Original subtitles

THUNDER CRASHES

GALE BLOWS

On a November night in 1941, high above the North African desert

five ancient RAF planes clawed their way through a ferocious storm.

BEN: Inside. 55 paratroopers

from a new and intensely secret combat unit

were ready to jump over the target.

BOMBS EXPLODE

But the planes were lost far behind enemy lines

and under heavy fire.

The pilot turned to the officer in command and asked: "Should we turn back?"

Many would not survive the mission.

All the men knew it.

None hesitated.

One by one. they hurled themselves into the gale.

These were the first men of the SAS.

Today, the Special Air Service is the world's most famous combat unit

with the motto 'Who Dares Wins'

but the story of how it came into existence

has been. until now. a closely guarded secret.

With unprecedented access to the SAS archives

unseen footage

and exclusive interviews with its founding members

this series tells the remarkable story behind an extraordinary fighting force.

It was essential that some success should be recorded, and recorded quickly.

That band of vagabonds had to grasp what they had to do.

SEEKINGS: We should never have dropped under those conditions

but if we hadn't

there would never have been an SAS. That is for sure.

The SAS is one of the most mysterious military organisations in the world.

Its missions are closely guarded secrets.

The records are kept securely locked away.

Now, for the first time

the SAS has agreed to open up its archive

and allow me to reveal the true story of their formation

during the darkest days of World War Two.

This is the official image of the wartime SAS...

The one-dimensional macho-men of popular myth.

But the archive reveals that in truth, they were. by turns

eccentric. resilient. intelligent. amateur

and. in some cases, borderline psychotic.

The regiment very nearly died at birth.

It faced as many enemies inside the British military establishment

as it did on the battlefield,.

But these rogues and misfits fought from the deserts of North Africa

to the very heart of Nazi Germany

and recorded it all in the archive's most revealing artefact.

Hidden in the SAS Archives is this: The War Diary.

An extraordinary scrapbook of combat reports and original photographs

secretly put together by the men themselves

in a leather binder liberated from Nazi Germany.

BEN: It lists every detail of every mission

but more than that

it also contains the words and memories of the men who carried out those missions

providing a unique insight into the psychology, character and personalities

of the people who forged the SAS.

In the summer of 1941, at the height of the war in the desert

a bored and eccentric young army officer

was planning to take on the German and Italian forces

with an elaborate scheme

that was imaginative, radical and entirely against the rules.

This young soldier wasn't exactly the stuff of traditional military heroes.

He lacked the most basic military discipline

he had never seen any actual fighting

and he couldn't even march straight.

He was so tall and so lazy

his comrades nicknamed him "the Giant Sloth".

David Archibald Stirling was a dreamer

who had once hoped to be the first man to climb Mount Everest

or perhaps become a famous artist.

When the war came. Stirling joined the Commando force in Africa

hoping to seize military glory.

His seniors considered this unlikely.

One report described him as “irresponsible and unremarkable...

But Stirling wasn't quite the layabout his commanders thought he was.

Britain was losing the war?

And Stirling, who was nothing if not self-confident

believed he knew just what to do to reverse the tide.

MAN: Film no. 42. 53, take 1.

In 1987. David Stirling agreed to tell his complete story on film,.

Hidden away for decades

it is an extraordinary first-hand account from the maverick visionary

who dreamed of reinventing the way war was fought,.

From the start we knew we would never make it to a regiment

unless we succeeded in establishing a new role.

It had to be regarded as a new type of force

to extract the very maximum out of surprise and guile.

By 1941. the Axis powers of Hitler and Mussolini had overrun Europe

and were seeking to dominate the Mediterranean.

Under the command of Hitler's most formidable general, Erwin Rommel

they seemed close to achieving just that.

His aircraft dominated the skies

effectively halting any counter-attack.

For the British to break the deadlock

a way had to be found

to destroy the enemies' aircraft on the ground,.

But with his airfields hundreds of miles behind the lines in the desert

massed British Commando raids were practically impossible,

Stirling could see what the generals could not.

That the Commando force was simply too large and cumbersome

to be fit for purpose.

He began to imagine what it would be like

if the unit was split up into smaller raiding parties.

These would be far more mobile

and could react quickly to changes in terrain or weather.

They might able to penetrate deep behind enemy lines

and attack several targets at once, without warning.

First of all I had to relate it to an operation

in order to capture the imagination of the top command.

