There are many contenders for the coveted title of “Most Effective Elite Force in World War Two.”
But every unit, from the Japanese 343rd Naval Air Group to the British Commandos,
suffered combat losses. Except one.
This elite American force completed over 100 missions deep behind enemy lines and
played a vital role in the liberation of the Pacific. This is the story of the Alamo Scouts.
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The Alamo Scouts was the brainchild of the US Sixth Army’s commander,
Lieutenant General Krueger. Having risen from the ranks and fought on the frontlines of
three previous wars, Krueger recognised the value of good intel.
But as his Sixth Army advanced through the Pacific, good intel was in short supply.
Seemingly from nowhere, massive numbers of Japanese troops appeared in his path,
and he was forced to fight through them. These Japanese defenders were often cut off from
their main supply bases closer to Japan. With careful avoidance, they could be starved out.
This was a far better solution for the Americans than engaging them in battle.
By bypassing Japanese troop concentrations, thousands of Allied soldiers could be saved.
But to do that, Krueger needed good intel, and he wasn’t getting it from his staff.
He needed an elite unit of scouts that could operate behind enemy lines as his eyes and ears.
So, in November 1943, he founded the Alamo Scouts.
700 candidates from the Sixth Army were selected for scout training,
which lasted six weeks. Candidates were selected for their jungle warfare skills, keen perception,
and physical stamina. All had previous combat experience, and all were volunteers. If you
didn’t want to be an Alamo Scout, you could leave and return to your old unit at any time.
The training was gruelling, and few made it through. In one exercise,
candidates were blindfolded and made to navigate through the jungle without being seen or caught.
Using sound, smell, and touch, they had to remain camouflaged and navigate to a specific area.
If they were spotted by the instructors, snipers fired live rounds into the trees
and the ground around them. This was meant to *motivate* the candidates to do better!
The training course was likely the most intense of the war and included, amongst other exercises,
knife fighting; enemy weapons training; a 10-page written exam; treatment of infected cuts,
gunshot wounds, and malaria; aircraft recognition; actual patrols into enemy territory; rudimentary
Tok Pisin, Malay Tagalog, and Japanese language; combat Judo; and guerrilla tactics. At the end,
the candidates were given a chance to report on each other. This assessed whether they were
actually team players—a test still commonly used in special forces training today.
Of the 700 initial candidates, 325 passed the six-week course
to become full Alamo Scouts. Of these, only the best 138 were retained,
while the rest were sent back to their units to organise scout units of their own.
But their REAL test was yet to come.
Once qualified, individual Alamo Scouts were organised into six-to-seven-man teams.
Each team member was a demolitions expert, sniper, radio operator, and point-man in his own right,
so decisions were often made democratically—a system still common in today’s special forces.
Their first mission was a recon job in the Admiralty Islands, located in the north of
the Bismarck Archipelago. Aerial imagery suggested the islands had been abandoned by the Japanese,
and General MacArthur wanted Krueger to deploy 800 men of the 1st Cavalry Division to occupy them.
But Krueger had doubts. He didn’t believe the islands were abandoned,
so he sent in the Alamo Scouts to make sure. As it turned out, he was right.
At 0645 on February 27th 1944, a Catalina flying boat carrying Lieutenant McGowan’s
Alamo Scout team landed just off the southeastern tip of the Los Negros island.
While the propellers were still turning, the scouts launched a rubber boat from the
Catalina and paddled to shore. After concealing the boat, they disappeared into the jungle.
McGowan’s scout team stealthily moved inland, following subtle tracks left by enemy soldiers.
They discovered three camouflaged machine-gun positions connected by a trench line and could
hear Japanese soldiers manning the position. Krueger was right: the island was still occupied.
If the 1st Cavalry had landed as planned, they would have been massacred.
The scouts pulled back from their observation point but were almost detected by a Japanese
platoon. Saved by their perfect camouflage, the men lay on the jungle floor while 15 Japanese
soldiers wandered by just three metres away. They never noticed the scouts, but the scouts noticed
them. Namely, their insignia marking them out as Japanese marines. They also carried spades
and picks along with their rifles, indicating their intention to dig in. McGowan noted their
uniforms were clean and well-maintained too, illustrating their high morale.
