FIRST SPECIAL SERVICE FORCE
Project PLOUGH was a 1942 unconventional operational concept proposed to the British government by Englishman Geoffery N. Pyke. It got the attention of Chief of Combined Operations Vice Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. Pyke was invited to join Mountbatten’s staff. Pyke’s fifty-four page memorandum suggested commando force operations in Norway and Romania during the winter. British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill found the idea compelling. He sold the idea to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and General George C. Marshall during a planning conference in London. Pyke surmised that a thousand man “North American Force,” using small tracked vehicles to rapidly move over snow, could tie down large numbers of German troops in those occupied countries. Project PLOUGH was ultimately determined to be infeasible, because it was a one-way trip. It inspired the creation of a unique combined U.S.-Canadian unit known as the First Special Service Force (FSSF).
