Category: Soldiering
In 1979 Barry Sadler published the first of a series of 53 historical fantasy books orbiting around Casca Rufio Longinus, the Roman legionary who purportedly pierced the side of Christ with the Holy Lance. Barry Sadler was a Vietnam-era US Special Forces veteran best known for his hit song, “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” This book series was titled, “Casca, The Eternal Mercenary.”
Sadler penned the first 22 books, while other writers continued the series. The titular central character is the aforementioned Roman legionary. As Christ hangs dying on the cross some of his blood wipes across Casca’s lips. At that moment by the power of the Son of God Casca is made immortal, cursed to wander the earth a soldier until the Second Coming. While much of the writing is fairly vapid, that was an incredibly cool plot device.
Each book explores Casca’s experience fighting during some different historical era. By the time he has lived a century or two Casca gets very, very good at the art of soldiering. If I could have carte blanc to craft any work of fiction it would be to retire behind my MacBook and resurrect the tale of Casca in a modern context. Spinning that story in Information Age trappings would be such fun. It would also make a simply fantastic movie.
So why all this talk of a 1980’s-era pulpy men’s fiction series mostly forgotten by the modern world? Because Lauri Allan Torni was a decent approximation of a real-live modern-day Casca. He was the eternal soldier.
Origin Story
Born in 1919 in Viipuri Province in Finland, Lauri Torni fought the Soviets beginning with the battles around Lake Ladoga in December of 1939. Torni was commissioned a Vanrikki, or 2LT, in the Finnish Army. While fighting the Soviets during the Continuation War Torni developed a reputation for audacity and inspirational leadership. In 1943 he took command of his eponymous Detachment Torni, a deep penetration special operations unit that took the fight to the Russians deep in their rear areas, cut off and alone. The future President of Finland, Mauno Koivisto, served under his command. The unit adopted a distinctive unit insignia that featured a prominent “T” in reference to their dashing young commander.
Torni’s marauders caused such consternation among Soviet combat formations that they put a bounty of three million Finnish marks on his head. Torni was the only Finnish officer so recognized. In 1942 Torni skied across an antipersonnel mine and was badly wounded. On July 9, 1944, Lauri Torni was awarded the Mannerheim Cross for exceptional bravery while fighting the Soviets. The Mannerheim Cross is the Finnish equivalent of the US Medal of Honor.
Political alliances in the 1940s were complicated, and when arrayed against the Russian bear the Finns found themselves fighting alongside the Germans. During the course of World War 2, the Germans accepted volunteers from across Europe and the occupied territories for the SS. Torni trained with the Waffen SS starting in 1941 and was eventually promoted to Untersturmfuhrer.
Like most of Europe, Finland had a tough time of it during the war. Their war with the Soviets waxed and waned through 1944 until it formally ended with the Moscow Armistice. Convinced that Communism represented an existential threat to the Finnish way of life, Torni traveled to Germany and trained in sabotage and unconventional warfare with the SS. In early 1945 he fell in with German units fighting the Soviets near Schwerin until he was captured by the British. Remanded to a POW camp in Lubeck, Torni ultimately escaped and made his way back to Finland soon after VE Day.
Finland had been caught between two desperate evils and was anxious to cleanse itself of the Nazi taint. As a result, despite his holding the Mannerheim Cross Torni was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison. He escaped and was rearrested a time or two before evading into Sweden. In 1950 Torni signed on as crew aboard the Swedish cargo ship MS Skagen bound for the Gulf of Mexico. Once within sight of the American coast, he dove overboard and swam into Mobile, Alabama.
Equipped with nothing but his wits Lauri Torni made his way to New York City and established himself in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park among the Finnish diaspora there. He supported himself working as a carpenter and cleaner. In 1954 Torni enlisted in the US Army as one of around 200 foreigners accepted under the provisions of the Lodge-Philbin Act to fight the Soviets. Upon his enlistment, he adopted the name, Larry Thorne.
