Page 113 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Spring 2014

• Repetition: honing routine skills to a degree that al- instance, Italy was in the early phases of aligning with
low quick reaction to a threat, provided that threat the Allies. To say that this operation occurred behind
fits within the standard scenario the unit has de- friendly lines is a stretch. German commandos had to
veloped and practiced. Because Special Operations use gliders to infiltrate the target area because friendly
vary enough from standard, new equipment, and lines had shifted and a nearby Italian unit and terrain
tactics must often be employed. This necessitates impeded avenues of approach to the target. Further-
at least on (but preferably two) full dress rehearsals more, the author fails to mention the most important
prior to insertion. reason the 250 Italian soldiers guarding Mussolini did
not open fire on the small German force: when they
Execution phase: recognized the Italian general brought along as a diver-
• Surprise: catching the enemy off guard trough sion, they lowered their weapons, allowing time for the
deception, timing, and taking advantage of his raiding force to find and secure Mussolini. This was an
vulnerably.
• Speed: getting to the objective as fast as possible to innovative tactic from the planning phase and allowed
surprise and speed during the execution phase, all of
prevent expanding ones area of vulnerability and which fit within McRaven’s criteria, but the author did
decreasing ones opportunity to achieve relative not highlight the former and only briefly noted the lat-
superiority.
• Purpose: understanding and executing the prime ter. This lack of clarity might be a result of the limited
explanation of the mission provided by the author, or it
objective of a mission regardless of emerging ob- is secondary to another weakness of this work: the lack
stacles or opportunities.
of an organized and uniformed critique at the end of
each chapter. In McRaven’s work, the critiques discuss
In Chapters 2 through 7, he applies the above-mentioned each criterion and explain how the mission did or did
criteria to individual missions. He first offers a brief unit not meet it. Dilley’s work would have benefited greatly
history and explanation of the mission and then offers from the same model.
a critical analysis. If a particular mission met his stan-
dards, he does not belabor the positive points, but if the Learning from the past is difficult. Mark Twain once
mission does not, he offers an explanation. His critiques noted that history does not repeat itself, but it often
for these chapters are straightforward and educational. rhymes. Dilley sought to offer a usable paradigm to
critique past missions and hopefully elicit questions as
His work begins to weaken beginning with Chapter 8, to whether the mission is suited for Special Operations
wherein he expands to more unit histories. Instead of units, thereby preventing unnecessary risk of lives and
explaining individual missions, he describes vaguely resources. The two works he leaned greatly on provide
the history of a special mission unit, and then applies a useful starting point for those seeking to analyze past
his criteria to the unit’s missions as a whole. In Chap- missions with an eye on the future. Dilley’s work, alas,
ter 9, for instance, he concluded that the unit’s missions is found wanting in some areas. The content and ideas
were “mostly” successful and “generally” met his cri- are sound, but the editor failed to serve the author dur-
teria. This makes garnering lessons and comparisons ing the substantive edit phase by not making the book
to other missions difficult. Moreover, because he does more functional for its readers. Furthermore, it does
not provided a lot of the history of the unit and mis- not contribute significantly to the scholarly discussion,
sion, one cannot use his paradigm to come to one’s own because it is based heavily on secondary sources and
conclusions. other’s models. It does, however, have a valuable bibli-
ography if one wants to further explore the missions he
The latter portion of the book (Part 2) analyzes mis- analyzed. The faults noted above should not, however,
sions conducted behind friendly lines, from intelligence overshadow his bold effort. He recognized that com-
gathering in consulates within the United States to the manders and planners will grapple with how to use Spe-
famous Gran Sasso raid to rescue deposed Italian Dicta- cial Operations forces in future conflicts, and he took
tor Benito Mussolini. Unfortunately, his work further the initiative to consolidate the analogies of the past for
founders at this point. During the Gran Sasso raid, for imminent comparisons.

Behind the Lines: A Critical Survey of Special Operations in World War II 105