No. 4 Commando - Formation

Formation

No. 4 Commando was formed in Weymouth on 21 July 1940, when the first intake of 500 volunteers arrived. The unique nature of the commandos immediately became apparent when every man was held responsible for finding his own quarters. As commandos were expected to be fighting troops, they had no administrative personnel, such as clerks and cooks for example. To assist them with living 'off camp', with no cook house all ranks were given a daily allowance and a ration card, the allowance being 67 pence for officers and of 34 pence for other ranks. This arrangement meant that commandos lived on civilian rations, while the rest of the armed forces had the more plentiful military scale of rations.

Lieutenant Colonel C.P.D Legard and the Regimental Sergeant Major W. Morris held their first parade on 22 July 1940, at Weymouth Pavilion. The volunteers were informed of the intended role for the commandos and that training would be "tough and demanding and any who could not measure up to the standard required would be returned to their parent unit without any leave of appeal".

Training started immediately and concentrated on physical fitness, weapons training, movement across country including cliff climbing, obstacle crossing and raiding operations. Weapons training was limited by the lack of anything other than the personal weapons (rifles and pistols) that each man had brought with him. Machine guns or anything heavier were available at the time. In August 1940, some officers and non-commissioned officers (NCO) were sent to Achnacarry in the Scottish Highlands on a commando course. These men were then responsible for teaching the rest of the unit.

No. 4 Commando remained at Weymouth until 13 October 1940, when it boarded trains for Scotland. Arriving on the River Clyde at 06:00 the next day, they were sent on board HMS Glengyle, an Infantry landing ship. Glengyle sailed on 18 October for Inveraray, to conduct training for the first time with Assault Landing Craft. The move to Scotland became permanent and No. 4 Commando were based at Ayr.

While all this was going on, a decision was made to concentrate the commandos and Independent Companies into five large 1,000 man battalions, each of two companies. No. 4 Commando was renamed the No. 1 Company of the 3rd Special Service Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Lister. No. 2 Company was formed by the re-designation of No. 7 Commando. This new formation proved to be too large and unwieldy in practice. Within three months, the Special Service Battalions were disbanded and the original commando units reformed but on a smaller scale with six troops instead of the original ten. Each troop would comprise three officers and 62 other ranks; this number was set so each troop would fit into two Assault Landing Craft. The new formation also meant that two complete Commando units could be carried in the 'Glen' type landing ship and one unit in the 'Dutch' type landing ship.