Fighting Under a Third Banner
Larry Thorne was a warrior’s warrior, so he naturally gravitated toward the US Special Forces. He was 36 years old when he attended Airborne school. While an SF soldier, he instructed survival, skiing, mountaineering, and guerilla tactics. In 1957 he was granted US citizenship and commissioned a 2d Lieutenant in the Signal Corps. From 1958 through 1962 Thorne served with the 10th Special Forces Group in Bad Tolz, West Germany. While with 10th Group he led a successful covert mission into Iran to recover sensitive equipment and bodies from a downed USAF C130 cargo plane.
Thorne first deployed to Vietnam in November of 1963. As part of Special Forces Detachment A-734 Thorne worked with the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups. During one particularly intense attack on CIDG forces at Tjnh Bien he earned a Bronze Star for Valor. With two Purple Hearts to his credit and his first tour complete, Thorne rotated home to the US.
CPT Larry Thorne deployed on his second combat tour in Vietnam in February 1965 with the 5thSpecial Forces Group. He was assigned to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam—Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). On October 18, 1965, CPT Thorne launched aboard a South Vietnamese H34 helicopter from Kham Duc Special Forces Camp on a mission to locate Viet Cong nodes along the Ho Chi Minh trail for attention with airstrikes.
The air component of this operation consisted of a pair of RVNAF (Republic of Vietnam Air Force) H34s as well as a USAF O-1 Bird Dog Forward Air Controller aircraft. While operating in the Quang Nam Province some 25 miles from Da Nang the three aircraft encountered unexpectedly foul weather. The second H34 dropped through a hole in the clouds to insert a six-man surveillance team. When they climbed back above the cloud cover both Thorne’s H34 and the Bird Dog were gone.
The Guns
During his Finnish service, Laurie Torni carried a Suomi KP/-31 9mm submachine gun. Suomi KP/-31 is short for Suomi-konepistooli or “Finland Submachine Gun.” One of the most successful SMG designs of WW2, the Suomi KP was a rugged machined steel open-bolt weapon that fed from either 36-round stick magazines or 71-round drums. The drum magazine of the KP was later aped by the Soviets for their PPD and PPSh SMGs.
The Suomi KP weighed 10.14 pounds and cycled at between 750 and 900 rounds per minute. Some 80,000 copies were produced between 1931 and 1953. The KP saw service all the way through the Israeli War for Independence and the Korean War. Unlike similar weapons, the Suomi KP featured an easily exchanged barrel. Finnish operators were issued with a spare barrel to use when the first overheated.
Photographic evidence of Torni’s service with the Waffen SS is scant. However, late in the war, SS formations would have been armed predominantly with the MP40 SMG, the Kar 98k bolt-action rifle, and the MP44 assault rifle. The MP40 was an evolutionary development of the previous MP38. The MP38 was built around a machined steel receiver, while that of the MP40 was pressed from sheet stock. The MP40 was the first mass-produced infantry combat weapon to eschew wooden furniture and be designed specifically for mass production.
At the time he went missing CPT Thorne was armed with a Swedish Carl Gustav m/45 submachine gun. This weapon was formally designated the Kulsprutepistol m/45. US forces called it the Swedish K or K Rifle.
The Swedish K saw extensive service with US Navy SEALs who favored the weapon-based upon its fast handling and capacity to fire when coming straight out of the surf (“Over the Beach”). Army Special Forces and CIA operators used the weapon as well. Many of the K Rifles used in Vietnam were sanitized without serial numbers. A few included a superb sound suppressor.
The Swedish K was an open-bolt full auto-only design of a fairly conventional layout. It fed on 36-round stick magazines and cycled at a sedate 600 rounds per minute. When Sweden forbade further exports to the US in protest to the war in Vietnam the government tasked Smith and Wesson with contriving a replacement. The subsequent M76 saw very limited use in the latter stages of the war.
The Rest of the Story
CPT Thorne was listed as missing and was subsequently promoted to Major. Rumors swirled that this indestructible warrior had survived the crash of his aircraft and was either actively fighting against the communists or languishing in some secret POW camp. However, in 1999 a Joint Task Force-Full Accounting team along with Finnish personnel located his crash site. Major Thorne’s remains were finally definitively identified in 2003, and he and his teammates were repatriated to the US. Major Larry Thorne was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on June 26, 2003. He is the only veteran of the Waffen SS interred in this hallowed space.
While there must be thousands of stories, I’ll give you one.
