Distinctly Montana Magazine

17 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m T HE SOLDIERS OF THE DEV- IL'S BRIGADE CARRIED A VERY SPECIAL KNIFE. Sharp, narrow, and with a spike on the end of the handle, the weapon was designed by Lt. Col. Robert T. Frederick, a career fighting man destined to become an outsized mythical figure in World War II. Frederick had designed the knife for one purpose: to kill Nazis. His men, the 1st Special Service Force, had been trained for the same purpose by experts in hand- to-hand combat, stealth, and paratrooping. They'd been taught what parts of the body, when struck, will bleed the most—and where to stick the knife so that their adversary would die silently, choking on their blood. The knives were stiletto-thin, able to slide between an enemy combatant's ribs with appalling ease. But unlike traditional stilet- tos, sharpened only at the point, the V-42, as it was eventually named, was edged on all sides, so that it would pull through a Nazi's throat as easily as it could pierce his steel helmet. The knife was so frightfully sharp that they had to redesign its sheath because the ra- zor-like tips kept cutting through and nicking the men's thighs in training. And if that weren't le- thal enough, each V-42 came with a pyramid-shaped spike on the pommel; when swung accurately and at the right angle, it wouldn't dent a skull, it would stave one in. The knives got plenty of use from January to June 1944, as Allied forces tried to secure Anzio. During the long and bloody engagement, Lt. Col. Frederick's men stalked be- hind the enemy's lines with blackened faces and knives clutched in their hands, on the lookout for unwary ad- versaries. They found plenty. Many of the bodies of slain German soldiers had stickers affixed to them reading "Das dicke Ende kommt noch," or, roughly, "the worst is yet to come." One German offi- cer stationed in Anzio wrote despairingly in his diary, lat- er recovered, that "the Black Devils are all around us ev- ery time we come into line, and we never hear them." Anzio and the Italian Cam- paign would be a trial by fire for the young men of the Devil's Brigade. Nor would it be their last sight of ac- tion; they would distinguish themselves as a ferocious fighting force by defending Anzio from the Axis's at- tempt to recapture the city, and going on to further acts of daring and bravado in Ita- ly and France. But before all that, when they were just an unlikely assortment of young Ameri- can and Canadian men, they trained in Fort Henry Harri- son, outside of Helena, Mon- tana. For a few months in the summer of 1942, they were Montanans. by NICK MITCHELL The Devil's Brigade in Helena The deadly V-42 knife

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