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I've tried to be as accurate and thorough as possible but it's difficult to get this stuff spot on, if you notice anything wrong please drop me an e-mail. History of the Special Air Service But first a quick history lesson… It is 1941 and British Commonwealth
forces stand alone fighting occupying German and Italian forces; most
of Europe is under the control of Axis forces (the bad guys) and British
land forces (the good guys) are struggling against the German war machine.
However, in the deserts of North Africa the British are progressing
against the Italian army, pushing them back to El Agheila forcing the
Italians to ask Hitler for assistance. Hitler's response was to send
General Rommel who lead the Africa Corps, he soon manages to push back
the weakened British forces in to Egypt, all except the largely Australian
army who managed to hold on to the coastal seaport of Tobruk for 240
days until liberated by advancing British forces, who were then pushed
back again, and then advanced again! Anyway… Also around this time (from around June 1940 onwards) was the idea of 'Commando' units, also called 'Special Service' units. This was the relatively new idea (to British officers anyway) of having small, highly trained, very fit men launching small hit and run raids on priority targets. The objective, to destroy stuff (vehicles, ammo and fuel dumps, local infrastructure etc) and reconnoitring targets (troop numbers, insertion points, lay of the land.) Bringing with it the added bonus of tying up enemy units, by making them guard bases more heavily and demoralising the enemy. The idea of these forces was resisted by many in the upper commands of the British army who resented the drain it took on the man power, but also resented the tactics used by these forces. However the idea had a powerful backer in the form of the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who recognised the usefulness of these units and the morale boost they could offer the British public.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Commandos One such unit was Layforce,
made up of troops from various Commando brigades 'it consisted of around
2000 men within 3 commando units (7, 8 and 11 commando) but each were
hampered by a chronic shortage of man power and supplies resulting in
two of the three large scale operations mounted by Layforce failing.
Seizing upon these failures the Army brass disbanded Layforce in August
1941 deploying the men elsewhere.' (A - Z of the SAS, Peter Dartmen.
p100) In July 1941 a member of 8 commando, Layforce was injured and on crutches after a parachute jump; 24 year old Captain David Stirling believed in the idea of the Special Services and set about devising a plan that could continue the work of these units but with fewer men and a smaller drain on other resources. Knowing the hostility that existed towards such forces within the officer class Stirling stormed in to the British General Headquarters in the Middle East to gain the Commander in Chief's (General Claude Auchinleck) personal permission to form a Special Service. Against the advice of many
of his senior staff Auchinleck gave Stirling permission to recruit four
officers and sixty men into a new unit called the 'L detachment to the
Special Air Service Brigade,' a name that was given to convince the
Germans that the unit was attached to a much bigger airborne commando
brigade, despite no such unit existing (the idea of airborne commandos
was also in its infancy). Most of the recruits (all volunteers) came
from Stirlings previous unit No 8 Army Commando, Layforce now disbanded. Bob Bennett Johnny Cooper All of the recruits had come
from Commando regiments; however the training was devised to weed out
those who were not tough enough both physically and mentally. As such,
extreme fitness, individualism and expert weapon handling were the criteria
for members of the new unit. The First operation was on
the night of the 16th November 1941. Operation Crusader was to launch
on the 18th November as an attempt to kick Rommel out of Cyrenaica (North
Libya) and liberate the besieged seaport of Tobruk. Stirling's men were
given the task of destroying targets at two airfields at Tmimi and Gazala
to stop advancing ground forces coming under attack from Axis aircraft
there, it was a disaster, the men jumped in to near hurricane force
winds during a desert sandstorm and of the sixty-five that jumped, only
twenty-two made it back to the pre-arranged extraction point with the
Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), no German aircraft were attacked. The
17th November 1941 is considered by the modern SAS to be their official
