30th Assault Unit
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30 Assault Unit (aka 30 Commando, 30AU, and "Ian Fleming's Red Indians") was a British multiservice combat unit in World War II that collected technical intelligence on German forces during amphibious landings. More specifically, the main operational role of the unit was to move ahead of Allied forces, or to undertake covert infiltrations into enemy territory by any means necessary, to capture intelligence in the form of: documents; cipher, radio and radar equipment; weapons; and personnel. The unit often worked closely with the Intelligence Corps' Field Security Operations.
In September 1942 the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral John Godfrey, authorized Ian Fleming's idea for the creation of the Special Intelligence Unit, composed of 33 Troop (Royal Marines), 34 Troop (British Army), 35 Troop (Royal Air Force) and 36 Troop (Royal Navy). The Special Intelligence Unit was later renamed 30 Commando (Special Engineering Unit), and subsequently redesignated 30 Assault Unit in December 1943. They first saw action during Operation Torch in November 1942.
The unit subsequently participated in Pantelleria, Sicily, Italy, and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, as well as in Norway from 1942-43. During Operation Husky the unit was able to get a complete set of Italian Air Force ciphers for homing beacons, enabling Allied warplanes to fly to targets in northern Italy guided by Italian navigation beacons.
The British had learned that the Germans themselves had intelligence units similar to 30AU. In 1941 a German unit was able to seize important documents from the abandoned British headquarters in Athens, Greece when that city was captured.
30 Assault Unit returned to Britain in November 1943 in preparation for the Normandy landings the following year. However the 15th Army Group requested the unit's Army component to return to Italy for operations there. Thus, only the Naval and Royal Marine component participated in the D-Day landings in June 1944, as WOOLFORCE and PIKEFORCE whose target was to capture and collect technical intelligence at a German coastal radar station at Douvres-la-Délivrande and later fought their way into Cherbourg. In July 1944, the unit served in Rennes and Brest, and followed Free French Forces into Paris, France during the liberation of the city in August. By May 1945, Royal Marines from the unit had captured the German naval base in Bremen. After the end of the war in Europe a Royal Marine detachment from the unit was sent to the Pacific Theater of Operations for intelligence operations against the Japanese, but the Surrender of Japan in August precluded many of its planned operations.
30 Assault Unit was finally disbanded in 1946.
