Darby's Rangers
1958 film by William A. Wellman
Darby's Rangers (released in the UK as The Young Invaders) is a 1958 American war film starring James Garner as William Orlando Darby, who organizes and leads the first units of United States Army Rangers during World War II. Directed by William Wellman, the film was shot by Warner Bros. Pictures in black and white, to match wartime stock footage included in the production. It was inspired by the 1945 book Darby's Rangers: An Illustrated Portrayal of the Original Rangers, by Major James J. Altieri, himself a veteran of Darby's force.
The leading role was Garner's first. Jack Warden and Stuart Whitman appear in support.
Plot
In the spring of 1942 the US Army decides to form an elite strike force similar to the heralded British Commandos. Led by Major William Darby, a former staff officer, the 1st Ranger Battalion is formed on June 19, 1942. He and Master Sergeant Saul Rosen, who narrates the film, recruit a variety of men who train under veteran Commando units in Dundee, Scotland. Darby tells his men that the Commandos are the best soldiers in the world, but in time the Rangers will own that distinction.
The American trainees are quartered in Scottish homes and several of the Rangers pair off with local lassies: Rollo Burns with Peggy McTavish, the daughter of the fearsome but humorous Scottish Commando instructor, Sergeant McTavish; and vagabond Hank Bishop, with prim and proper, Wendy Hollister.
“Darby's Rangers” enters the record as 1958 film by William A. Wellman. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Darby's, Rangers and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q373688. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958, 1945 and 1942.
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This entry incorporates text from “Darby's Rangers” 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.