The South African
In January 2009 Gen McGill Alexander gave a lecture to the South African Military History Society Eastern Cape Branch (SAMHSEC) on Some South Africans who served in Special Forces during WW2.
"Special Forces" as a defined term and concept of operations only came into being after WW2, but there were at that time many organisations and units that undertook tasks that would today be done by Special Forces. Such tasks required specialised training, were carried out by small teams, were controlled at the highest level and their results usually were intended to have strategic impact.
In July 2023 the following e-mail arrived, citing the newsletter which had summarised the lecture:
From: Simon Bailey I am involved in a project to write an article for the Royal Marines Historical Society (RMHS) and the Special Forces Club (SFC) titled "Royal Marines in the Special Operations Executive"(SOE). I served in the Royal Marines for 11 years and am a member of the SFC.
During my research I came across this in your Newsletter referenced above. Would you be able to help me with the clarification of a few details resulting from this section of the article?
The following reply came from
Dear Simon,
Your request was forwarded to me by Joan Marsh, editor of the SA Military
History Journal, via Malcolm Kinghorn, chair of SAMHSEC (the Eastern Cape
branch of the SA Military History Society). I also received your email dd
31 July 2023, for which I thank you. I have taken a while to respond, as I
have been doing a bit of additional research around your queries.
I appreciate your interest in my talk, which appeared as an article in
the Society's Newsletter of February 2009. The answers I can provide, to
the best of my knowledge and ability, are the following:
Answer to Question 1
* I obtained the figure of 74 South Africans who served in the RM on
secondment from the UDF from the official archives, held by the Directorate of Documentation Services of the SA National Defence Force in Pretoria. This was while I was researching those South Africans who were parachute trained during the Second World War and I only extracted the information I could find of those who served in the RM if they were confirmed as having undergone parachute training while on secondment. Unfortunately, I did that research in the early 1990s, so it was about 30 years ago. I now reside in Port Elizabeth, which is more than 800 miles from Pretoria, so I was unable to look for those records again. What I can tell you is that those who served with the RM came from many UDF units, not just one.
Answer to Question 2
* Why were they seconded to the RM? At the time, although struggling to
obtain sufficient troops to keep the 6th SA Armoured Division up to full strength (South Africa relied only on volunteers to fight in the Second World War - there was no conscription), there was a surfeit of officers in the UDF. Many had volunteered to serve for the duration of the war, but many of the other ranks had signed up only to fight in Africa.
Answer to Question 3
* Regarding Maj Gideon Jacobs, a summary of his life appears below. I
think it will answer most of your queries. Unfortunately, I was unable
to find a copy the citation for his OBE. I have also included the copy of
a rather poor photo of him and one of his sergeants, taken during Op ARREST on Sumatra.
MAJ GIDEON JACOBS, OBE, PhD
by Brig Gen McGill Alexander, SA, MMM, PhD (Retd)
Gideon Francois Jacobs was a remarkable man who participated in the planning for Operation OVERLORD.
An Afrikaans boy of humble beginnings, he grew up on a farm in the Orange Free State. Like many other youths with few prospects in the wake of the Great Depression, he joined the Special Service Battalion as a 16-year old in 1938. It was a tough unit that catered for unemployed young men, providing them with a high standard of military training and preparing them for possible employment as civilians in the government service.
Discipline was harsh, with many of the instructors trained by seconded martinets from the British Brigade of Guards. Jacobs opted to join the Permanent Force (Regular Army) and was trained as an instructor, serving at the SA Military College. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he was retained at the College to help train the large number of volunteers for war service.
He was commissioned and helped train the officers for the rapidly expanding wartime army. Frustrated at being denied the opportunity to go into action, he attended night classes at Pretoria University and gained a BA degree. After reaching the rank of captain, the noticeably very bright young officer was sent to the British Army Staff College in Palestine, where he completed a staff course and served as a member of the Directing Staff (DS) at the Junior Staff School.
