One of the first Special Operations groups formed began during World War II. Geoffrey Pyke, a scientist working for the British combined Operations Headquarters, imagined a small, elite commando unit utilizing tracked vehicles to strike at infrastructure behind enemy lines in the winter.
Despite negative views on the mission, LTC Robert T. Frederick was instructed to proceed with the creation of such a force and to plan strikes on heavy water plants in Norway. Volunteers were pulled from service members with experience as lumberjacks, forest rangers, hunters, game wardens, prospectors and explorers. Some commanders, reluctant to see their best soldiers used in a new program, provided individuals from stockades and some who simply didn't fit the standard mold.
Training for the new unit included stealth tactics, hand-to-hand combat, explosives, parachuting, small-water craft, mountain climbing and ski warfare. They were trained to fight with non-conventional weapons, such as the M1941 Johnson light machine gun, plastic explosives and the V-42 combat knife. By the time the force was ready, Allied bombers already had reached targets in Norway.
Instead, Frederick was ordered to break a stalemate with the Germans in Italy. The new unit climbed cliffs and scaled mountains and broke the Germans without firing a single round. A German officer's diary referred to them as die schwarzen Teufeln, meaning the Black Devils.
Later in the war, the 1st Special Forces Group operated in Japan and became responsible for Special Operations in the Pacific theater. The unit was disbanded in 1945, brought back in 1960, inactivated in 1974 and brought back again in 1984. It has participated in operations during World War II, Vietnam and Afghanistan. The 1st Special Forces Group also has served in the war on drugs and has given humanitarian aid to countries such as the Philippines.
The 1st Special Forces Group operates under the U.S. Army Special Forces Command, which is a part of the United States Army Special Operations command (USASOC) and is responsible for operations in the following countries:
| Australia | Comoros | Korea, Republic of | Mauritius | Palau, Republic of | Sri Lanka |
| Bangladesh | Cook Islands | Korea, North | Micronesia, Federated States of | Papau New Guinea | Taiwan |
| Bhutan | Fiji | Laos | Nauru | Philippines | Thailand |
| Brunei | India | Madagascar | Nepal | Russia | Tonga |
| Burma (Myanmar) | Indonesia | Malaysia | New Caledonia/French Polynesia (France) | Samoa | Tuvalu |
| Cambodia | Japan | Maldives | Niue | Singapore | Vanuatu |
| China | Kiribati | Marshall Islands, Republic of | New Zealand | Solomon Islands | Vietnam |
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