Stirling knew that the Germans had used paratroopers to great effect

and he believed that the British should develop a force of their own.

Parachuting would give him the advantage of novelty

when selling the idea of his unit

and it might be quite fun to try it as well,.

Stirling acquired a shipment of parachutes

and with no training whatever

carried out his first experimental jump.

He simply strapped on a parachute, and jumped out of a plane.

I was a bit unlucky because my parachute, when it opened

was attached to the tail plane

and before it broke loose

it took off a panel or two off the parachute

so I descended a good deal faster than my companions.

Couldn't move either of my two legs and went to Alexandria Hospital.

And of course it gave me a marvellous opportunity

to do some homework on the project.

Undaunted by his disastrous first parachute jump

Stirling was inspired to develop his plan in a different way.

The forces defending the Axis airfields

were expecting to be attacked from the Mediterranean

and so had all their guns trained to the north.

What if Stirling and his parachutists attacked them

from the opposite direction?

To the south. lay the Great Sand Sea

a vast waterless desert covering 45, 000 square miles.

Temperatures here can reach 120 degrees by day

and plummet to freezing at night.

It is not an easy place to live, but it is a very easy place to die.

One of the most hostile environments on earth.

The Germans and Italians considered it virtually impassable

and therefore left it largely unprotected.

Stirling observed: "This was one sea the Hun was not watching, “

From here they could wreak havoc on the remote airfields

by attacking from where they were least expected

and then slip back into the embracing emptiness of the Sand Sea

before the enemy knew what had hit them.

Stirling had just drawn up the blueprint for an entirely new type of warfare

that might be the key to defeating Rommel.

STIRLING: We would have to have access to intelligence.

We were going to develop methods and techniques

which were new, in army terms

and therefore we'd have to have a special status of our own.

But first, this lowly Lieutenant with no battle experience

would have to persuade High Command that his idea could actually work.

Housed in a large block of commandeered flats

and surrounded by barbed wire

British HQ in Cairo was an impenetrable fortress

of old-fashioned thinking.

Stirling knew his plan was so radical

that if it passed through the normal channels

it would perish on the desk of the first officer who read it.

In the eyes of some

sneaking in by parachute

blowing up planes in the middle of the night

and then running away

was a job for saboteurs

not soldiers of His Majesty's Armed Forces.

Well, that meant I had to more or less ignore the normal rules and regulations

because there was no way that anybody was going to back the scheme.

Except possibly at the very top.

Stirling's only option

was to get his plan directly into the hands of the top brass.

How he did so has become the stuff of myth.

Still on crutches after his accident

Stirling hobbled up to the entrance, where he was stopped by two guards.

Unfortunately I didn't have a pass and I was refused admittance.

So I had to use my crutches as a kind of ladder

to get over the wire when the guards weren't looking.

Going as fast as his stiff legs could carry him

he burst into a room marked 'Adjutant General'.

It was an unfortunate choice.

I'd forgotten he was the same chap who tried very hard to have me sacked.

I didn't take my military training very seriously.

So when I appeared with a paper for him to read

he was absolutely outraged.

Hearing the guard thundering upstairs, he dashed into the next room.

Which turned out to contain General Sir Neil Ritchie

the very man he wanted to see.

Took him rather by surprise

and he settled down to read it.

He really got quite engrossed in it

and forgotten the rather irregular way it had been presented.

He said this is something we can use.

This is an almost perfect Stirling story.

It has the patina of a tale polished, told and retold after dinner.

It is entirely possible that the whole thing was invented.

But whatever the truth

of how Stirling got his notes under the noses of High Command

his timing couldn't have been better.

Ritchie's superior. General Sir Claude Auchinleck

had recently taken over as Commander-in-Chief

and was under intense pressure from Winston Churchill

to strike back at Rommel.

With a major British counter-attack looming

Stirling's plan could hamper enemy airpower at a critical moment.

And if it failed, all that would be lost would be a handful of adventurers.

Stirling was a mere Lieutenant, and an undistinguished one at that

but he had now won permission

to create and command what looked suspiciously like a private army.

To the fury of many at British HQ

Stirling was promptly promoted to Captain

and authorised to raise a force of 6 officers and 60 men.

The Special Air Service, or SAS, was born.

The name was the brainchild of Brigadier Dudley Clarke

the Chief of Military Deception in the Middle East.

