1. I love History especially all aspects of the second world war;
2. During 1941, the British wanted a specialized force that would be able to land on nazi enemy lines and literally strike fear and havoc in Nazi operations. The British looked to history for a never before used tactic, namely guerilla warfare by the Boers who were called commandos in the Angle/Boer War;
3. Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. Clarke suggested the use of the name commando based specifically on the sheer effectiveness of the Boer commandos during the Anglo/Boer war;
4. As history now tells us these British commandos were specialized raiding units which were deployed behind enemy lines;
5. The word commando comes from the Afrikaans word Kommando which historically meant very mobile infantry group by horse;
6. In the second english/boer war some 70 000 Boers called Kommados carried out guerilla warfare or asymmetric warfare against 450 000 heavily armed and well organized British forces;
7. A lot of people are unaware of the ugly heinous atrocities that the British inflicted on the Afrikaners during this war. You see all the Boer men would leave their wives and families behind(at home) and form Kommandos to fight the British. The British realized that even under torture their wives would not give away their location so the British resorted to dirty warfare in which the burned down houses and crops and killed lifestock;
8. The British went even further, they formed hell hole concentration camps in which Afrikaaner woman and children were kept and literally starved to death;
9. I just find it interesting that the British would look to South African history for a name and tactic that actually contributed significantly to the allies winning the second world war