Satisfied Lions
80 years ago today: A “Free Belgian” lance corporal of the British Army’s No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando inspects his rifle with sniper scope in a village in Italy, 6 February 1944. Note his kit that includes not only an optics-equipped No. 4 Enfield but also Mills bombs, a toggle rope, and a cap comforter, the latter two pieces of gear considered standard issue among Commando units post-Dieppe. Further, take note of his fellow Commandos, many wearing a green beret with Belgian Lion insignia.
Official caption: “Italy. 5th Army. Belgian Commandos. Commando checking over the sniper sights on his rifle with a satisfied look. (La Vaglie) Taken by Sgt Bowman.” IWM NA 11813
The Free Belgian troops, formed in England around a 400-man kernel of the Royal Belgian Army that had escaped from the Continent in June 1940, eventually rose to include the 2,200-man Piron Brigade after its commanding officer, B. Gen. Jean-Baptiste Piron.
Volunteers from the Free Belgians for No. 10 Commando soon numbered enough to man a full Troop (No. 4), which, besides lending small groups for service to support the SOE in Belgium (all members had to be fluent in French, Dutch and English), would ship out to Italy in November 1943 to join the Special Service Brigade there and would continue to fight up the Italian “Boot” for most of the year, switching to Northwest Europe in November 1944 with Operation Infatuate: the liberation of the Dutch island of Walcheren.
Denison smocks, toggle ropes, and green berets with lions: Belgian Commandos in Training in Britain, 1945. “Men of the Belgian Army learn to use a Bren gun as part of their Commando training at a British Commando School. The NCO records to the second the time allowed for firing.” IWM D 23711
There were so many volunteers that a spin-off unit, Capt. Edouard “Eddy” Blondeel’s oversized Belgian Independent Parachute Company, became the 5th SAS in 1944 (and would become the 1er Regiment Parachutiste in the Belgian Army in 1946).
Post-war, No. 4 (Belgian) Troop, No. 10 Cmdo, would form the Belgian Army’s Commando Brigade (now 2e Bataillon de Commandos), in 1945. The organization still wears British-style para wings and its unit badge is a British Commando Fairbairn-Sykes dagger.
