Thanks to Looking Back regular Alvin Hopper for reminding us that today, July 21, is the 80th anniversary of the forming of the No 4 (army) Commando unit, from the 1st & 2nd Special Service Brigades.

They were formed in Weymouth on the 22nd of July 1940. They paraded for the first time at Weymouth Pavilion, which was then the Ritz theatre, before it burnt down in 1954.

After exercising around the Weymouth area, these Commandos went on to more intense training in Scotland. They were to later return to Dorset to train in scaling cliffs at Warbarrow Tout and Arish Mell,in preparation for the attack on the French port of Dieppe.

They were chosen to be part of Operation Jubilee, a raid on that town organised by combined forces Operations that came under the control of Lord Louis Mountbatten. Their part in the operation, that took place on August 1942,was to knock out some German gun emplacements above the main landing beaches.

Entitled Operation Cauldron, theirs was the only really successful part of the whole main Operation, as Dieppe was a very costly assault, especially for the Canadian troops, who lost nearly all of their forces in the initial stages of the landings.

Many others were to end the day as prisoners of war. Number Four Commando gained a VC among their group at the attack on the cliff-top. Led by the Lord Lovat, No4 were to go on to other actions as the war progressed. They were at the Normandy landings on D-Day,and at the crossing of the Rhine in the final stages of the war.

They were disbanded in 1946,having gained a host of honours.