Members of the Special Air Service are selected from the British armed forces, most enter from the Army or Marines but a few from the Royal Air Force make it onto selection.

The selection process for the Special Air Service is divided into stages, Selection, Test Week, Continuation Training, Escape and Evasion exercise, Jungle Training and Static Line Parachute Training.

The Special Air Service run two selection courses a year, one in winter and one in summer and each lasting one month. There are a few stipulations in being accepted onto selection, you cannot enter the Special Air Service as a civilian; a candidate must have served three years with a regular unit, they must have three years left to serve after completing selection and training, they must have been declared fit by their regiments doctor and they must be able to complete the standard Battle Fitness Test (BFT) in the time allowed for infantry soldiers. But such a requirement is the absolute bare minimum!

SELECTION

Selection lasts for one month and is run by the Training Wing of the Special Air Service and throughout it candidates that do not reach the required standard are 'binned' or leave voluntarily. During the first week the Special Air Service try to let the candidates ease into the rigours ahead by pairing them up and putting them through a series of road runs that get steadily longer as the week progresses.

After this selection progresses to the Black Mountains and Breacon Beacons in Wales. The terrain there is cold, wet, bleak, barren and featureless and a long way away from the glamour of abseiling down the Iranian Embassy on prime time television; this is where candidates get a taste of real life in the Special Air Service. They are still paired off but this is soon phased out as a greater emphasis is placed on candidates navigating the bleak terrain on their own. As there are no regular landmarks to get a bearing from candidates must rely on the compass and distance method of navigating, especially when the weather closes in and the visibility is reduced to only a few metres. I cannot over emphasise the importance of this to an Special Air Service soldier, navigating a featureless terrain is probably the single most important skill a soldier has because they will use this on every single mission they ever undertake. If you're been hunted by enemy trackers or dropped into the desert of Iraq if you can not find your way to the target or out of trouble accurately and quickly you're about as much use as a condom machine in the Vatican.

The process is simple, the distances get longer and the weights in the bergens get heavier, the candidates start the day with a rendezvous point (RV) and a grid reference and they have to tab (army slang for a forced march) there within a certain time, which they are not told (only the DS (directing staff) know the times that the candidates are expected to hit) when they get to an RV they get another grid reference and so on; the candidates do not know how many RV's they may have to get to in a day and they don't know how long they have to do it in. There has also been a tradition of psychological tests on the candidates, being told to remember numbers or they may be asked questions about the terrain they just walked through, other tests have been at the end of the day sending the trooper off to another RV to see if they will quit and then calling them back after 100 metres or so. Another trick used by the DS was when a soldier got to an RV they were told "just get yourself in the back of the truck for 5 minutes and have a rest" or "just take your shoes off and rest up for a while" when in fact this meant they would fail. Such methods are rumoured to no longer be in practice though.

The last week of Selection is Test Week, a series of night and day timed marches throughout the Breacon Beacons the culmination of which is the 'Fan Dance' or 'Long Drag', a 60km Tab (some books say 40km) with a 55lb bergen over some of the highest peaks of the Breacon Beacons. This must be completed in 20hours regardless of injury or weather conditions, but in actual fact most candidates do pass this as those who aren't tough enough will have already left or been binned by the DS. After selection successful candidates will progress onto Continuation training after a weeks leave.

CONTINUATION TRAINING

Continuation Training lasts 14-weeks and takes soldiers back to basics as they learn all the basic patrol skills an Special Air Service soldier needs to operate in a four-man patrol behind enemy lines. The particulars of the regime are secret for obvious reasons but the soldiers will learn: "standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the Special Air Service four-man unit; for example, how to move through hostile territory; the arcs of fire of each patrol member; and how to conduct contact drills." (A to Z of the S.A.S. p.38) Weapon training including the use of pistols and foreign weapons is taught, basic field medicine, signalling (every Special Air Service soldier is trained to the British Army Regimental Signaller standard), camouflage, how to setup and survive in an observation post (OP), escape and evasion from the enemy and anti-interrogation techniques are learnt and mastered. "The students then go on to Combat and Survival training, where they learn all aspects of living in hostile environments: building shelters, finding food and water, laying traps and lighting fires. The Combat and Survival phase ends in an Escape and Evasion exercise." (A to Z of the S.A.S. p.39)