Operating from the basement of a Cairo brothel

Clarke distributed misinformation to baffle and mislead the enemy.

He was also a master of disguise, with a taste for cross-dressing.

Clarke wanted to convince the enemy

that the British had a large airborne force in the area

and so he invented the SAS Brigade

in the form of Stirling's real - but very small - force of men.

Clarke gave them the important-sounding title

'L' Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade.

Stirling would later joke that the 'L' stood for 'Learner'.

Stirling now set about recruiting men

who would live up to the promise of the name Clarke had given them.

MAN: 17, take 1.

Those he chose were also interviewed in 1987.

MAN: Roll 6. 7, take 1.

MAN: 29. Take 1.

MAN: 41, take 1.

Conventional soldiers were rejected out of hand.

Stirling was looking for something rather different:

an ability to think and react independently.

I heard some what you might term as idle conversation, that was...

do or die boys are being formed in Egypt.

You'll get the diehards that have got a nice comfortable job

polishing their seat.

You was looking for men that you thought was better?

Than the present ones that you were serving under.

COOPER: I had a lot of problems getting into the army

(A) because I was too young

(and B) because they thought that I wasn't big enough.

Well, I thought I was big enough.

The adjutant sent a message saying:

"There's a Lieutenant Stirling wants to see you."

Then I realised he had an interest.

He said: "Do you want to do something special?"

KERSHAW: He said to me: "What will your wife say

if she finds out that you've joined this parachute unit?"

I said: "She won't know, sir!" - HE LAUGHS

"She won't know anything at all about it."

So I was accepted.

The men he chose were supremely brave and just short of irresponsible.

Uncomplaining and unconventional rogues

who could fight a new and secret sort of war.

STIRLING: In a sense, they weren't really controllable.

They all had this individuality.

The object was to give them the same purpose.

Most of them were escaping from conventional regimental discipline.

They didn't fully appreciate

they were running into a much more exacting type of discipline.

That band of vagabonds had to grasp what they had to do.

We had to get down to training immediately.

Stirling's enemies at British HQ couldn't stop him

but they could make life as difficult as possible

for his band of renegades.

The new detachment arrived at the designated spot

to find a signpost with the unit's name scrawled on it

a few ragged tents, and a couple of chairs.

BENNETT: Someone said: "Well, where's the camp?"

And David said: "Well, that's the first job you do is to steal one."

STIRLING: It happened that there was a New Zealand brigade

particularly well supplied with camp facilities.

Including a grand piano.

So we decided, while the New Zealanders were out on their march

we would take what we were entitled to.

We stole tents, we stole a piano, bars, the whole camp.

STIRLING: And by next morning, we had a really spectacularly effective...

probably the best camp in the area!

BENNETT: We thought it was great.

We thought: "This is the unit to be with."

And so started 'L' Detachment.

Forging a new fighting unit required someone

who understood the practicalities of combat.

David Stirling was the inspiration for the SAS

but the man to turn that into hard military reality

was Lieutenant Jock Lewes.

This is hitherto unseen footage of Jock Lewes before the war.

Athletic. rich. patriotic and handsome.

A darling of the society magazines.

"Be someone great." his father had told him

and when war came. Lewes set about fulfilling that injunction.

Jock was encouraged by his parents to be someone great.

Ever since he was a child.

Jock had a very clear vision of what he wanted to do.

He wanted to shorten the war.

He was fulfilling the greatness

that his mother and father had expected him to rise to.

While Stirling had been planning the SAS from his hospital bed

Lewes had come to a similar conclusion on the field of battle.

He was a man Stirling was determined to have on his team.

STIRLING: I put him in charge of training.

It's something he'd been longing to do.

He improvised all kinds of new training techniques.

MEN SHOUT

This is the only footage of Lewes' unique style of parachute training,.

British paratroopers had never been dropped into the desert before.

Without a plane available for training. Lewes decided to improvise,.

RILEY: None of us had ever parachuted in our lives. Let's get that straight.

None of us had done it.

So he had a brilliant idea - well, he thought it was, anyway -

and we got some trucks.

The idea was at 10 miles an hour we'd jump off it backwards.

So we did it, and then he thought 20 miles an hour.

30 miles an hour, and I'm afraid we gave up.

But Jock went on.

So what could you do?

If he jumps off a truck at 40 miles an hour

and he asks you to jump off at 30

you just did it.

