American Rangers

Introduction

Whenever a British-American colony faced hostile Indians or threats from a foreign military presence, colonial governors and legislatures raised provisional (temporary) regiments to defend colonial settlements. Interim organizations were full-time military units but served for specific emergencies or pre-specified periods.  Provisional troops differed from regular British army units in several ways:

• The length of local military service for those serving in the ranks lasted for the campaign season’s duration; field officers usually served over many years.
• The colonies recruited enlisted men through a quota system that might incorporate local militia.[1]
• All officers received their appointments from colonial governors or legislatures.  Field officers were usually men of social or political importance, such as landowners and colonial legislature members;[2] junior officers were usually appointed because they had previously served as popular militia officers[3].
• The recruitment standards were lower within the provincial regiments than in the militia.
• Provincial recruitment included a demand for individuals experienced in logistical support, such as providing and transporting food, surgical supplies, and munitions.
• The officers and ranks of provisional regiments received pay for their services, for infantry privates around one shilling, sixpence per month (in today’s currency, £8.53).

The first provincial forces organized in British North America occurred during King William’s War in the 1670s, consisting primarily of men from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  During Queen Anne’s War, provincial regiments were raised from Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, making up most British forces.  During King George’s War, most provincial regiments originated in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.  In the Seven Years’ War, the British commander relegated local forces to non-combat roles supporting the regular British Army — primarily as pioneers and freight haulers.  Those men were essential to the operation of the regular army.

In 1670, around half of the men living in the British colonies were literate, but they weren’t the most effective fighting force despite their intellect.  There are reasons for this.  Whatever training provincial forces did receive, they obtained from British regular forces — usually from the salty old color sergeant who drilled the men in battlefield tactics.  This training might have been okay, except that British regular forces serving in North America were organized and trained for European-style engagements.  European battle organizations/formations were ill-suited for frontier warfare because Indians employed guerilla-style tactics; they made good use of camouflage and concealment before launching surprise attacks.  While the British grouped their ranks in orderly ranks and formations, an Indian attack was more on the order of a free-for-all.  What the colonies needed — and what they produced, were Ranger companies.  Rangers were frontiersmen and accomplished Indian fighters.[4]

Enter the Rangers

John Smith provides the earliest record of ranger operations in British America, dated around 1622.  “When I had ten men able to go abroad, our commonwealth was very strong.  With such a number, I ranged that unknown country 14 weeks.”  Smith tells us that many ranger units were small, around the same number of men as present-day infantry squads.  Note that army squads consist of ten men, including the squad leader and two fire teams of four men each.  Marine squads involve thirteen men, including the squad leader and three fire teams of four men each.   

Benjamin Church (b. 1639) was the grandson of Richard Warren, one of the original Mayflower passengers who landed at Plymouth.  In 1667, he married Alice Southworth in Duxbury, Massachusetts.  During King Philip’s War, Church was the principal military aide to Governor Josiah Winslow of the Plymouth Colony.[5]  Governor Winslow commissioned Church as a captain on 24 July 1675.  He commanded a mixed independent company of Indian allies and English settlers — the first company of which successfully raided the camps of hostile Indians in the upper regions of the Massachusetts colony.

Captain Church (realizing that European-style battle formations were ineffective against the Indians) began to imagine a different style of warfare on the frontier.  Many of his Indian recruits were Christians (called Praying Indians); from them, he learned the Indian skill set of tracking, stalking, blending in with one’s surroundings, ambushing, and raiding.

On 19 December 1675, colonial forces representing Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut (and their Indian allies) engaged and killed 300 Narragansett warriors.  The battle was significant because the survivors of the Narragansett tribe withdrew from the conflict and remained in hiding until after the war and also because Captain Church had started an American tradition.  One of the men serving under Church was the father of John Lovewell (1691-1725), whose ruthless warfighting skills made him the most famous ranger of the early colonial period.[6]

Another famous American ranger was John Gorham (1709-1751).  Gorham was the first “significant” British military presence in the Nova Scotia and Acadia frontier to remain in the region for a substantial period.  Gorham’s Rangers included two armed ships (the Anson and Warren — about 70 tons each) that performed regular patrols off the coast of Nova Scotia.  He was first commissioned as a captain in 1744, later promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 7th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment in 1745, and two years later received a commission as a captain in an independent company in the British Army.  Gorham’s father (1686-1746) also served as a colonel in the provincial forces during King George’s War.  Gorham was among the few American colonists to receive a regular British Army commission.[7]

Few people today have ever heard of Church, Lovewell, or Gorham — but nearly everyone has heard of Robert Rogers (1731-1795), if for no other reason than he played a conspicuous role in Alexander Rose’s book, Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring (2007) and the subsequent television series titled Turn: Washington’s Spies.

