The Special Night Squads (SNS) were a joint British-Jewish force consisting of British soldiers and Jewish Settlement Police, established by Charles Orde Wingate in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936, during the Great Arab Revolt. The Jewish Settlement Police were a division of the Notrim established in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. ... Major General Orde Charles Wingate, (February 26, 1903 – March 24, 1944), was a British major general and creator of two special military units during the World War II. // Beginnings Orde Wingate was born February 23, 1903 in India to a military family. ... Map of the territory under the British Mandate of Palestine. ... The Great Uprising, Great Revolt, or Great Arab Revolt was a violent rebellion by Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine which lasted from 1936 to 1939. ...

Wingate hand-picked his men, among them Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan, from the ranks of the Notrim and trained them to form mobile ambushes. As practical support from the British was minimal Wingate collaborated illegally with the Haganah, reinforcing his unit with FOSH regulars. Yigal Allon (October 10, 1918- February 29, 1980) was a famous Israeli Labour Party statesman. ... Gen. ... The Notrim (Guards) were a Jewish Police Force set up by the British in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. ... The Haganah (Hebrew: Defense, ×”×’× ×”) was a Jewish paramilitary organization in Palestine during the British mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948. ... ...

The force was highly successful, bringing attacks by Arab guerillas on the pipeline of the Iraqi Petroleum Company to a halt. However, the squads were known for their ruthless efficiency and brutal methods. Their training included "... how to kill without compunction, how to interrogate prisoners by shooting every tenth man to make the rest talk; and how to deter future terrorists by pushing the heads of captured ones into pools of oil and then freeing them to tell the story" (van Creveld, 2004, p. 46).

Yoram Kaniuk writes:

The operations came more frequently and became more ruthless. The Arabs complained to the British about Wingate's brutality and harsh punitive methods. Even members of the field squads complained... that during the raids on Bedouin encampments Wingate would behave with extreme viciousness and fire mercilessly. Wingate believed in the principle of surprise in punishment, which was designed to confine the gangs to their villages. More than once he had lined rioters up in a row and shot them in cold blood. Wingate did not try to justify himself; weapons and war cannot be pure (Kaniuk, 2001, p. 19). The Notrim (Guards) were a Jewish Police Force set up by the British in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. ... Bedouin resting at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic badawi بدوي, a generic name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Arab nomadic groups, who are found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and...

The British viewed Wingate as a security risk and the SNS were disbanded in 1938. Wingate was posted out of the country and his passport was stamped "NOT ALLOWED TO ENTER PALESTINE" (Godspeed, 2001, p. 96).

Field Marshall Montgomery, who as commander of northern Palestine had authorised the SNS, told Dayan in 1966 that he considered Wingate to have "been mentally unbalanced and that the best thing he ever did was to get killed in a plane crash in 1944" (van Creveld, 2004, p. 115). Bernard Law Montgomery Field Marshal The Right Honourable Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO (17 November 1887–24 March 1976) was a British Army officer, most noted for his involvement in World War II and often referred to as Monty. // Early life and World...

The Special Night Squads came to be viewed as the British army's first special forces and the forerunners of the Special Air Service regiments (Brown and Louis, 1999, p. 193). For other Special Air Services, see Australian Special Air Service Regiment and Special Air Service of New Zealand. ...

References

• Brown, Judith and Louis, Roger (1999). The Oxford History of the British Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198205643
• Godspeed, Michael (2001). When Reason Fails: Portraits of Armies at War: America, Britain, Israel, and the Future. Greenwood. ISBN 0275973786
• Kaniuk, Yoram (2001). Commander of the Exodus. Grove Press. ISBN 080213808X
• Katz, Sam (1988). Israeli Units Since 1948. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 0850458374
• van Creveld, Martin (2004). Moshe Dayan. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0297846698