RANGER HANDBOOK TC 3-21.76 September 2025 Full Size The history of the American Ranger is a long and colorful saga of courage, daring, and outstanding leadership. It is a story of warfighters whose skills in the art of fighting have seldom been surpassed. Only the highlights of their numerous exploits are told here. Rangers mainly performed defensive missions until, during King Philip’s War in 1675, Benjamin Church’s Company of Independent Rangers from Plymouth Colony conducted raids on hostile American Indians. Upon the onset of the French and Indian War, provincial Captain Robert Rogers recruited nine companies of colonists to fight for the British. Ranger techniques and methods of operation were inherent to American frontiersmen. Rogers, who earned promotion to major through the process, became the first to capitalize on those and incorporate them into the fighting doctrine of a permanently organized force. During the Revolutionary War, Colonel Daniel Morgan, who organized a unit known as Morgan’s Riflemen, further developed the first Rangers’ method of fighting. Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, organized another famous Revolutionary War Ranger element known as Marion’s Partisans. They numbered anywhere from a handful to several hundred, and they operated both with and independent of other elements of General George Washington’s Army. Operating out of Carolinian swamps, they disrupted British communications and prevented the organization of Loyalists to support the British cause, substantially contributing to the American victory. The U.S.-American Civil War again occasioned the creation of special units like Rangers. John Mosby, a master in the prompt, skillful use of cavalry, was one of the most outstanding Confederate Rangers. He believed resorting to aggressive action could compel enemies to guard a hundred points. He would then attack one of the weakest points, thereby ensuring numerical superiority. With the entry of the United States into the Second World War, Rangers added to these pages of history. Major William Darby organized and activated the 1st Ranger Battalion on June 19, 1942, at Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. The members all handpicked volunteers, 50 participated in the Dieppe Raid of the French coast with British and Canadian commandos. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th Ranger Battalions participated in the North African, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns. Darby’s Ranger battalions spearheaded the Seventh Army landing at Gela and Licata during the Sicilian invasion and played a key role in the subsequent campaign, which ended in the capture of Messina. They infiltrated German lines and mounted an attack against Cisterna, where they annihilated a German parachute regiment during close-in, night, bayonet, and hand-to-hand fighting. The participation of the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions in the D-Day landings of Operation Overlord at Omaha Beach inspired the words that would become the Rangers’ official motto, “Rangers lead the way!” They spearheaded the drive inland to destroy the German gun emplacements trained on the beaches and enabled Allied forces to move away from their fire. In particular, the 5th Ranger Battalion scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. The 6th Ranger Battalion, operating in the Pacific, conducted Ranger-type missions behind enemy lines of reconnaissance and long-range raids. It was the first U.S.-American group to return to the Philippines, destroying key coastal installations prior to the invasion. A reinforced company formed the rescue force who liberated U.S.-American and Allied prisoners of war from the Japanese prison camp at Cabanatuan.