Robert Rogers was a British-American frontiersman who served in the British Army during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and the American Revolution (1765-1783).[8]  Rogers raised and commanded Rogers’ Rangers with service in the New York colony’s Lake George and Lake Champlain regions.  These rangers frequently mounted winter raids against French towns and military emplacements.[9]  Despite the rangers’ ability to fight in inhospitable environments, the regular British Army looked upon these frontiersmen with disdain.  Today, the Queen’s York Rangers (Canada), U. S. Army Rangers, and the US 119th Field Artillery claim military lineage to Rogers’ Rangers.  Rogers’ Standing Orders appear in the U. S. Army Ranger Handbook.

According to some historians, Major Richard Rogers offered his services to General George Washington at the outset of the American Revolution.  Washington, fearing that Rogers was a British plant, refused the offer.  We then understand that a much-put-out Rogers joined forces with British loyalists, raised the Queen’s Rangers, and fought against the American rebels.  Rogers is credited with capturing the American spy Nathan Hale — which was no major achievement because Nathan Hale may have been America’s most incompetent spy.  In 1779, Rogers traveled to Nova Scotia, where he created the King’s Rangers Regiment, with service through the end of the revolution.

In January 1812, the US War Department authorized six companies of U. S. Rangers — a mounted infantry regiment charged with protecting the western frontier.  A year later, an additional ten companies were raised.  Official Army records in 1813 list twelve companies of Rangers.  The Army disbanded these companies in 1815.

During the Black Hawk War (1832), a battalion of mounted rangers (dragoons were an early version of the United States cavalry) recruited frontiersmen to serve for one year.[10]  The Army required each man to provide his own horses and weapons.  The battalion consisted of six companies of 100 men each.  The battalion commander was Major Henry Dodge.[11]

During the American Civil War, the Army fielded three ranging units: Loudoun’s Rangers, consisting primarily of Quaker and German soldiers; Blazer’s Scouts, who mainly confronted other irregular forces (such as the Bushwhackers), and for the Confederacy, John Mosby’s Rangers. 

Entering the Modern Era

Early in World War II, Major General Lucian Truscott proposed creating an Army commando unit modeled on the British Commandos.  Subsequently, five ranger battalions served in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Battalions, U. S. Rangers).  Another battalion (the 6th) was organized for service in the Pacific (PTO).  Additional battalions (numbered 7th through 10th) were organized on paper as part of the American disinformation campaign, also known as Operation Quicksilver.

Eighty percent of the 1st Ranger Battalion came from the US 34th Infantry Division; of those, following commando training at Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, fifty men were selected to serve with British Commandos during the raid at Dieppe.  These men were the first US soldiers to serve in ground combat in the ETO.  The 1st, 3rd, and 4th Battalions fought in North Africa and Italy as Darby’s Rangers.  At the Battle of Cisterna on 29 January 1944, most of the men assigned to the 1st and 3rd battalions were either killed or captured, with the remaining rangers reassigned and absorbed into the First Special Service Force under Brigadier General Robert L. Frederick (also known as the Devil’s Brigade), a joint United States-Canadian ranger brigade.  A temporary ranger battalion was formed from the US 29th Infantry Division in December 1942, which served until November 1943.

During the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, Company D, Company E, and Company F of the 2nd Ranger Battalion landed at Pointe du Hoc — an assault force of 225 men.  Members of the 29th Ranger Battalion augmented the 2nd and 5th battalions.  Several landing craft capsized in the stormy waters, resulting in several men drowning during the initial assault.  A navigation error caused a one-hour delay in the operation and the loss of the element of surprise, resulting in an additional loss of 30 men.  The remaining 190 Rangers scaled the cliffs utilizing rope ladders.  At the top of Pointe du Hoc, only 90 men remained capable of carrying firearms.  Although the Germans had removed the heavy artillery pieces overlooking Pointe du Hoc, the battalion successfully seized the position and disabled a battery of 155mm artillery placed 1,000 yards behind the Atlantic Wall.