Lewes' training was harsh. exacting and extremely dangerous.

Many broke bones. Including Jock himself.

But his steely determination captured the imagination of his men.

It was a thing with Jock Lewes' training, he said: "Never run away"

he says "because once you start running, you stop thinking."

It was very sound advice.

But there was another, secret side to Jock Lewes

that would have given Stirling pause, had he known about it.

Lewes had very nearly become a Fascist.

Touring Germany before the war

Lewes had become deeply impressed

by the organisation and strength of the Third Reich.

Lewes even fell in love with a young German woman.

Senta Adriano was a society beauty

and an enthusiastic Nazi.

Then came Kristallnacht. 'The Night of Broken Glass'

as the Nazis went on the rampage against the Jews.

And the politically naive Lewes suddenly saw with horrible clarity

the true nature of the regime he had so enthused over.

Lewes found a new love. Mirren Barford

unimpeachably British, and a woman worth fighting a war for.

From the battle front, Lewes wrote Mirren ever more loving letters

and she replied with similar passion.

Finally he asked for her hand in marriage

but not until he had vanquished the enemy.

"I swear I will not live to see the clay

when Britain hauls down the colours of her beliefs

before totalitarian aggression.

I willingly take up arms against Germany."

Lewes' ruthlessness and determination

his utter dedication to the task of defeating Germany

was that of a man who had been wronged by a faithless lover

one who had made a terrible mistake

and was now determined to make amends.

JOHN LEWES: Jack's letters to Mirren and her letters back to him

are the incredible love story of two people who'd only met ten times.

But because he was convinced that he was going to marry her

he was able to reveal everything to her.

He couldn't tell her what the military orders were

but he could tell her of the huge challenges he was facing.

How his faith was really being tested.

He was a Christian, he didn't enjoy killing

and he had to find a way of squaring the circle.

These letters and this love affair, at a distance

was what enabled Jock to bear the burden.

NEWS ANCHOR: Our paratroops have been training in the Western Desert

as well as in Britain.

In late 1941 the War Office allowed a newsreel to be made

of the unit in training

quite possibly as part of Dudley Clarke's deception operation.

This rare footage shows Stirling - in shorts -

introducing General Auchinleck to his men.

RILEY: What we had was chaps who came from all walks of life

and there was short ones, tall ones, medium height

and we had to blend all that into a fighting body.

Stirling said that although he needed men

who would be prepared to kill at close quarters

he didn't want psychopaths.

Which was exactly how many people described Stirling's most challenging recruit.

Lieutenant Blair Mayne, known as Paddy.

Paddy was very, very different. He was the antithesis of Jock.

A former Irish Rugby international

Mayne was a hard drinker with a volcanic temper.

This is Stirling introducing Paddy Mayne to the General.

But the Irishman had little respect for authority.

Stirling later claimed he had found Mayne in prison awaiting court martial.

He found reason to knock out his Commanding Officer

and was doing time.

I persuaded him that the proposition was a good one

and then he joined up.

Recruiting Paddy Mayne was like adopting a wolf.

Exciting, certain to instil fear, but not necessarily sensible.

STIRLING: He had a marvellous battle nostril.

He knew how to exploit surprise

and what looked to be absolutely foolhardy was legitimate with Paddy.

But I told him, very firmly

that this Commanding Officer wasn't for hitting.

Stirling and his men were ready for battle

and, so it seemed, was their Commander-in-Chief

Claude Auchinleck,.

Operation Crusader was planned as an all-out attack

to relieve the besieged town of Tobruk

a vital coastal stronghold.

But Tobruk was flanked by airfields bristling with enemy aircraft,.

These would undoubtedly attack Auchinleck's advancing ground forces.

Unless they could be attacked first.

Stirling proposed to parachute in the SAS, deep behind enemy lines

before the British ground attack.

These could then attack the individual airfields

and destroy as many aeroplanes as possible

using a new weapon designed by Jock Lewes.

Jock knew he had to find a bomb that would blow up an aircraft

and he had to find one that was light enough to carry.

The men could hear the occasional explosions during lunchtime

when of course Jock was working again.

Jock had mixed up a mixture of plastic thermite and steel filings -

that was the secret, steel filings -

and of course the thing blew up.

Well, it was a great moment, a great moment.

JOHN LEWES: He jumped for joy.

You know, shouting out and hugging the nearest NCOs.

He knew he'd cracked it

and he knew that the SAS were going to be fully operational.