'birthday' in celebration of the mission. On the 12th December 1941 the next raid was mounted jointly with the LRDG, the objective was to destroy aircraft when they are at their most vulnerable on the ground, at an airfield on the coast of the gulf of Sirte. They were dropped near to Tamit, an airfield (I think Italian) where they planted explosives in the underground bomb dump, after coming across a building Paddy Mayne kicked the door in and opened up on the occupants, carrying on they spotted aircraft on the ground so they proceeded to plant explosives on them until they ran out. After that they just hacked away at planes by hand, causing as much crippling damage as possible. Mayne went back on the 24th December and attacked again, reportedly destroying twenty-seven aircraft on the ground (A-Z SAS. P178) This mission was soon followed by a raid on the Agheila airfield on the 14th December 1941, then a raid on Agedabia airfield on the 21st December in which thirty-seven Italian aircraft were destroyed and then another raid followed on the 24th December again on Tamit airbase where they destroyed twenty-seven aircraft. (Story of the SAS) These missions were a great success and the idea of the SAS as being a hit and run squadron was starting to take shape, they were given permission to recruit new men as well as being attached a group of fifty Free French Para troopers who began operations in March 1942. Also around this time saw the introduction of the modified Willys Jeeps, fitted with twin Vickers K guns or 0.5inch Browning heavy machine guns, armour plating to protect the gunner and driver, a field radio, spare ammunition, fuel and water. These jeeps made the SAS independent of the LRDG (who were finding it more difficult to their job whilst transporting the SAS around the desert) and replaced the idea of planting bombs on planes and instead the SAS would simply drive onto an airfield in a column, race down the airstrip alongside the parked planes and let rip destroying as much as they could before driving off and disappearing into the desert night. These raids proved very successful throughout the North Africa campaign and have gone down in SAS folklore ever since. Now we need to hop back briefly and get a little confused because in the Spring of 1941 there existed a unit called the Special Boat Section, there also existed a unit called the Special Boat Squadron, established in 1940. Both of these units were rapid raiding units that launched from submarines and canoed ashore destroying soft targets such as railway and communication lines and performing reconnaissance. Now at some point in 1941 both units were attached to Stirling's old unit, Layforce, after Layforce was disbanded in August both units carried on independently, launching raids etc but inevitably by the end of 1941 both units had sustained heavy casualties. Now it would seem that Special Boat Section was absorbed in to L Detachment of the SAS at the end of 1941 and the Special Boat Squadron were absorbed a year later in November 1942. Anyway the up-shot of this is that by 1942 the SAS were able to launch amphibious raids and reconnaissance, the end. Now in October 1942 L Detachment to the Special Air Service was re-named 1 Special Air Service and by January of 1943 Stirling had under his command a French Squadron (94men), a Greek Sacred Squadron (114men), Special Boat Section (SBS) (55men), 1 SAS (390men) and the Special Interrogation Group who were a short lived group of twelve Jewish, German speaking immigrants who were put to work intelligence gathering. (A-Z SAS, p.167/168) However also in January 1943 whilst out on a raiding mission Stirling's unit was discovered camped, they split up 'every man for himself' was the order from him and he was captured by the German forces, escaping four times before being moved to Colditz Castle. Paddy Mayne now took over command of 1 SAS which in April 1943 was renamed the Special Raiding Squadron whilst fighting in Sicily and Italy but becomes 1 SAS again later in the year. Also in April the waterborne element of the SAS, become a separate unit; the Special Boat Squadron (SBS). Then in May 1943 David Stirling's brother William creates 2 SAS in Algeria, a unit created in the image of 1 SAS now the SRS, confused yet? I am. By May 1943 the North African
campaign was over and the allied attention turned to Sicily and then
on to Northern Italy, although there was disagreement between the British
who felt they should re-take the Mediterranean and Greece first and
the Americans who wanted to go into Italy. Both agreed however that
Sicily was the next logical target. In the meantime the newly formed
SBS was tasked with coastal raiding in the Mediterranean and Aegean