Company A, Company B, and Company C of the 2nd battalion landed with the 5th Rangers at Omaha Beach, completing their assigned mission despite suffering tremendous casualties during the assault.  Company A lost 96% of its men on Omaha Beach; only two men survived the landing unscathed.

Two separate Ranger units fought in the Pacific War: the 98th Field Artillery, activated on 16 December 1940, was re-designated the 6th Ranger Battalion on 20 September 1944.  This battalion led the invasion of the Philippines and executed the raid on the Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp.  At the end of the war, the battalion was deactivated while still serving in Japan on 30 December 1945.  In 1943, a nearly 3,000-man composite unit was formed around Frank Merrill —known as Merrill’s Marauders.  The training of these men followed the training scheme of Major General Orde Wingate, British Army, whose field of expertise and specialization involved deep penetration raids behind enemy lines.  Merrill’s Marauders were employed against the Japanese in the Burma Campaign.

Korea and Vietnam

The United States initiated general demobilization of the armed forces almost immediately following the surrender of Germany (7 May 1945) and Japan (2 Sep 1945).  As with all the other armed services under the post-war presidency of Harry S. Truman and Defense Secretary Louis A. Johnson, the Army was gutted and, therefore, unprepared for major combat on 25 June 1950.  The re-activation of a unique ranger unit was needed in the earliest days of the Korean War.  In mid-August 1950, the 8th Ranger Company was formed under the command of Second Lieutenant Ralph Puckett.[12]

The company was a light infantry force specializing in finding and engaging the enemy in fire and close combat.  The 8th Ranger Company became the model for all subsequent ranger units.  Rather than companies within light infantry battalions, U. S. Army rangers in Korea and Vietnam operated as companies attached to larger units as special mission forces.  Between mid-August 1950 and April 1951, the Army activated sixteen additional ranger companies, designated 1st through 15th Ranger Company.  To form these new units, the Army solicited volunteers from the 505th Airborne Regiment, the 80th Anti-aircraft Artillery Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division.

In the Korean War, rangers patrolled, probed, scouted, and conducted raids and ambushes against Chinese and North Korean units.  In one nighttime raid, the 1st Ranger Company destroyed the headquarters element of the 12th North Korean Division.  In another, Lieutenant Puckett’s company became famous when they captured and held a strategic hill overlooking the Chongchon River — and held it against overwhelming enemy forces.  During this battle, Puckett was wounded several times by grenades and mortar fire.  Puckett’s injuries were so severe that he required hospitalization for over a year.

During the Vietnam War, the Army formed Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) companies to perform heavily armed reconnaissance teams to patrol inside enemy-controlled areas.  LRRP teams and companies were attached to every brigade/division.  Company E, 52nd Infantry (LRP)[13] pulled off one of the more daring missions in the Vietnam War on 19 April 1968 by seizing Signal Hill on Dong Re Lao Mountain in the A Shau Valley.

On 1 January 1969, the Army’s LRRP units were re-named Ranger Companies, 75th Infantry Regiment.  Fifteen companies were raised from LRRP units serving at locations around the globe.  The 75th Infantry Regiment’s lineage was linked to Merrill’s Marauders.  The independent companies were designated Alpha through Papa (excluding Juliet).[14]  In addition to scouting and reconnaissance patrols, the Ranger companies provided terrain assessment, security missions, recovery operations, interrogation of captured soldiers, enemy communications intercept, and disruption of enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  Most Ranger team leaders and assistants graduated from the 5th Special Forces Group Recon School at Nha Trang.

Late Twentieth Century

In January 1974, the Army directed the formation of a Ranger battalion — the first such battalion since World War II.  The 1st Ranger Battalion was activated on 1 July 1974 at Fort Stewart, Georgia; the 2nd Ranger Battalion was activated on 1 October 1974.  In 1980, soldiers of the 1st Battalion participated in Operation Eagle Claw, the Iranian hostage rescue mission.  The mission was subsequently aborted due to numerous coordination and equipment failures, none of which were the fault of the assigned soldiers.  Of eight aircraft assigned to the mission, only five arrived at the pre-operation staging location — three experienced mechanical issues.  As available helicopters prepared to withdraw from staging, one of the aircraft crashed into a C-130, killing eight soldiers.