The War Diary contains the SAS' first ever battle order.

The top secret directive from HQ ordering the mission to go ahead.

Stirling and almost his entire force would be dropped deep into the desert

with just five days' supply of food and water.

Armed with the new Lewes bombs

the men would sneak onto the airfields at night

and plant their explosives on every aircraft they could find.

To escape from the desert

a rendezvous was set up with the trucks Of the LRDG

the Long Range Desert Group.

A unit experienced in desert reconnaissance.

The pick-up point was dangerously close to the enemy.

The LRDG could wait no more than three days

before leaving the men alone in the desert.

Lewes was elated at the prospect of action at last.

His letters home ring with the chivalric tones of a crusader.

"We wait to prove ourselves... This unit cannot now die...

It is alive and will live gloriously."

But for all Lewes' visions of glory

there was one factor over which no one had any control.

The weather.

With just hours to go before take-off, the weather forecast was atrocious.

WIND HOWLS

Heavy rain and winds of at least 30 knots -

twice the maximum speed for parachuting.

COOPER: The weather was against us going.

We were all given the option of opting out.

High Command sent a message allowing Stirling to cancel the mission,.

But after months on the side-lines

this was Stirling's first and perhaps his only chance

to demonstrate his radical new method of warfare.

JOHN LEWES: Stirling and Lewes could have been tempted to say

"Well, we'll cancel this"

but because of the opposition to the SAS in HQ Cairo

they felt absolutely that if they didn't take this chance

they might never get another chance again.

STIRLING: I wasn't prepared to see the first of our operations

because of bad weather, being postponed

or it couldn't be postponed, it would have to be cancelled.

We refused absolutely.

They gave us the option, so we went ahead.

Stirling almost certainly made the wrong decision

in allowing the operation to go ahead

but if he had made the right decision, and called it off

there would probably never have been an SAS.

BENNETT: That evening we were given a meal.

It was out of this world.

The RAF had laid it on, and it was like the Last Supper.

Well, I think the RAF thought

they'd never see any of us again, you know.

Five of the RAF's cumbersome and outdated Bombay' aircraft

clambered into the darkness.

With Stirling's men holding tight

the planes flew into the worst storm in the area for 30 years,.

THUNDER CRASHES

SIREN BLARES

BEN: As soon as they reached the coast

the enemy's air defences opened up with a storm of anti-aircraft fire.

ARTILLERY FIRE

COOPER: The plane inside was absolutely lit up.

Jock got up and just walked up and down

as though nothing cared at all.

It gave you confidence.

You thought: "He's not frightened. Why am I frightened?"

He said: "Not to worry, but we'll have to jump.

We don't know where we are but we are going to jump."

STIRLING: It was a night without any moon -

pitch black -

and they dropped the 65 men taking part

all over the bloody shop.

Seized by the wind

most of the parachutists landed miles from the drop zone.

Several. unable to unclip their parachutes in the high wind

were scraped to death on the desert floor.

KERSHAW: I don't know whether you know the desert at night time

but it gets as black as hell.

My arms now, I had to hold 'em close to my chest

because I was in pain.

Armed only with revolvers and a handful of grenades

and barely a day's supply of water

as an attacking force, Stirling's team was now useless.

And now. somehow, lost in the wilderness of sand

the survivors would have to find their way to the rendezvous point,.

Ahead of them lay a 36-hour march through high winds and driving rain,.

Undaunted. Lewes said: "At least we won't die of thirst.“

RILEY: We saw this light, a way in the distance.

Jock thought it was a star.

I said: "No, it's not a star, it's a light. That's the thing."

The handful of survivors had found the only way

to get back out of the desert.

The trucks of the LRDG,.

One of the last out was Stirling.

Dazed and exhausted. he asked: “Has anyone seen my men?"

One aircraft had been shot down

some men had been killed in the parachute drop

some captured

others dragged to their deaths or left to die in the desert.

Only 21 of the 55 had returned.

Stirling remained at the desert rendezvous for two more days

scanning the horizon

in the hope that other stragglers might eventually emerge.

None did.

It was tragic, because there was so much talent in those whom we lost.

That we had to try and survive.

Thinking that 21 of us came out of that

we thought of the others -

we didn't know where they were, whether they were alive or dead -

I think most of us wanted to continue.

We'd gone through so much

so whatever happened afterwards

was going to be, as you say, a piece of cake.