This was John Singleton Mosby- the “Gray Ghost” Commander of the 43rd Virginia- Mosby’s Rangers. American Civil War, In HIGHLY unconventional war, used a numerically MUCH smaller force to raise hell with the Union Army, Never captured, never surrendered. As an old man, he spent time as a honored guest of friends in Virginia.
They had another guest- a young boy that was the son of some other friends. He loved to visit, and talk with the Colonel about battles during the war, and sketch out military actions and tactics.
Cute little boy, huh? Folks had quite a laugh with the 6 year old talking tactics with the 60 year old veteran. They were SO serious about it. When the little boy grew up, he decided he wanted to be a soldier. He was quite a fencer, and a pistol shot.
His name was George S. Patton.
Maurice Rose was born in 1899 in Middletown, Connecticut, the son of Samuel and Katherin Rose. The son and grandson of rabbis from Poland, MG Rose was ultimately the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the United States Army. From the very beginning, Maurice Rose was a warrior.
Rose edited his high school paper and enjoyed a stellar academic career. In the yearbook published the year of his graduation a cartoon of the paper staff depicted him carrying a rifle. Soldiering was in his blood.
Rose lied about his age and enlisted in the Colorado National Guard hoping to participate in the Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa. Six weeks later when his commander discovered that he was only sixteen he was discharged. Rose then worked in a meatpacking plant until he turned seventeen and could convince his parents to sign an enlistment waiver.
Once on active duty Maurice Rose’s natural leadership qualities became apparent. He was selected for officer training but had to illicitly alter his Army records to reflect a birthdate of 1895 so he would be old enough to be considered. In August of 1917 Rose graduated from the Officer Candidate Course at Fort Riley, Kansas. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant just in time to deploy for World War 1.
LT Rose Goes to War
Rose made First Lieutenant in short order. His battalion assumed defensive positions in the vicinity of Toul, France in 1918. Soon thereafter Rose and his comrades found themselves in the thick of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. This ghastly 6-week operation ultimately claimed a quarter-million casualties on both sides. More than 26,000 Americans were killed.
Rose, for his part, was in the thick of it throughout. He caught a load of shrapnel from a German mortar and suffered a concussion from nearby artillery fire. He refused the medics’ orders to evacuate until he eventually collapsed from exhaustion and blood loss. After a few days in the hospital, Rose slipped away to rejoin his unit.
This tidy bit of subterfuge resulted in his parents being informed that he was killed in action, an error that took a few days to rectify. Rose eventually recovered and served with the occupation troops until the summer of 1919 when he was discharged.
His True Calling
Rose worked as a traveling salesman for a time but returned to the military in 1920, as soon as the Army would allow it. By now he was a Captain and served in a variety of operational and administrative positions. At some point, he altered his military records once again and claimed to be Protestant. Though some biographers attribute this to a religious conversion, more than likely he simply felt that no longer being Jewish would help his career.
By the onset of World War 2 Rose was a Major and a graduate of the Infantry and Cavalry Officer Courses as well as the Command and General Staff College. He was soon promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. A preternaturally handsome man by the standards of the day, a newspaper reporter described him in print as “probably the best looking man in the Army.” That couldn’t do much for a guy’s humility.
In 1940 the US Army was a growth industry. The American military had to expand in an unprecedented fashion, and it needed experienced commissioned officers and NCOs desperately. By the time he saw combat in North Africa Rose was a full Colonel. He negotiated the surrender of German forces in Tunisia under Generalmajor Fritz Krause.
Operation Husky saw Rose promoted to Brigadier General during operations in Sicily. When the commander of the 3d Armored Division, MG Leroy Watson, was relieved in the summer of 1944 General Rose took his place and thrived.
The Character of the Man
MG Rose was known as an aggressive and effective combat commander. He once drove his jeep across a mined bridge to ensure it was safe for his men to follow. On another occasion, General Rose spotted a group of Germans running across a field and dove out of his jeep brandishing a Thompson submachine gun.
Along with his driver, his aide, his DivArty Commander, and a handy PFC this motley band promptly captured a full dozen German soldiers. The Division Commander subsequently marched his POWs back and turned them over to the MPs. Such antics endeared Rose to the troops in his command.
