Ranger Combat Training School Hawaiian Department 1943

[Salvage Sailor]

Ranger and Combat Training School

Hawaiian Department

August 1943

 

Original from my collection, stamped Signal Corps US Army on the reverse

 

My congratulations to you on becoming an instructor of Ranger and Combat Training, Francois D'Eliscu, Lieut. Colonel Infantry, Commandant

 

[Salvage Sailor]

Ranger Combat Training School Hawaiian Department - Department of the Army. Office of the Chief Signal Officer (35 Minutes, no soundtrack)

 

 

[Salvage Sailor]

Another certificate from June 1943

 

Technician Fifth Grade (T/5) Roger L. Reid, Service Company, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th ID,

was a ‘Very Satisfactory’ graduate of the eight-week Hawaiian Department ‘Ranger’ course.

 

[Salvage Sailor]

The Director of the Ranger and Combat Training School, Hawaiian Department

 

Milton Francois D'Eliscu (November 10, 1895 – October 15, 1972) was an American military officer, football and basketball coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Temple University from 1922 to 1923, compiling a record of 1–9–1. D'Eliscu was also the head basketball coach at Temple from 1919 to 1923, tallying a mark of 30–22. He was the athletic director at the University of Hawaii at Manoa from 1946 to 1947. Author of three hand to hand fighting books.

 

Major (later Lt Col) Francois D'Eliscu - Under the instruction of Major Francois D’Eliscu, numbers of American soldiers are undergoing training in preparation for Ranger attacks on our enemy. Here the Major charges over some of the trainees to harden them for future duty.

 

[Salvage Sailor]

Hawaiian Department history excerpt

Within a year of the 1941 attack, the newly formed 24th and 25th divisions were sent to fight the war in the Pacific. However, Schofield did not remain a ghost town. The need for soldiers trained to fight under tropical conditions arose and the Jungle Training Center, later called the Ranger Combat Training School, was formed in late 1942. Almost 1 million men went through the training center at Schofield before being sent overseas, and many soldiers were housed on Schofield. Facilities and training areas were increased and the Olympic-size Richardson Pool was built for combat training.

[Salvage Sailor]

Ranger Training Fort Shafter Hawaii1943

D'Eliscu shows them how to kill

Rapid Fire Shooting from the Hip

 

Motivation - Truly "Live Fire"

Tommy Gun Training

 

 

Shooting from the HIp

The Colonel at Work

 

 

 

 

Disarming a Bayonet Attacker

 

 

 

 

 

The Eyes -  All's Fair in War

 

 

 

"You're Done Sonny"

 

[Mr. Bushido]

Thank you for sharing！
I thought it was only in the movies that a colonel would train so hard.

[Salvage Sailor]

 

KILLER INSTINCT: HOW ONE MAN TAUGHT U.S. RANGERS TO FIGHT DIRTY IN WWII

Francois d’Eliscu taught thousands of U.S. Army Rangers how to fight down and dirty in World War II.

By PATRICK J. KIGER 9/8/2020

[Salvage Sailor]

 

Johnny Weissmuller 1928 Olympic Swimming Team, Amsterdam, Netherlands, managed by Milton Francois D'Eliscu.  Johnny Weissmuller was swimming's first superstar by winning five Olympic gold medals. He won the 100m freestyle and the 4x200m relay team event at both the 1924 Paris Games and 1928 Amsterdam Games. He also won gold in the 400m freestyle and a bronze medal in the water polo competition in Paris.

 

Walter Laufer  was an American competition swimmer who represented the United States at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In the 1928 Olympics he won a gold medal in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay event and silver medal in the 100-meter backstroke event. He was also fifth in the 100-meter freestyle event.

 

Paul H. Wyatt  was an American competition swimmer and Olympic medalist. Wyatt represented the United States at the 1924 Summer Olympics and 1928 Summer Olympics.

 

Helen Meany (later Gravis, December 15, 1904 – July 21, 1991) was an American diver who competed in the 1920 Summer Olympics, in the 1924 Summer Olympics, and in the 1928 Summer Olympics.

 

Milton Francois D'Eliscu managed the 1928 Olympic swim team in Amsterdam Holland, after the Olympics he left in 1931 to become the Physical director for the city of Tokyo, Japan.

[Salvage Sailor]

In 1943 d’Eliscu went ashore with U.S. forces at Makin Atoll in the Pacific. (U.S. Army/National Archives)

 

In November 1943 d’Eliscu went ashore with landing forces at Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. As the men in his patrol made their way inland, they were pinned down by sniper fire and had to take cover.

 

D’Eliscu was walking behind a tall lieutenant who was suddenly hit in the arm by a sniper in a tree, according to a reconstruction of the incident by Ray Coll Jr., a correspondent for the Honolulu Advertiser, who interviewed woun­ded soldiers evacuated to Oahu. D’Eliscu fired on the sniper and hit him, causing him to fall to the ground. According to Coll’s account, d’Eliscu rushed to the Japanese soldier, used the disarming techniques he’d taught at Fort Meade and in Hawaii to take the man’s rifle and knife away, and quickly killed him. That heroic act led to d’Eliscu being awarded the Silver Star three months later.  Excerpt from Killer Instinct

 

The U.S. Army Signal Corps produced a 35-minute film in 1942 about d’Eliscu’s combat training school for Rangers at Fort Shafter, Honolulu. “There are no posed scenes in this picture,” an opening title says. (U.S. Army/National Archives)

 

D’Eliscu’s deadly moves (clockwise from upper left): pinching windpipe while pulling hair; using rifle sling as garrote; neck-breaking tree tie; combined leg break and stranglehold. (A. Aubrey Bodine)

 

D’Eliscu’s training methods were sufficiently unorthodox for Life magazine to send a photographer to Fort Meade for a feature on what it called his “dirty fighting” system. (Everett Collection Inc./Alamy Stock Photo)

 

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and General Robert C. Richardson Jr. visit d’Eliscu at his school in Hawaii in 1943. (U.S. Army Signal Corps/University of Hawaii Archives)

 

A page from Hand to Hand Combat by Milton D'Eliscu

 

The Rangers learned d’Eliscu’s sash cord techniques. A story in Popular Mechanics described one of his favorite moves. After front-kicking an enemy soldier in the stomach to knock him to the ground, the American soldier was to quickly loop the rope around his adversary’s knees and draw the loose ends around his neck. “If the victim doesn’t strangle himself with his own struggles, the process is hastened by sitting on his face and pushing forward on his knees,” the magazine explained.

 

D’Eliscu believed that the sash cord was such an effective weapon that he predicted it would eventually become a standard part of every soldier’s equipment. By one account, he developed more than two dozen different techniques for strangulation.  Excerpt from Killer Instinct