Special Service Unit No. 1
joint U.S.-Australia Unit active in World War II
Special Services Unit No. 1 (SSU 1) was a short lived special forces unit during World War II. A combined operations unit, it included both US and Australian personnel. SSU 1 undertook amphibious reconnaissance missions, to gather intelligence about proposed amphibious landing sites.
Formed in July 1943, SSU 1 trained initially at Cairns, Australia, in martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, rubber craft operation, jungle survival training, pidgin English, map making, oceanography and marine biology (i.e. recognizing underwater coral formations and other sea creatures).
In August 1943, SSU 1 moved to Fergusson Island, New Guinea, and in November, the unit relocated to Milne Bay.
Missions were undertaken at Finschhafen, Arawe, Gasmata and Cape Gloucester, without any casualties.
Following disputes between the various services involved regarding operational matters, many of the personnel transferred to other units. In December 1943, the remainder returned to their respective services.
US Navy personnel from SSU 1 subsequently became the basis of the 7th Amphibious Scouts.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Special Service Unit No. 1” is joint U.S.-Australia Unit active in World War II. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Special, Service and Unit, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Special Service Unit No. 1” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.