyond the beaches of Anzio, Italy, wrote of the dreaded “Black Devils”, a reference to faces camouflaged with black boot polish and devilish deeds during Allied night patrols.
By that stage – February 1944 – the men of the US-Canadian First Special Service Force (FSSF) had acquired a reputation for engaging in psychological warfare. Calling cards, left on the bodies of dispatched German soldiers, would soon become a crucial component of the elite formation’s cat-and-mouse games. Featuring FSSF’s iconic red spearhead insignia – within which were the emblazoned the names of both nations – the cards offered a chilling message: “Das dicke ende kommt noch!”, which loosely translated as: “The worst is yet to come!” The legend of the Devil’s Brigade was being born.
“A crackpot scheme”
The notion of creating such a unit had evolved not from an American or Canadian mind but that of an eccentric British inventor. “It emerges from Geoffrey Pike, that mad scientist – or mad genius – and his many ideas during the war,” says Dr Tim Cook, chief historian at the Canadian War Museum. “This idea of a raiding force I think comes from a position of weakness for the Allies. We’re losing on most fronts, and… we’re looking for ways to strike back at the Axis forces. Pike has this interesting idea of northern winter
