V Corps School of Raiding

The V Corps School of Raiding was an undertaking to train regular formations in irregular methods. The school was situated at H.M.S. Tormentor, in Warsash, Hampshire, England. H.M.S. Tormentor was a shore establishment of the British Royal Navy during World War II. The purpose of the base was the training of landing craft crews and British Commandos in Amphibious Warfare. The site also served as a base for cross-channel raids.

The was the brainchild of Brigadier G. W. R. Templer, a staff officer of Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Schreiber’s V Corps. Templer was concerned by the fact that the commando forces were the only elements of the British military establishment gaining experience in raiding tactics and techniques at that moment. The school started with just two officers and four non-commissioned officers as instructors. Templer created the school with the dual intention of training one of the V Corps’ infantry companies per month in raiding techniques and of providing them with the opportunity to carry out small-scale raids against the French coast. The units for the school underwent four-week courses to form Special Service Sections. Each four-week course was intended to conclude with a small raid but the same shortage of equipment which constrained Commando activities permitted only one inconclusive operation.

Although staff and students from the school were able to undertake a limited number of forays against France, the V Corps School of Raiding was, like a few comparable efforts, a short-lived and distracting effort, and was disbanded late in September 1942 as the Combined Operations HQ assumed the sole responsibility for coastal raiding.