In October 1983, the 1st and 2nd Ranger Battalions participated in Operation Urgent Fury — the rescue of American medical students on the island of Grenada.  On 1 October 1984, the Army activated the 3rd Ranger Battalion at Fort Benning, GA.  In February 1986, the 75th Ranger Regiment was re-activated, incorporating the three ranger battalions.

Operation Just Cause

Relations between the United States and Panama had been deteriorating over several years.  In May 1989, after political opponents revealed that Panamanian President Manuel Noriega had stolen the election, Noriega officially canceled the election and retained power by force of arms, which was unpopular among the Panamanian people.  President George H. W. Bush called upon Noriega to honor the people’s will while directing the reinforcement of military installations of the U.S. Canal Zone. 

In October, Noriega survived an attempt by the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) to overthrow him.  Urged on by Noriega, the Panamanian general assembly passed a resolution on 15 December 1989, which declared war on the United States.  The next day, four US military personnel were stopped at a roadblock outside the PDF headquarters in Panama City.  Four officers (Marine Corps Captain Richard E. Haddad, Navy Lieutenant Michael J. Wilson, Army Captain Barry L. Rainwater, and Marine First Lieutenant Robert Paz) were en route to a downtown hotel for dinner.  Their privately owned vehicle was surrounded by a mob of citizens, accompanied by members of the PDF.  The PDF opened fire and mortally wounded Lieutenant Paz.  Hadded, who was driving, was also wounded.  Because a Navy officer and his wife witnessed the incident, the PDF arrested the couple.  While in custody, Panamanian troops assaulted the Naval officer’s wife.  It was then that President Bush ordered the invasion of Panama, citing the shooting incident and Panama’s declaration of war.

The entire Ranger regiment participated in Operation Just Cause in late December 1989 — their mission was the capture of two airfields and Noriega’s beach house.  In the process of completing that mission, they took over 1,000 Panamanian soldiers into custody.

War on Terror

Beginning in 1991, American Rangers (along with other US and coalition armed forces) began participating in what has become the Middle Eastern wars, a substantial commitment of American personnel and financial resources.  Since then, Rangers have deployed to Somalia (1993) and Kosovo (2000), and deployments to Iraq, Syria, Waziristan, and Afghanistan have been so frequent and so widely dispersed that each of the three battalions has added an additional light infantry company to help shoulder the regiment’s world-wide responsibilities.

Today, Army rangers operate within the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a unified command that supervises the special operations components of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.  USSOCOM was created in the aftermath of the failed attempt to rescue diplomats from the US Embassy in Tehran.  The command’s activities involve clandestine operations involving direct action, reconnaissance/intelligence gathering, counter-terrorism, unconventional measures, psychological operations, civil affairs, and counter-narcotics.  Each armed force has its unique operations component, but each is structured to work together as a joint-force team.

USSOCOM comprises the Joint Special Operations Command, Special Operations Command — Joint Capabilities, the Army Special Operations Command, Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Naval Special Warfare Command, and Air Force Special Operations Command.

The Army Special Operations Command includes 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment (Delta Force), 75th Ranger Regiment (the US Army’s premier light infantry organization), and Army Special Operations Aviation Command (Airborne).  There are also unique units, such as two psychological operations groups (airborne) and the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade, who help sustain civilian populations who suffer the trauma of war and natural disasters.

No one ever said war was easy.

Sources:

1. American Forces in Action (series), “Pointe du Hoc and the 2nd Ranger Battalion.”  U. S. Army Center of Military History, 1946.
2. Black, R. W.  Ranger Dawn: The American Ranger from the Colonial Era to the Mexican War.  Penn: Stackpole Books, 2009.
3. Burhans, R. D.  The First Special Service Force: A Canadian/American Wartime Alliance: The Devil’s Brigade.  Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1947.
4. Bahmanyar, M.  U. S. Army Ranger, 1983-2002.  Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2003.
5. Church, B., and Thomas Church.  The History of Philip’s War, Commonly Called The Great Indian War of 1675 and 1676.  S. G. Drake, ed.  J & B Williams, 1829 (online).
6. Cuneo, J. R.  Robert Rogers of the Rangers.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1959
7. Faragher, J. M.  A Great and Noble Scheme.  New York: Norton & Company, 2005.
8. Grenier, J.  The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
9. Harrison, G. A.  Cross Channel Attack.  U. S. Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations.  Washington, D. C.: U. S. Army Center of Military History, 1951.
10. O’Donnell, P. K.  Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc: The Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day’s Toughest Mission and Led the Way Across Europe.  Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2012.
11. Taylor, T. H., and R. J. Martin.  Ranger — Lead the Way. Turner Publishing, 1996.
12. Werner, B.  First Special Service Force, 1942-44.  Osprey Publishing, 2006.
13. Zaboly, G. S.  A True Ranger: The Life and Many Wars of Major Robert Rogers.  Garden City Park: Royal Blockhouse, 2004.

Endnotes:

[1] Militia (also called minutemen) consisted of local able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 who, beginning in 1645, were drawn from local settlements and underwent rudimentary training to respond (within minutes) of an emergency.  Over time, service with the militia became the ‘moral obligation’ of the more prominent men within the community.  From within this upper class body of men, militia officers were elected by the men they would lead in conflict.

[2] George Washington, who started the Seven Years War, was commissioned by Robert Dinwiddie, Royal Governor of Virginia.  Washington, therefore, was a provincial officer vs. a militia officer.  

[3] Militia officers were generally “elected” by the men whom they led, hence the expression “popular” officers.

[4] By use of the term “accomplished Indian fighters,” I mean to suggest that if they were still alive, then they were survivors of one or more bloody confrontations with hostile Indians.

[5] Known variously as King Philip’s War, the First Indian War, Metacom’s War, and Pometacomet’s Rebellion, was a conflict between 1675-1678 between American Indians in the New England region and its colonists and their Indian allies.  King Philip was an Indian chief named Metacom who adopted the name Philip because of the friendly relations between his father and the New England colonists.  In this instance, relations deteriorated because in attempting to seize all firearms in possession of the Wampanoags, the colonists hanged three of the tribe.

[6] More than 100 years after his death, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau wrote stories about John Lovewell’s clash with the Abenaki Indians.  A description of Lovewell includes “scalp hunter,” which reflects the training Ranger’s received from their Indian allies.  There are several explanations for the removal of a dead enemy’s hair and all of them may be factually based — it is another small matter lost in time.  One theory is that in taking scalps, Indian warriors proved their valor in combat; another is that scalping denied the victim a special place in the afterlife.  Either way, the Indians taught American Rangers how to do it and why they should.  Suffice to say that Natty Bumppo was a figment of James Fenimore Cooper’s imagination, but John Lovewell was the real deal. 

[7] The few officers who received a regular British Army commission included John Gorham, Joseph Gorham, Benoni Danks, and Richard Rogers. 

[8] The year 1764 is generally regarded as the beginning of the American Revolution (in philosophical discourse) because it was around that time when the British-American colonists began to question the right of the British Parliament to tax the colonies without the participation of colonial members of the Parliament or any colonial representation in the British Parliament.  From the viewpoint of British prime ministers, the series of taxes levied upon the colonists, beginning in 1765 (subsequently withdrawn in some cases) was necessary because (according to PM George Grenville), the whole of revenues of the American customs houses in 1764 amounted to only £2,000 annually, while the British government was paying between £7-8,000 annually to collect them.  Even in the opinion of Adam Smith, Parliament “… has never hitherto demanded of [the American colonies] anything which even approached to a just proportion to what was paid by their fellow subjects as home.”

[9] Significant because at that time, opposing military forces frequently went into winter camps during frigid weather.

[10] Mounted infantry are also frequently referred to as dragoons.

[11] Henry Dodge also served in the US House of Representatives, and as Governor of the Wisconsin Territory.  In earlier years, he was indicted as a co-conspirator of Aaron Burr but the charges against him were later dropped. 

[12] Ralph Puckett, Jr., (1926—) (USMA ’49) volunteered to command the newly activated ranger company soon after his arrival in Japan.  The company, a light infantry force, specialized in searching for enemy forces and engaging them in direct fire and close combat.

[13] Later redesignated Company H, Rangers.

[14] The U. S. Army has not had a Company J since 1816 because the letter J looks too much like the letter I.

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