When an appeal was made for officers from the Dominions to be seconded to the British Armed Forces, Jacobs saw his opportunity and applied to go to the Royal Marines. According to his personal file in the SANDF Archives, he was accepted for secondment to the RM on 5 Feb 1944. For this, he had to take a drop in rank from captain back to his substantive rank of lieutenant. He was trained as a commando and a paratrooper, before being posted to HQ Special Service Group in the UK. It seems his obvious intellect and university degree saw him attached to the planning staff for Operation OVERLORD, the D-Day landings at Normandy. This meant that he did not himself participate in the landings, but in August 1944 he became a Liaison Officer with 4 Special Service Brigade and 47 Royal Marine Commando in France. There he participated in the fighting aptly named by the combatants as the "Battle of the Hedgerows".
However, Jacobs was destined not to see the war out in Europe. He had earlier volunteered to serve in the Far East, so now he was once again withdrawn. On 5 December 1944 he was promoted back to temporary captain and sent to Colombo in Ceylon. Here, 50 years before his arrival, his grandfather had been a Boer PoW of the British during the Anglo-Boer War. He was posted to the staff of Chief of Intelligence Staff (EI) in Ceylon. In January 1945, he was appointed to E Group Staff, a special Naval Intelligence organisation.
From January to August of that year, Jacobs served at the HQ in Colombo, with Force 136, where he is believed to have participated in several clandestine operations against the Japanese on small islands off the coast of Malaya and Sumatra, as well as spending time in India and Burma. On 2 July 1945, he was promoted to the rank of temporary major. Towards the end of the war, in September 1945, he was selected to carry out Operation ARREST, a top secret mission of major importance. It entailed taking control of Japanese-occupied Sumatra.
The decision to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan had been taken, and the Allies were anticipating the surrender of the Japanese forces. Provision had to be made for taking control of the vast empire of coastal countries and islands that had been occupied by the Japanese.
After less than two weeks to prepare for the operation, Jacobs and his small team of four specialists NCOs were parachuted into Sumatra. The team led by the South African consisted of a Dutchman, a Chinese and two Australians. This island formed part of what was then the Dutch East Indies and was more than 1000km long, next to the Malay Peninsula. One could surmise that being Afrikaans-speaking was considered an advantage in an occupied Dutch colony.
They parachuted from a flying boat (probably a Catalina) into the wild and inhospitable jungle, in an isolated part of the island. Also dropped were wireless equipment, weapons, ammunition and food supplies. Their mission was to lie low until the Japanese surrender had been announced. Then they were to emerge from the jungle to take the surrender of the 80,000 Japanese who were occupying the large island.
Not a bad job for the 23-year old South African major and his heterogeneous four sergeants!
Jacobs carried out his impossible mission with phenomenal success. When the Japanese surrender was announced, he and his team walked out of the jungle, made their way to the Japanese commander and demanded a formal surrender - just five men faced by an occupying force of 80,000 suspicious, jittery and armed Japanese!
Maj Gideon Jacobs (right) with Sgt Albert Plesman Faced with many difficulties and problems, Jacobs had to use the Japanese organisation and officials then in place to help him in administering the island. Eventually, more Allied troops and administrators arrived to reinforce them.
In the words of one reviewer of the book Jacobs subsequently wrote about his adventure: "That he succeeded in his virtually impossible task, ranks among the world's major feats of leadership."
The young major was admitted to the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his feat. He was then de-seconded from the Royal Marines, returned to South Africa and took up a post back at the SA Military College in Pretoria as a DS, training officers in the small post-war Union Defence Force. As with most Permanent Force officers, after the war he had to undergo a reduction in rank, and reverted to captain.
He immediately enrolled at university again and after-hours he completed a Master's Degree in Industrial Psychology. A decision had been taken by the South African General Staff to establish a Military Academy to provide academic training to young officers. Jacobs was the obvious man to head up this new organisation and he was tasked with planning the curriculum.
