A war diary is an official record kept by military units, recording their activities during wartime.
Classified "Secret" during the war, this is the war diary of the 1st Canadian Special Service Battalion (initially known by the cover name 2nd Canadian Parachute Battalion), an elite World War 2 commando unit. They were part of the First Special Service Force, a joint Canadian and American force that was trained to operate behind enemy lines. With most of their operations at night, they would paint their faces black for camouflage and were called "Schwarzer Teufel" ("Black Devil") by Nazis soldiers. Their war diary, written day by day as the war progressed, was kept from August 1942 to January 1945, and contains details of their training, operations (including maps), records of prisoner interviews, and more.

This publication presents the diary as it was written, scanned from the original documents. Volume 1 covers the months August 1942 to November 1943.