MG Rose indeed insisted on leading from the front but also eschewed the publicity, fame, and glory so many of his counterparts feasted upon. Unlike Generals like Patton, MacArthur, and Montgomery, Maurice Rose was satisfied to avoid the limelight and just do his job. This exceptional military ethic ultimately killed him.
Combat is a Chaotic Thing
On March 30, 1945, just over a month from the end of the war in Europe, MG Rose and his staff were traveling in jeeps at the head of a column of his 3d Armored Division near the city of Paderborn, Germany. The Germans were fighting on their home turf, and the situation was desperate. Armored units on both sides fought back and forth, creating a fluid, chaotic battlefield. When word reached Rose that certain of his units had been cut off by the Germans, he pressed forward to investigate.
Before they could react, Rose and the men of his armored vanguard began taking fire from German tanks, antitank guns, and small arms. The lead Sherman of his column was hit by an enemy tank round and destroyed. In response, Rose and his command team mounted their jeeps and attempted to flee cross-country.
The German tanks soon had the Americans outflanked, and they moved to seal off their escape. The lead jeep accelerated and narrowly avoided a Wehrmacht panzer to reach safety. MG Rose was in the second jeep and found himself cut off. The German Tiger pinned Rose’s jeep against a tree, forcing him to dismount.
While Allied troops had a tendency to describe all German tanks as Tigers, these were the real deal. Surviving American GIs identified the vehicles based upon their distinctive twin exhausts.
The German tank commander opened his hatch and emerged with an MP40 submachine gun. As the Wehrmacht soldier covered Rose and his small party, the American General reached for his sidearm. Whether or not MG Rose was attempting to surrender or intended to fight the German officer has been lost to history. The panzer commander leveled his 9mm SMG and shot Rose fourteen times in several bursts. The American General was dead where he fell.
The Gun
The German MP40 began life as the MP38 designed by Heinrich Vollmer in, you guessed it, 1938. The MP38 was an evolutionary development of the previous MP36. Not more than a couple of MP36’s survived the war. The MP38 featured a machined steel receiver and bakelite furniture. It can be differentiated from the subsequent MP40 by the longitudinal ridges in the receiver and a small hole pressed into each side of the magazine well.
The MP40 was a very similar design and enjoys essentially complete parts interchangeability with the MP38. Both guns feature a novel but unnecessarily complicated telescoping recoil spring system that makes the guns exceptionally smooth in action. The MP40 was the first general-issue Infantry weapon truly optimized for mass production. Around a million copies rolled off the lines before it was supplanted by the MP44 assault rifle. The MP40 soldiered on until the very end of the war.
The MP40 in Action
I have a friend who was walking point with a buddy on a patrol through a German village in the final days of the war. Coming around a corner he and his pal came face to face with a German soldier armed with an MP40. The kraut soldier loosed a burst into the chest of my friend’s comrade. My buddy killed the German with a burst from his Thompson.
Both Americans retreated into a nearby building. The wounded American then leaned heavily against the wall, slid to the floor, and died. Even well into his nineties that remained a difficult story for my buddy to tell. At close range, the MP40 was a proven man-killer.
The Rest of the Story
The victorious Allies undertook an investigation to determine if MG Rose’s death might constitute a war crime. He was the highest-ranking American soldier to be killed in action in Europe, and his Jewish heritage made the circumstances of his killing immediately suspect. However, the light was dim at the time, and when his body was recovered the following day his codebook and maps remained unmolested.
MG Rose was ultimately shot with four separate bursts from that German tank commander’s MP40. The first burst knocked Rose’s helmet off. Four rounds from the third burst struck him in the head and killed him. His helmet was recovered from a nearby ditch about ten feet away. The holes in the helmet resulted from its having been hit as it spun in the air behind the dying General.
The determination was simply that MG Rose tragically fell victim to the fog of war. German troops were frequently inexperienced and terrified at this late stage. That nameless Wehrmacht tank commander likely just saw Rose move for his pistol and fired reflexively. MG Maurice Rose, known to his men as “The Division Point” because of his penchant for leading from the front, was buried at the US military cemetery at Margraten, the Netherlands. 3d Armored Division commanders rendered honors at his grave until the early nineties when the division was disbanded.