His appointment to the post of dean of the new Academy was recommended, and he was accordingly promoted to major again. But this was in the era after the National Party victory over the United Party of General Jan Smuts at the polls in 1948. And the National Party had opposed South Africa's participation in the war. Frans Erasmus, the new minister of defence, was determined to rid the Defence Force of Smuts sympathisers and of British influence. And Gideon Jacobs, with his wartime record of service was considered a "Smuts man". Despite the fact that Jacobs had done all the groundwork for the establishment of the Military Academy and was eminently suited for the post, both Academically and militarily,there was no way that Erasmus would approve his appointment.
When a civilian academic with no military experience whatsoever, but who was a strong National Partysupporterwho had opposed participation in the war, was commissioned as a major and appointed as dean, it was clear to Jacobs that there was no future for him in the Defence Force. So he resigned, gained a PhD in industrial psychology and developed the personnel department of the Anglo-American Corporation.
He then spent ten years in parliament as an active and erudite opposition United Party MP, opposing the National Party. Finally, he built up the biggest business management school in the country for the University of the Witwatersrand and retired as a Professor Emeritus.
A fascinating life and an exceptional man!
His medal group is an unusual one for a South African:
Answer to Question 3
* The two books you ask about are Prelude to the Monsoon by
G.F.Jacobs (Purnell & Sons, Cape Town, 1965), which is about the
operation on Sumatra, and Greek Adventure by Jack Gage, covering an operation when he was parachuted behind the German lines in Greece to work with partisans. However, Maj Jack Harvey Gage, MC (a former rugby Springbok) was not, as far as I've been able to ascertain, seconded to the RM. He served under MO3 in Raiding Support Regiment and in HQ Raiding Forces.
Answer to Question 3
* Tommy Renfree was never seconded to the RM, but I have attached a
summary of his service that I managed to compile, in case you are interested. Some of the information your source gives about him is incorrect - he was never involved in strategic planning for the SADF, but spent five years as the LO between the SA Police and the SA Defence Force intelligence organisations.
Additional Information
* You may be interested in Capt M.E. Anderson, MC, who served with the
SBS in the Aegean, where he earned the MC. He had qualified as a pilot in the SAAF shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War.
These are other South Africans who I have confirmed as having served on
secondment to the RM and whose names I have traced, with extracts from
some of their personal files, including the period for which they were
seconded. Information on their personal files was found to be sketchy and
incomplete, particularly that which concerns their secondment periods.
* T/Maj John Haughton Freeman, MBE, (MiD):
* Lt J.H.K. ("Pik") van Noorden (retired from SADF as maj gen in 1979):
* T/Capt J.C. Lessing: 21 February 1944 to 23 July 1945.
T/Capt H.T. Collett: 27 December 1943 to 1 August 1945.
WS/Capt R.L. du Plessis: 8 December 1943 to 8 June 1945.
Lt D.H. Ranger, MBE:
* Found on Line: WW II Awards for RN Diving and Bomb & Mine Disposal: *
I trust this will be of use to you.
MAJ GIDEON JACOBS, OBE, PhD
Simon Bailey continued in a further e-mail:
During my own research I also came across a list of the USADF officers
seconded to the Royal Marines, put together by Gideon Jacobs, which I
provide here:-
The following South African SAUDF Officers were seconded on the dates shown:
5 Nov 43 G E Legrand
8 Dec 43 R L Plessis
27 Dec 43 S Atlas, C A D Bircher, A Bredenkamp, C K Brown, E D Clarke, H T
Collett, A L Croneen, W H England, Q S Ford, S L Fouche, D Gilmour, I
Goldstein, J B Harries, P E B Lefrere, B Linscott, D J Malan, L L A McKay, G
M C McKenzie, J J A Mclaren, D R Newton, E B Norton, W D T Phillips, D H
Ranger, D C Thomas, T Thomas, M J Van Den Berg.