Once the marines had disappeared, the scouts set up camp in a little-used part of the jungle.
They radioed what they’d seen back to base and were picked up by Catalina the following night.
McGowan’s report was rushed to Krueger and the other generals,
who called off the landing and organised a massive naval and aerial bombardment of the island.
The 1st Cavalry made their landing later and suffered only light casualties.
By the end of their first mission,
the Alamo Scouts had proven invaluable. But their greatest feat was yet to come.
In June 1944, Filipino guerrillas supported by the Allies reported that roughly
500 POWs were being held in a Japanese prison camp
near the village of Cabanatuan, on the island of Luzon. This information wasn’t
acted on until January 1945, when Krueger’s intelligence officers devised a rescue plan.
The spooks had received word that retreating Japanese forces were liquidating POW camps
before abandoning their positions. Contravening both the Geneva Accords and basic humanity,
the Japanese were killing off POWs to stop them from falling into friendly hands. They were also
aware that any POWs left alive could testify against their captors once the war was over.
The POWs had needed rescuing, and the Alamo Scouts were going to make it happen.
On the night of January 29th, two Alamo Scout teams met up
with members of Captain Pajota’s and Captain Josen’s guerrilla companies.
These men knew the region better than anyone and were to guide the scouts in. The guerillas got
the scouts close to the camp, but there wasn’t enough cover to set up an observation post.
Lieutenant Nellist, the scout leader, dressed up as a local farmer with Filipino-American scout
Private Vaquilar. In full view of the Japanese guards, they walked to a hut 300 metres from the
camp fence. From there, the men spent eight hours observing the camp and calculating its defences.
The Filipino guerrillas made contact with locals who had been forced to work in the camp
and collected additional information for the scouts. Once compiled into a report,
the guerrillas transported a copy back to
headquarters—where Lieutenant Colonel Mucci’s Ranger Battalion was waiting.
If the Alamo Scouts were the scalpel of this operation,
the Rangers were the sledgehammer. That evening, with support from the guerrillas,
they attacked. They left their base at 1700, arriving outside the camp in complete darkness.
At around 1900, a series of loud explosions tore through the quiet night. A P-61 Black
Widow from the 547th Night Fighter Squadron overflew the camp at low altitude, periodically
cutting and restarting one of its engines. The resulting backfires drew the attention of all the
camp’s guards, who assumed the plane had been damaged and was hurtling towards the ground.
The pilots, Captain Schrieber and First Lieutenant Rucks,
completed their act by flying over the nearby hills less than 10 metres above the ground.
As the distracted Japanese defenders waited for the inevitable explosion,
guerrillas cut the telephone cables, and the Rangers got into position. At 1940, they attacked.
Small arms fire from the Rangers tore into every machine-gun nest,
guard tower, and pillbox at the same time. With intelligence from the scouts,
the Rangers engaged every part of the Japanese defence simultaneously.
The result was devastating. Within 15 seconds, every pillbox and tower had been destroyed.
While the rangers focused on killing the Japanese, the Alamo Scouts guided the POWs to safety.
Many were too sick to walk, and the scouts had to carry them out,
but these men were so emaciated that a scout could carry two at a time.
Kittleson, an Alamo Scout responsible for getting the POWs to safety,
later said: “I didn't fire a round there. I didn't have to.
My job was to get those prisoners to the river, so I did that. Sometimes you had to almost grab
a hold of them to keep them going the right direction, but they got there.”
By the end of the attack, the Rangers, guerrillas, and Alamo Scouts had liberated
552 POWs from the camp at Cabanatuan. The Alamo Scouts suffered no losses. In fact,
they NEVER suffered a combat loss throughout all of their 106 known operations behind enemy lines.
THAT was the badass story of the Alamo Scouts, one of the most successful elite forces of the Second
World War. But what do YOU think? Do YOU think you would have made it through the training program?
How do YOU think the Admiralty Islands invasion would have gone without the scout’s intel? Do YOU
think the Alamo Scouts were a precursor to modern US Special Forces? Let us know in the comments!
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