I've been wondeing for a few days (I know-I must be careful) I know America, Germany, France, Canada, Austrailia, NZ and Britain had well documented SF during the Second World War but what about the other key players? Italian Special Forces? Japanese Special Forces? Would you consider Kamikaze's as Special Forces?
The Italians had the X M.A.S., under Prince Valerio Borghese, which with its Gamma swimmers and "------" human torpedoes, inflicted lots of damage to allied shipping, both merchant and military. Here´s a link to a site with relatively detailed info about it: http://www.regiamarina.net/ About the Nips, I wouldn´t consider the Kamikaze as special forces, because even though extremely brave, they received almost no training at all. However, the Kaiten crewmembers were another story, since their missions weren´t completely suicidal, and the kind of hardware they fought with did require specialized training.
The OSNAZ (Army Special Purpose Detachments) were NKVD troops which fought against Jerry in WW2 as airborne units. Sorry I couldn´t dig up some more info, but I´m sure the experts around here will come out with something...
Japanese also had a small number of airborne squads, which were parachuted in an attempt to recapture the U.S. controlled airfields during the battle of Okinawa.
Japanese also had a small number of airborne squads, which were parachuted in an attempt to recapture the U.S. controlled airfields during the battle of Okinawa. That one I didn´t know; my knowledge of their airborne ops doesn´t go beyond the N.E.I. invasion.