Lt. Col. D'Eliscu's Ranger Combat Training

You'll see none other than Francois D'Eliscu instructing in this video...

Ranger Combat Training School Fort Shafter Territory Of Hawaii (1942)

Potential Rangers Undergo Training

Fort George G. Meade, MD.—Under the instruction of Major Francois D’Eliscu (above), numbers of American soldiers are undergoing training in preparation for Ranger attacks on our enemy. Here the Major charges over some of the trainees to harden them for future duty.

From back of print: Left to right: Eleanor Roosevelt, General Robert C. Richardson, Lieutenant Colonel Francois D'Eliscu, of the Ranger Training School, Oahu.

D'Eliscu wrote three books on the subject of H2H and PT, How to Prepare for Military Fitness, Hand to Hand Combat, and A Manual in the Organization and Conduct of a Conditioning Program for Physical and Military Fitness and for Combat Training.

Here's a review of  “How to Prepare for Military Fitness” in the Coast Artillery Journal May-June 1943

HOW TO PREPARE FOR MILITARY FITNESS. By Lieutenant Colonel Francois D'Eliscu. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 216 Pages; Illustrated. $1.96.

Without going into the question of whether there is too much or not enough emphasis being placed in the Army on physical fitness and personal combat, here is the book for officers interested in organizing programs of this type in their units.

Colonel D'Eliscu is the former head of the Ranger and Combat School, and what he doesn't know about physical conditioning and personal combat methods is a negligible quantity. He is no faddist-he opens his book with emphasis on the necessity for complete physical examinations before the start of a strenuous course, then goes into exercises that will toughen men for the still more strenuous program he outlines, and ends in a blaze of instruction in methods of combat (with illustrations) that should result in his students being able to take care of themselves in any circumstances.

Super-obstacle courses, tree fighting, savate, wartime wrestling, alertness exercises, elementary judo, rough and tumble games, aquatic testing-all these and more too, all well illustrated, and all reasonably expressed, omitting faddism. It is seldom we go so "all-out" in recommending a book, but this is it.