It wasn't of course, but...

The raid had failed utterly

but in disaster. as so often, lay the germ of salvation.

The thought now occurred to Stirling

that if the LRDG could get them out of the desert

they could surely drive them in as well.

With their distinctive Arab headdress

and their specially customised vehicles

the Long Range Desert Group were part soldiers and part explorers

who had made the desert their home.

They had honed their skills by developing advanced desert mapping techniques

and using their own 'sun compass'.

Their expertise made them the ideal desert scouting force

primarily gathering intelligence

while occasionally attacking the enemy

and committing piracy on the high desert.

One of the LRDG's best navigators was 21-year-old Corporal Mike Sadler.

Now aged 96, he is the only man left

to have fought alongside the original soldiers of the SAS,.

How do you navigate in the desert, Mike? How do you do it?

SADLER: Well, it was a bit of an art, really.

It came naturally somehow

and so I was fairly successful at it.

The sun threw a shadow onto a little sun compass

and you had to set the disc

depending on the time of day and the latitude that you were on

and all that.

Come nightfall, we had to establish whether we were right or not

by observing the stars.

And that was the thing which I found so fascinating.

Sadler came to the LRDG as a gunner

but had become obsessed with plotting courses across the sands.

As I'd been taking an interest in it, the first thing that they said was

"Would you like to be a navigator?"

And I couldn't believe it

and so I said: "Yes, I would"

and I never, never looked at an anti-tank gun again

with great relief.

HE LAUGHS

Stirling soon realised that men with the desert expertise of Mike Sadler

could deliver the SAS on time and on target

far better than the RAF ever could.

He was a very quiet fellow. He never raised his voice

but he was a bit inclined to forget you

because he was not concentrating so much on the job in hand.

He was thinking much more about higher matters.

Stirling took his new plan back to Cairo to find HQ in state of panic.

The Axis had inflicted a major defeat on the British

driving them out of Libya and back into Egypt.

But Rommel's rapid advance had left his forces overstretched

and vulnerable.

This was an opportunity for Stirling to attack again.

STIRLING: Rather on tip toe got hold of a truck or two

and we were equipped to undertake our first series of operations

with the Long Range Desert Group.

Ahead of them lay a 350-mile journey

to the enemy-held coast

courtesy of the LRDG -

or the "Libyan Taxi Service", as the SAS had taken to calling them.

Stirling had less than half his force left.

Every single one of them was determined to get back into the war.

They headed into the desert. In the certain knowledge

that if they failed again, this would be their last mission together,.

ALMONDS: It was essential for the unit

that some success should be recorded and recorded quickly.

Another failure like that and they'd have disbanded it

before it even got off the ground.

There are few experiences more uncomfortable

than a long desert journey in a vehicle like this.

For three days they rumbled and jounced their way northwest

the heat and monotony inducing a state of sweaty semi-consciousness.

The trucks frequently broke down or sank into the sand

and had to be mended or laboriously dug out.

It was freezing by night...

broiling by day.

The men called it 'Devil Country'

and developed the desert sores and bad temper to prove it...

SEEKINGS: First few days there was nobody

there was no Bedouins, there was no nothing.

But as you got nearer the target so then the tension started to rise.

The trucks presented an easy target

for the very aircraft the SAS were aiming to destroy.

SEEKINGS: First you got in bomber range

then you got in fighter range

and spotter planes, and they were liable to pick you up.

Then you moved into the coastal belt

and you started to get a bit of shrub, stuff like that

and the tension would start building.

And then you'd move in 'til you thought: "That's near enough."

The noisy trucks would attract too much attention.

The rest of the journey would be on foot.

The men hiked several miles until the target was in their sights.

SEEKINGS: The first ops, sentries not on alert.

If you was three or four hundred miles behind the line

it was just cushy, the war was never going to touch you.

Across the target airfields

the men planted Lewes bombs on every aircraft they could find.

Setting the fuses to detonate simultaneously

they fled before the destruction erupted,.

BENNETT: When they went, up they went.

And you had great big volumes of flames.

By early morning. Stirling and the LRDG

had disappeared back into the desert

leaving behind them an epic trail of destruction and a bewildered enemy.

There is no defence against a small party

of three or four determined men getting in.

But destroying aircraft wasn't enough for Paddy Mayne.

He decided to attack the men who flew them as well.