ESCAPE AND EVASION EXERCISE

The escape and evasion exercise is the culmination of the Combat and Survival (C&S) phase of continuation training. Like many of the exercises the premise is simple, survive in the wild whilst being hunted by a hunter force (usually local army.) There are conflicting accounts of what goes on during E&E but it appears that recruits may be given RV's that they must hit in order to get food and will sometimes operate in four-man groups.
When released on the E&E exercise recruits will have just come out of C&S training and so many will be hungry and tired, they have no kit, just an old pair of boots and an ill fitting jacket and they must use the skills learnt on C&S to survive and avoid being caught by the hunter force. The biggest test of the exercise is mental, if a soldier can keep their focus and remember what they have been taught they have a good chance of making it to the last day but when the sleep deprivation, the cold and hunger seep in, a candidates mental fitness is tested to the limit. The basic rules are: 'always cover your tracks, only move at night and lay-up during the day, when you stop for a break always drink and eat where possible, plan your journey and formulate plans and courses of action to cope with as many eventualities as possible.
The most common reason for a candidate to be captured is when they take the shortest and easiest route to an RV (troopers are taught not to follow roads, paths, to avoid populated areas and to stick to concealed areas that offer good camouflage such as dense woodland and shrubbery.) If the trooper makes it to their final RV or if they are captured they move on to a 24-hour Resistance to Interrogation exercise.' (A to Z of the S.A.S. p.50)
The Resistance to Interrogation exercise is, once again a simple affair, the trooper must undergo interrogation and only reveal name, rank and serial number, easy? Well no, the interrogators are highly trained and masters at reading people and taking advantage of situations. Even a simple yes or no answer from a candidate can result in failure of the exercise because a yes or no recorded on tape can easily be manipulated by the enemy so a question as harmless as "are you okay?" must be ignored, or answered "I'm okay…" Resistance to Interrogation is the downfall of many candidates, the sleep deprivation and hunger sustained over the last week means they're mentally weak and many struggle under the psychological abuse of the interrogator. The best approach is to be the 'grey man' don't give away any information but just sit there and look pathetic, appear exhausted, make the most of any injury and if the going gets tough, faint!
Should a trooper hold out a previously identified person (usually a doctor or officer) will reveal themselves and tell the candidate that the exercise if over. But Special Air Service selection is not.

JUNLE TRAINING

Should a candidate make it through Continuation training and be approved by the directing staff (it isn't enough to just pass, they have to want you too!) candidates fly to the Far East (usually Brunei or Borneo) for 6 weeks of jungle training. Here the survival and patrol skills they have learnt so far are adapted for jungle survival, they learn how to build shelter, find water and food, cross rivers and navigate through the thick jungle canapé. Many candidates struggle with claustrophobia as the heat and denseness of the jungle takes a toll on them.
Jungle training culminates in a final exercise that will test all the skills they have learnt as candidates are split into four-man patrols. The exercise could be anything but a typical example would be locating an enemy stronghold, setting up an observation post (OP), planning and then executing an assault. As with all Special Air Service selection exercises failure means you are denied entry into the Special Air Service. Successful candidate's progress onto the Static-line Parachuting Course, a synch for any Para's in the group as they already have the badge and don't have to take the course.

STATIC-LINE PARACHUTE COURSE

"The course lasts four weeks and is conducted at No 1 Parachute Training School at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire. The students must make a total of eight jumps including one from a balloon, one at night and an operational descent (the latter being most difficult.) At the end of the course student are awarded the 'Sabre' wings. They then return [to Credenhill] where they are badged Special Air Service." (A to Z of the S.A.S. p.171)

Once Jungle training has been passed candidates are in the 22nd Special Air Service, however new troopers have not finished their training. Any candidate unable to drive or swim undergoes further training in those areas and then once added to a Squadron, an Special Air Service trooper must learn his patrol skill. Signalling, demolitions, languages or medicine, an Special Air Service four man-patrol is a self contained unit and must poses all of these skills; some troopers as they stay in the Special Air Service will retrain in other patrol skill areas, this, combined with their specialist troop skill (Mountaineering, Mobility, Anti-Terrorism and advanced parachuting) means that each Special Air Service soldier is unique and one of the highest trained troopers in the world.

Bibiliography
A-Z of the S.A.S, Peter Darman. Sidjwick & Jackson, London. 1992
Fighting Skillls of the S.A.S, Mike Robinson. Sidjwick & Jackson, London. 1991
S.A.S. Rescue, Barry Davies. Sidjwick & Jackson, London. 1996