Although many countries were experimenting with Airborne troops at the beginning of World War II and Special Raiding troops had been used throughout history, it was the British Commandos who perfected the art of raiding and who were the forerunners of today's Special Forces units.

After the fall of France in June 1940 and the threatened German invasion of Great Britain, Winston Churchill and others saw the need for highly trained Raiding Units that could harass the Germans and raise morale at home through limited offensive actions. The resulting units were called "Commandos" after the succesfull Boer Raiders the British had fought in South Africa.

Captain William Ewart Fairbairn and Captain Eric Anthony Sykes were in charge of close combat training at the Commando Training Depot at Achnacarry, Scotland.

Fairbairn was a former Assistant Commissioner of the Shanghai Municipal Police, where he had commanded the crack Reserve Unit, Shanghai's equivalent of a modern Counter-terrorist unit. Under Fairbairn they were highly trained in allaspects of close combat.
Sykes had served under Fairbairn with the Shanghai Municipal Police, commanding the Sniper unit. Shanghai, during the twenties and thirties, was one of the toughest cities in the world and these two veterans of its back-alleys were well-qualified to train the Commandos in no-holds-barred combat.