Wyo4News Staff, [email protected] [PRESS RELEASE]
SWEETWATER COUNTY, WYOMING — A one-time Green River High School athlete was the only Sweetwater County man to serve in a fabled World War II combat unit, the Sweetwater County Historical Museum said in a special release.
Born April 27, 1913, Huston Moore Twitchell was managing a Chief Oil Company filling station in Green River when he enlisted in the Army not long after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When a new special joint American-Canadian unit called the First Special Service Force was activated on July 9, 1942, he volunteered. Conceived as a commando unit of paratroopers, ski troops, and mountain fighters, the FSSF was comprised of three small regiments and a service battalion with a total strength of about 1,800 officers and men, a complement that later swelled to some 2,300. Particularly sought after were men with outdoor backgrounds, such as hunters, game wardens, lumberjacks, and forest rangers. Among the volunteers were 47 cavalrymen from the 7th Cavalry Regiment, then stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. (Their skills with pack animals were particularly valuable for a mountain unit.)
The first phase of the unit’s intense, specialized training was conducted at Fort William Henry Harrison, near Helena, Montana. The site was chosen for its flat terrain, suitable for paratroop training, and close proximity to mountains for mountain, winter and cross-country ski training, which was carried out by Norwegian troops brought in for that purpose. Training in hand-to-hand combat, demolitions, and airborne operations were particularly rigorous and FSSF troops learned to use a variety of specialized weapons, including the M1941 Johnson light machine gun and the V-42 stiletto fighting knife. (The V-42 was based on the British Fairbairn–Sykes commando knife. Lt. Colonel (later Major General) Robert T. Frederick, the Force’s commanding officer, and other FSSF officers designed the V-42, which was manufactured by Case & Sons Cutlery and issued to Force members. Today, original V-42s are very difficult to find and command extremely high prices.)
After completing amphibious operations training at Norfolk, Virginia, the Force was ordered to the Aleutian island of Kiska, which had been occupied by Japanese troops in June of 1942, only to find that enemy units had abandoned it.
Next, the FSSF was sent to the Mediterranean and saw heavy fighting in Italy, including the brutal battle of Anzio. It was there that the Force earned its nickname for its fierce fighting style: The Devil’s Brigade. (Forcemen often blackened their faces for battle. A diary found on the body of a German officer bore the notation “The Black Devils are all around us every time we come into line, and we never hear them.”)
After participating in Operation Dragoon, (the invasion of southern France), in 1944, the FSSF was disbanded in December of that year. Many of its officers and men were dispersed to the army’s airborne units, which were in dire need of replacements.
During its brief existence the “Devil’s Brigade” suffered over 2,700 casualties and was awarded five U.S. Army campaign streamers. Its legacy lives on, as all the U.S. Army’s Special Forces groups trace their lineage back to the First Special Service Force of World War II.
Huston Twitchell survived the war, returned to Green River, and later moved to Cheyenne, where he died in 1990. The Sweetwater County Historical Museum would like to express its special appreciation to Huston Twitchell’s daughter, Christina Bates of Cheyenne, for her kindness and support in the preparation of this article.