Sea. The capture of Sicily now meant the Allies could move into the South of Italy, the SRS were the tip of this attack. Operation Baytown was launched on 3rd September 1943, the allies wanted to capture the Port of Bagnara and the SRS were tasked initially with disrupting enemy lines of communication and then with the capture of the town. Despite problems with the landing the SRS captured the town meeting with only moderate resistance but was followed by three days of skirmishing in the hills surrounding the town which ended when regular troops advancing from the South arrived at the town. The SRS and 2 SAS continued to fight in Italy, beyond the surrender of Italy in September 1943 and into 1944/45 against the Germans but the story is largely one of missed opportunity, poor planning by senior officers and poor preparation. They conducted several operations against railway lines and bridges a few of which were very successful but many failed. There was one disastrous attempt by a four-man patrol to attack an airbase resulting in one man killed one captured (and later escaped). Several attempts to meet up with escaped or released (after the surrender if Italy) POW's but these were hampered by bad planning and poor organisation. (Quite often when you read about these missions, that are uncharacteristic of the SAS you hear about, they failed either because of poor communication equipment, radios were often damaged on parachute landings or because of bad insertions ie. scattered parachute landings, inexperienced parachutists and poor naval co-operation.) Towards the end of the Italian campaign the SRS were having some successes harassing German troops and infrastructure in the North of Italy, there were two large actions of note. In October 1943 the SRS along with a commando brigade attacked the town of Termoli; the town was captured and was strategically important in the attempt to break the 'Termoli Line', the action was followed by fierce fighting against German counter attacks which were repelled by the arrival of Irish Rangers and Canadian tanks. (A-Z SAS. P178/179) Later on in March 1945 2 SAS were dropped into Northern Italy with the objective 'to harass the enemy', a mission much more suited to their training and origins. They quickly established an alliance with local resistance fighters and escaped Russian POWs' and their first and bold mission lead by Major Roy Faran was to attack the German HQ at Albinea, however they were eventually driven back. They continued harassing local German troops, launching mortar attacks and ambushes and even repelled a German attack on their own base. The mission ended at the end of April 1945. (A-Z SAS. P.180/181) At the end of 1943 the Special Raiding Squadron reverted back to being named 1 Special Air Service (1SAS) and then later in January 1944 was put under the overall command of the 1 Airborne Corps. It was named the Special Air Service Brigade based at Hylands Hall, Chelmsford and consisted of a "HQ French Demi-Brigade, 20 Liaison HQ (the SAS link with the Free French), 1 SAS, 2 SAS, 3 SAS (a French Parachute Battalion), 4 SAS (a French Parachute Battalion), 5 SAS (Belgian Independent Parachute Battalion) and F Squadron, General Headquarters (GHQ) Liaison and advanced reconnaissance Regiment." (A-Z SAS. P168) In June 1944 the Allied Forces were ready to invade France from bases throughout the South of England. Huge Secrecy surrounded the shear numbers of troops in England at that time and a massive diversionary plan existed in an attempt to convince the Germans that the main landings would be in Norway and Pas de Calais (the most logical location as it was the closest point to England.) On the eve of D-Day (the actual landings at Normandy) airborne troops were dropped to secure targets and tie up enemy troops but also to convince the Germans that a huge airborne force were being landed in France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude The SAS were dropped in behind
enemy lines on the eve of D-Day on the 6th June in support of the deception
plan they were to mount hit and run attacks on local troops, and make
a lot of noise to convince the Germans that there were a lot of them.
Sadly the latter part of the plan failed as (once again) troops were
to widely scattered on landing as was their equipment. However the first
part plan of the plan was a success. Troops from 1SAS meeting up with
Maquis forces (French resistance) and establishing a base in the wooded
hills around the town of Dijon were able to carry out hit and run raids
on troops, destroy railway lines, vehicles and provide intelligence
on troop movements, numbers and positions. They also gave intelligence
on targets for the British RAF which to this day remains one of the
SAS' main missions. Poor Marquis security meant the SAS frequently moved
camps and lived away from the Marquis forces; pressure from the Germans
was hard though and locals suspected of assisting the SAS were often
shot and the SAS had to fight off German attacks on their bases. However the name Special Air Service pops up again in 1947 when the War Office decides to form a Territorial Army raiding unit which soon becomes merged with the Artists Rifles and is known as 21SAS Artists Rifles. Then 'Mad Mike' re-appears in Malaya, sent there by the British to work out how best to combat communist guerrillas in the jungles there. It is now 1950 and Mike forms a unit called the Malayan Scouts (see Malaya in the Operations pages) to which a detachment of the 21 SAS Artists are attached, in 1952 the Malayan Scouts are re-named 22 Special Air Service forming the modern SAS. (A-Z SAS. P.168 & P.32) I will write pages on all these
operations as soon as I can. - - - - - A-Z of the SAS LINKS ITALIAN CAMPAIGN FRANCE MISC
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