The Devil's Brigade

The Devil's Brigade is a 1968 American DeLuxe Color war film filmed in Panavision, based on the 1966 book of the same name co-written by American novelist and historian Robert H. Adleman and Col. George Walton, a member of the brigade. The film recounts the formation, training, and first mission of the 1st Special Service Force, a joint American-Canadian commando unit, known as the Devil's Brigade. The film dramatizes the Brigade's first mission in the Italian Campaign, the task of capturing what is considered an impregnable German mountain stronghold, Monte la Difensa. Plot In the summer of 1942, American Lieutenant Colonel Robert T. Frederick, a War Department staff officer with no prior combat or command experience, is summoned to Britain where he is selected by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten to raise a commando force composed of both American and Canadian personnel for operations in German-occupied Norway. Back in the U.S., Frederick arrives at the derelict Fort William Henry Harrison in Montana where he receives his American troops — all of whom are jailbirds, ne'er-do-wells, and misfits. When the hand-picked elite Canadian contingent arrives there is immediate friction with the Americans and chaos ensues. By the time Frederick manages to overcome the national differences and mold the First Special Service Force into a highly trained commando unit, he is informed that the Allied High Command have had a change of heart and offered the Norwegian missions to British troops. Left without a role, the brigade is ordered to be disbanded and its soldiers reassigned. Frederick remains undeterred and manages to persuade Lieutenant General Mark Clark to give his men a chance to prove themselves with a new mission in Italy.