No. 2 Commando - Operation Musketoon

NO. 2 COMMANDO
Raised 1940 - Disbanded 1945
CAPTAIN GRAEME D. BLACK M.C.
No. 2 COMMANDO was formed by volunteers from 41 different regiments of the British Army and one Canadian soldier from Dresden, Ontario.
Lieutenant Black was my first training officer when I arrived as a seventeen year old, accepted for Commando service. I remember him as a very respected leader and also as a man who already had won the Military Cross. Behind the ribbon of the M.C. he had four bullet holes in his left shoulder from the Vaagso, Norway raid.
After No. 2 Commando had been decimated in the St. Nazaire raid, Lieutenant Black was promoted to Captain and became my Troop Commander. He was held in high esteem and we were sorry when he departed for another operation in Norway.
The operation with our Canadian, Captain Black, in command, left Scotland by submarine in September, 1942. The raiding force arrived in Glomfjord, Norway and landed its ten members from No. 2 Commando, who then destroyed the power plant objective. It was a perfect, textbook example of efficiency and courage. The massive devastation caused by this tiny force resulted in an important aluminium plant not re-opening during the remainder of the war.
The withdrawal of the raiding force was to be made by trying to walk across the mountains to Sweden. By the time the withdrawal got underway the force was without food and just about everything else. They were all captured and taken to Germany. Captain Black and six others were executed in Berlin on October 23, 1942. Our boys were the first to fall victim to Hitler’s “Commando Execution Order” of October 18, 1942.
During the course of World War II, the British Army Commandos earned thirty-eight battle honours and many other awards, including eight Victoria Crosses. It was a record which prompted the Founder of the Commandos, Winston Churchill, to pay the following tribute to the Commandos:
“We may feel that nothing of which we have any knowledge or record has ever been done by mortal men, which surpasses their feats of arms. Truly we may say of them, when shall their glory fade? ”
I like to think that maybe Sir Winston had Captain Black in mind, and that, maybe, just maybe, our V.C. award count should have been increased to nine.
Bob Bishop
St. James Branch
Royal British Legion
Branch 60
Royal Canadian Legion

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