tip of the spear (pdf) - The Air Commando Association

By Hank Heusinkveld
In 1942, an elite U.S. Army
unit was formed in Ireland with
help from British commandos
that would later wreak havoc
with hit and run tactics on
German soldiers in North Africa
and all the way into Italy. Led
by a charismatic and intuitive
West Pointer named Bill Darby
the unit, officially known as the
1st Ranger Battalion, would
Pvt. Harold Stanley
Westerholm pictured in
1942. Courtesy photo.
become widely known as “Darby’s Rangers.” Up the road
from Fayetteville in Oxford, North Carolina is a veteran
from this famous World War Two unit. Harold Stanley
Westerholm first joined the Army
National Guard in 1940 at age
18. Trained as an
infantryman, he
was later
assigned to the
135th Infantry
Regiment, 34th
Infantry
Division. That
Tip of the Spear
48
USSOCOM HISTORY
division and hundreds of thousands of other GIs were soon
Europe bound, and the 34th made its way to England and
settled in Ireland. Shortly after, Westerholm caught wind of
a highly-skilled, highly-mobile unit that was being formed to
work behind enemy lines.
“They were asking for volunteers for ‘Rangers’ Darby
was organizing the group and was interviewing folks who
volunteered,” Westerholm said. “He was looking for
someone that was young and very physically able to do
everything. After our interview we received a notice
whether we were accepted or not for training. We
eventually went to Scotland and received training with
British commandos.”
Westerholm recalled the cold, dismal climate of
northern Great Britain, but there was little time to dwell on
new surroundings. He and his fellow GIs were launched
into a fast-paced world of realistic, exhausting and creative
training.
“Oh yeah! They gave us everything that they could give
us,” he explained. “They had a regular course set up and it
wasn’t something that was set up spur-of-the-moment. It
was a well-designed course that the commandos had set up.”
Westerholm and his comrades faced endless days of
relentless training in the rugged hills of Scotland. He
remembered that Darby was the perfect leader for this outof-the-box
thinking unit. To him, Darby was a
Darby Rangers in action in
Italy during WW II. Courtesy
photo.