8,000 miles South of the UK and 400 miles east of Argentina lie the Falklands Islands. The UK has held possession of the Falklands since 1833, and the islands are liberally populated with British subjects, some three thousand or so by 2006.
Starting with British Captain John Strong in 1690, various despots, regents, and tin pot administrators alternately claimed, occupied, or stole this desolate piece of dirt. At 4,700 square miles, the Falklands enjoyed a fair amount of space. However, its brutal Southern latitude made it an inhospitable sort of place. One of the first commercial endeavors back in the early 19th century actually involved the exploitation of feral cattle.
Now fast forward to 1982, and the nearby Argentines had their sights set on the windswept rocks of the Falkland Islands. The British had long since passed the apogee of their remarkable empire. Perhaps they wouldn’t notice if Argentina’s military junta government dispatched a few thousand troops to snatch up the Falklands. Sadly, Argentina’s Leopoldo Galtieri woefully underestimated the Iron Lady’s resolve. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was having none of that.
Buildup for War
With 8,000 miles of open ocean across which to stage a proper response, the Brits knew that air superiority during the upcoming amphibious counter-invasion was going to be critical. British Sea Harriers would bear the brunt of the air-to-air responsibilities. However, every Argentine airplane that could be neutralized was one less that the Harrier drivers would have to burn out of the sky.
On the Northern aspect of the western Falklands chain lies Pebble Island. This forsaken spit of dirt was home to some twenty-five English subjects and another 2,500 very English sheep. Since the Argentine invasion, the Pebble Island Aerodromo Auxiliar Calderon airfield also housed six FMA IA 58 Pucara twin-engine turboprop ground attack aircraft, four T-34 Turbo Mentor counterinsurgency attack planes, and a single Coast Guard Skyvan transport. Servicing, supporting, and defending these eleven aircraft were about 150 Argentine Marines and aviation personnel.
The Plan
22 Special Air Service Regiment was the foundation of the world’s modern Special Operations units. 22 SAS hearkens back to the Second World War and its first flamboyant commander, LTC Archibald David Stirling. Stirling’s mob of misfits tormented the Nazis from North Africa across Italy and occupied France. Subsequent generations of SAS men were shooting and scooting back when special operating wasn’t cool. In 1982 D Squadron 22 SAS Regiment stood ready to visit their own unique brand of chaos upon the Argentines.
The plan was audacious. After an eyes-on recce conducted by Boat Troop of D Squadron 22 SAS via Klepper canoe, it was determined that there were severe headwinds near the target area. This would ultimately limit the amount of time the commandos could spend on the objective. The operational objectives were therefore reduced from the destruction of the garrison to simply neutralization of the aviation assets.
The Mission
On the night of 14 May 1982, forty-five SAS D Squadron operators inserted via two Westland Sea King HC4 helicopters under cover of darkness. A single HC4 has the capacity to lift up to 28 combat-equipped troops. Members of the aforementioned Boat Troop provided approach navigation.
The SAS strike force landed six clicks from the airfield and unloaded some one hundred L16 81mm mortar bombs, demo charges, and a buttload of L1A1 66mm LAWs (Light Anti-tank Weapons). The SAS operators carried American-made M16 rifles along with a disproportionate number of M203 grenade launchers.
SAS operators are notorious for their simply breathtaking capacity to tab. Tab is short for Tactical Advance to Battle. This is British slang for a forced march across hostile terrain. The SAS assault force successfully infiltrated the airfield, avoiding the Argentine sentries on duty. They eventually set charges on seven of the Argentine aircraft without being detected.
On cue, the SAS operators blew the charges and opened up on the parked aircraft with small arms and LAW rockets. At the same time, naval gunfire from the British destroyer HMS Glamorgan joined in targeting the nearby fuel stores and ammo dump. The preponderance of their ordnance expended, the SAS raiders exfilled to the PZ (Pickup Zone) where they were extracted by the waiting Sea Kings to the HMS Hermes.
