The Killer Professor at Fort Meade in WWII

In May 1942 a group of young U.S. Army Rangers on a field in Fort Meade stood at rapt attention as their 5'5'-tall, 136-pound instructor ordered a trainee to charge at him with his rifle and bayonet.

“Come on, boy, like you mean business!” shouted the bald instructor, who held a short length of rope between his hands.

The soldier did as ordered and lunged at the instructor. But in just a few seconds, the soldier lay flat on his back, tied up with the rope. Even though the instructor’s elbow was dripping blood, he continued his lecture to the awe-struck soldiers.

A reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun who observed the demonstration wrote, “His speed and skill seem magical.”

The “Little Professor”

Francois d’Eliscu, who rose to the rank of Army Lieutenant Colonel, was a fascinating individual. He was born in New York City in 1895 to his French father, Frank Eliscu, and his mother, a Romanian immigrant. His younger brother, Edward Eliscu, was a Broadway and Hollywood songwriter. During college, Francois added the “d’” to his name, cultivating a mysterious European image.

Writer Patrick J. Kiger gave a full account of d’Eliscu in an article for MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History.

He enlisted in the Army during World War I and organized sporting events, such as boxing and wrestling, at Fort Gordon in Georgia. He also provided bayonet instruction to soldiers, but he never saw combat in the first world war.

After the war, d’Eliscu was an academic, earning a bachelor’s degree in education, a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania, another master’s degree in science from Columbia University, and a doctorate degree from New York University. His focus on athletics continued during this period as he coached several teams at New York University, including wrestling and football. He also became a “professor of fishing” at Columbia Teachers College and, in fishing circles, was a nationally known expert on making lures.

In the early 1920s he also hosted exercise programs on a Philadelphia radio station and did some sportscasting. But sometime in the late 1920s d’Eliscu relocated to Hawaii and expanded his sports endeavors. In addition to being the athletic director at the University of Hawaii, he wrote a sports column for a local newspaper, organized boxing matches, and, incredibly, managed the U.S. Olympic swim team, which featured Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller, both of whom would later star as Tarzan in films. Crabbe also starred as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers in serials and films.

Then, in the early 1930s, d’Eliscu was hired by the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine as its athletic director, track coach, and instructor in public health.

Along the way in his academic and athletic career, he became a master of jujitsu and judo and created an astonishing array of lethal techniques that was just what the Army needed. As Kiger wrote, “D’Eliscu was just one of the many martial artists the United States had pressed into service during World War II to hone the hand-to-hand combat abilities of American soldiers. According to Thomas A. Green and Joseph R. Svinth’s Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation, various service branches turned to experts ranging from boxing champion Jack Dempsey, who trained Coast Guard cadets, to Marine Corps knife-fighting expert J. Drexel Biddle, who popularized the Ka-Bar knife, and even professional wrestlers such as Charles “Dirty Dick” Raines and “Man Mountain Dean” (the ring name of Frank Simmons Leavitt), who taught their holds to Army soldiers. The U.S. Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA, had its own hand-to-hand fighting system, designed by British expert William E. Fairbairn, which emphasized techniques such as palm strikes and knee-to-groin attacks.”

D’Eliscu—called the “Little Professor” by his intimidated soldiers behind his back—developed an array of killing techniques and an exhaustive fitness regimen for the Ranger and Combat Training Schools that he ran during WWII at a number of Army installations, including Fort Shafter in Hawaii, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and Fort Meade. While at Fort Shafter in 1942, the Army produced a training film about d’Eliscu for Rangers.

While at Fort Meade, he also found time to develop and teach the Army’s first Aquatic Testing and Instruction Program, which taught Rangers how to safely abandon ship and cross treacherous rivers.

Toughest Obstacle Course in the World

In 1942, Yank magazine described the combat training course at Fort Meade designed by D’Eliscu:

“Maj. d’Eliscu is one of the toughest men alive. He can kill with a flick of his elbow—maim with a pinch of his fingers. He imparts this toughness into the course he gave to the 76th Division instructors and to the Special Service officers from the other divisions.

Every day, Maj. d’Eliscu began the sessions with a two-mile run, to warm the men up. This provoked a wave of nausea and vomiting at first, but the major mercilessly kept the men running. Another regular fixture was Maj. d’Eliscu’s deluxe, 600-yard obstacle course, which reigns undisputed as the toughest in the world. lt features a fifteen-foot-deep bear trap with smooth sides, from which the men have to clamber as best they can. ‘If they can’t get out,’ said d’Eliscu, ‘Let ‘em stay there. Sooner or later they find a way.’ One captain is reported to have been stuck in the bear trap for more than five hours.”

The magazine also described his series of training exercises:

• “Alertness drills,” in which the men had to freeze into position on command or hang from the limbs of trees.

• Physical tests, like pull-ups, chin-ups, etc.; then simple combatives—boxing, wrestling, tugs-of-war. After that the rulebook was tossed out the window.

• Dirty wrestling—with everything thrown in from the ripping off of ears, to the stuffing of fists down the throat.

• Boxing without gloves. At this point the Medical Corps officers standing by were extremely busy attending to abrasions and missing teeth.

• Rough and tumble games, 60 of which have now been collected by Maj. d’Eliscu and made into an official Army manual.

• Disarming practice—in which the men learned murderous ways of relieving an opponent of a knife, pistol, rifle, bayonet, tommy gun, and machete.

• Specific Ranger problems—one of which involved carrying bound prisoners a mile or so through heavy undergrowth.

• Elementary and advanced Judo. This taught the men every conceivable method of strangling and killing by applying pressure to the proper parts of the anatomy.

• Tree and bush fighting. The men were required to stay in the limbs of trees for as much as ten hours at a time. This section of the course was emphasized more than any other. Snipers were suddenly going to find their skulls bashed in by camouflaged American GIs sneaking down on them from above.

• Trench and fox-hole fighting—concentrating on tumbling away from an enemy’s blows. Before getting his diploma from the Ranger and Combat School, each man was required to duel with naked bayonets.

D’Eliscu put his methods to the test in November 1943 when he saw action as the Army and Marines landed in the Japanese-held Gilbert Islands in the Pacific. As Kiger described it:

“As the men in his patrol made their way inland, they were pinned down by sniper fire and had to take cover. D’Eliscu was walking behind a tall lieutenant who was suddenly hit in the arm by a sniper in a tree. ... D’Eliscu fired on the sniper and hit him, causing him to fall to the ground. ... D’Eliscu rushed to the Japanese soldier, used the disarming techniques he’d taught at Fort Meade and in Hawaii to take the man’s rifle and knife away, and quickly killed him. That heroic act led to d’Eliscu being awarded the Silver Star three months later.”

After the War

D’Eliscu also served in the Korean War, continuing his brand of lethal training at posts in the U.S. and around the world.

He died in 1972 in Sarasota, Florida, where he had been teaching power boating safety courses in his retirement.

In a memoir published in 2001, his brother, Edward, wrote that d’Eliscu was “the leading authority on military fitness, a triple Rambo—with a life like a jigsaw puzzle only he could have put together.”

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Kevin Leonard is a founding member of the Laurel History Boys and a two-time winner of the Maryland Delaware District of Columbia Press Association Journalism Award.