4 Feb 44 P H F Brooke, P Clemence, R M L Cloete, R Diepering, W W Layman, N
M MacArthur, L E Needham, W I Spence, T A Tuffin,
5 Feb 44 G F Jacobs,
6 Feb 44 T R Barr, H H Bland, J F Britz, T W Cullinan, P H F Dawson, P W
Grice, J S Hallack, J Heraughty, B J P Jacobs, W V Kelsey, I H Launder, W N
Lorentz, F P Port, J Standen, T J Strasheim, J H Van der Walt M J P Venter,
H J P Wensley
7 Feb 44 J M F Girdwood, D R Langley, A D Warton
2l Feb 44 D A H Atkins, R S Bate, F B Chilvers, B N Coles, D J Green, L F
Johnson, D A Leach, C B Leach, JC Lessing, K J Leslie, M L Preston, W R A
Williams, T D Wright MM
20 Mar 44 M Hawkins, H F Johnson
29 Mar 44 H J K Van Noorden
24 Apr 44 J H Freeman,
22 Jun. 44 A T Hill (76 one to come?)
Killed, Missing or Died of Wounds: Bate, Clarke, England, Layman, McKenzie
and Wright.
OBE: G F Jacobs,
MBE: J F Freeman
MC: Bircher, Brown, Goldstein, McKay, Preston, T Thomas
Subject: RE: SOUTH AFRICANS IN THE ROYAL MARINES DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
Brig Gen McGill Alexander, SA, MMM, PhD (Retd)
So they opted for discharge at the conclusion of the North African campaign. They were not prepared to go to Italy for the next campaign
where South African forces fought. Therefore, when an appeal was made
to the Dominions by the British Forces towards the end of 1943 for
volunteers to be seconded to the Airborne Forces, the RM and various
specialist units (such as the SOE) that would today be termed "Special
Forces", mainly officers were permitted to volunteer from the UDF, but
there were also a few specialist NCOs. Of these, according to the
archival sources I consulted, 74 went to the RM. Around 20 went to the
Airborne Forces and about 30 more served in various units such as the
SAS (two with the SBS and one with the SRS), LRDG (at least four
officers, one of whom become 2IC and another was awarded the MC while
serving with them), PPA (one SA officer), RSR (ten SA officers), and an
unknown number with the SOE (two in Force 133, where one was KIA
behind German lines with No 1 Special Force, possibly two in Force 136
and one in Force 137 with Australia's "Z" Special Force).
(son of founder of KLM)
He was seconded to UK Forces in 1943 and trained as a paratrooper. The
only South African I have come across who wore both SAAF pilot's wings
and SAS para wings. I don't think he was ever with the RM. After the
war he joined the short-lived SA Marines and when they were disbanded,
he transferred to the SA Navy, where he rose to the rank of Lt Cdr,
but died in 1960.
Seconded to UK Forces for duty with RM 24 April 1944.
Appointed to SS Group.
Posted to RMTG 8 August 1944.
Active service with RM June 1944 to July 1945 (France, Belgium, Holland, Germany).
Wounded 4 July 1944.
Secondment to UK Forces ceased 26 June 1946.
Seconded to UK Forces 29 March 1944.
HMS Assegai, Portsmouth Div, RM.
Posted to 48 Royal Marine Commando.
RMTG Wales, 21 October 1944.
UK Courses completed in 1944:
NGS: Isle of Wight.
Combined Ops/LCGM: Portsmouth
Basic Comdo Trg: CBT Centre
Para & Glider Trg: Ringway.
Jungle Warfare Course, Balgaum, India, January 1945.
Commando Group for HOC 6 February 1945.
Posted to 42 Royal Marine Commando.
HMS Afrikander
De-seconded from RM 8 August 1945.
Served as a volunteer in the UDF during the Second World War.
Commissioned.
Seconded to Royal Marines (RM) as a subaltern.
After the war, served as a volunteer in the UDF/SADF in Kaffrarian
Rifles.
Ultimately OC Kaffrarian Rifles, then successively OC Border
Commando & OC East London Commando).
Name: RANGER
Denys Hay
Rank: Lt
SAUDF Unit 41 (RM)Commando
Date Gazetted: 3 Apr 45
Award: MBE
Remarks: Bomb & Mine Disposal -
Appointed MBE for gallantry,
leadership and determination
during assault operations and
great devotion to duty in
disposing of a live mine from a
blazing ammunition dump.