The Weapons
The standard British Army rifle at the time of the Falklands War was the L1A1 SLR (Self-Loading Rifle). This Anglicized FN FAL was used across Her Majesty’s armed forces. However, the SAS opted for the US M16 for its lightweight and high-capacity magazines. Today’s SAS operators wield Canadian-made versions of the M4 Carbine made by Diemaco.
The M16 has served in sundry guises for more than half a century in the US military and should be established dogma to anybody frequenting GunsAmerica. The M203 was the only component of the US Army’s long-running 1960’s-era Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) program to see adoption. Pronounced “Spew,” the SPIW had to have the coolest acronym in modern military history.
First adopted in 1969, the M203 fired the same 40x46mm grenade as did the standalone M79 break-open grenade launcher. The M203 mounted underneath a standard M16 and allowed the grenadier ready access to an automatic rifle in addition to the single-shot grenade launcher.
The 40mm grenades fired by these weapons operate on the High-Low Propulsion System first developed by the Germans during World War 2. The Germans referred to this concept as the “Hoch-und-Niederdruck System,” and it allows a relatively-heavy, low-velocity round to be safely fired via a handheld weapon.
The L1A1 LAW is a single-shot disposable 66mm unguided antitank weapon. Originally an American contrivance, the US designation was the M72. The solid rocket motor was developed in 1959 at Redstone Arsenal, and the M72 first saw service in 1963. The M72 replaced both the M31 HEAT (High Explosive Antitank) rifle grenade and the cumbersome M20A1 Super Bazooka.
The L1A1 LAW consists of a telescoping aluminum tube within an external fiberglass cylinder with pop-up front and rear sights. When collapsed and sealed the LAW is waterproof. A percussion cap firing mechanism ignites the rocket, and a mechanical setback safety built into the warhead does not arm the piezoelectric detonator until the rocket has accelerated out of the tube.
To fire the L1A1 LAW you pull the safety pin and remove the spring-loaded back cover. This allows the front cover to drop away as well, while the rear cover pivots down to serve as a shoulder brace. Grip the front and back of the weapon and extend it briskly. This movement releases the spring-loaded front and rear sights to deploy. Put the weapon on your shoulder, pull the striker handle forward to arm the mechanism, point the thing at something you dislike, and squeeze the trigger bar.
Firing the LAW is nothing like the movies. The entirety of the solid rocket motor is consumed prior to the rocket’s leaving the launch tube, and the open back of the tube makes the LAW essentially recoilless. The backblast, however, is subsequently ferocious.
Once the weapon is fired, six folding fins deploy to stabilize the rocket in flight. Muzzle velocity is 475 feet per second, and the thing makes a simply incredible racket.
Max effective range is 200 meters, and later versions of the standard HEAT warhead will burn through about 12 inches of rolled homogenous steel armor. The LAW rockets used in the Pebble Island raid weighed about 8 pounds and cost about $750 apiece. Though augmented in US service in 1987 by the Swedish AT-4, the LAW remains in use around the world today.
The Rest of the Story
As a result of intense shelling by the HMS Glamorgan the defending Argentines remained under cover for the most part throughout the raid. Presuming the attack to be the opening salvoes in a general invasion, the Argentine commander ordered the runway destroyed. The Argentines detonated prepositioned area denial charges underneath the runway and cratered it. Shrapnel from these charges injured one of the SAS operators. The Argentinian commander was subsequently killed by British small arms fire during the attack.
The original plan had the assault force redirecting their fire on the Argentinian garrison after ensuring the destruction of the attack aircraft. However, after exfilling the wounded man the ground force commander made the decision to return to the Hermes. This on-the-spot decision no doubt ultimately saved a great many lives.
The Pebble Island raid accounted for all eleven aircraft as well as the ammo and fuel dump and was considered a rousing success. Considering that destroying airfields full of Axis aircraft during WW2 was considered a bit of an SAS specialty, the Pebble Island raid seemed fitting.
Sadly, CPT Gavin John Hamilton, the ground force commander, was killed three weeks later while on a covert reconnaissance mission some forty miles behind Argentine lines. Colonel Juan Ramon Mabragana, the commander of the Argentine Commando unit that killed CPT Hamilton, later described him as “the most courageous man I have ever seen.”
Who Dares Wins.
A lot of these Troops came down with Cancer later on in life. Which really sucks in my book! Grumpy