The War Diary contains Mayne's chilling account of what followed.

"I stood there with my Colt .45

the others at my side with a Tommy gun and another automatic.

We were a peculiar and frightening sight, bearded and unkempt hair.

I said: 'Good evening.'

At that, a young German arose and moved slowly backwards.

I shot him.

I turned and fired at another, some six feet away.

Then the two machine-gunners opened up.

The room by now was in pandemonium."

Despite the success of the mission

Stirling was appalled by the shooting of some 30 men at point-blank range,.

He reported: “It was necessary to be ruthless

but Paddy had overstepped the mark.

I was obliged to rebuke him for over-callous execution of the enemy."

BEN: Paddy Mayne's brutal attack veered away from sabotage

and came close to cold-blooded killing.

It showed just how far the unit had already moved away

from conventional warfare.

Over the next two weeks, the SAS mounted raid after raid

often unauthorised and picking targets at will.

Bill Fraser's party got the biggest bag

they got 37 planes

and we went back to the same place

and got 24 planes

and eight days later we went back

and got another 24.

That's when it all started.

That's when the results started coming in.

They destroyed everything

terrorising and demoralising the enemy

before disappearing into their oasis hide-out

deep in the desert.

KERSHAW: Obviously, there was jubilation.

We're back in business, sort of thing.

BENNETT: It must have been on Christmas day

the LRDG shot a gazelle

and we made a little bar in the sand

we had gazelle and had rum and lime.

We had a very, very nice Christmas.

Fired up by success

Stirling would not allow even Christmas to slow the pace of destruction.

Rommel was falling back, ever more dependent on air support.

The SAS would attack again.

But the Germans and Italians were getting wise

to the tactics of the SAS.

Aerial patrols were scouring the desert

looking for the tell-tale dust plumes of the trucks,.

It was only a matter of time

before the enemy would have Stirling 's men in their sights.

Well, you had so much faith in the people you were with

that no one sort of anticipated that anything was going to go wrong.

Jock Lewes could tell his fiancée Mirren Barford

very little about their secret mission in the desert

and could only hint at their great success.

In a telegram, he wrote:

"Back today with a pullable beard and a possible medal.

Off again tomorrow. Merry Christmas to all."

In his private diary

Lewes expressed the lofty martial sentiments

that burnt brightly in his heart.

"I feel my strength and fear is far away.

I will not seek to save my life

but will choose the most difficult and dangerous work."

But beneath the chivalric tone lay a hint of martyrdom.

JOHN LEWES: He was so passionate to end the war early

and get back to his love.

And that meant there was a high chance of being killed.

"I am prepared for this to be my life's work

because it will be well done

and a thing to be proud of, here or anywhere.

I am losing my life

in this hard, graceless, unpoetic, unbeautiful devotion."

He was a very studious character, Jock Lewes, as a training officer.

And to go in action with you, he was a very good man too.

He, um...

I think he probably had slightly too much regimentality about him

in active conditions.

I think that's one of things that cost him his life.

Racing across the desert after a dawn raid

Jock Lewes' convoy was spotted by a German plane.

In the open desert, they were sitting ducks.

The SAS trucks could not escape

the speed and firepower of their attackers.

As planes filled the sky, the men jumped for their lives

but Jock Lewes delayed, gathering his papers.

Everybody could see it was coming in

and it was coming in so low that everybody bailed off.

PLANE CRASHES

Jock Lewes stayed too long in the truck

and he got caught in that fire.

Jock Lewes was buried where he fell.

His men would never know why he had delayed

but perhaps he'd already given them a clue.

Never run away.

I regarded him as a great leader.

I'd have followed old Jock anywhere.

He was a good fella.

On New Year's Eve

the survivors of the Lewes raid limped back to the oasis

bringing news news that one of the unit's most important members

was gone.

Stirling was furious that Lewes' body had been left behind in the desert

but then it was Lewes himself who had insisted

that collecting the dead was a dangerous waste of time.

In Lewes' empty tent

his comrades found a letter from Mirren Barford

joyously accepting his proposal of marriage.

MIRREN (ACTRESS): "Please remember you are my dearest and only love

don't leave me, ever.

You always have my love and all I can do now

is ask the Almighty Powers to be merciful

and to keep you safe and free."

JOHN LEWES: Mirren's letter accepting Jock's offer of marriage

arrived after Jock died.

But... Jock did say one word before he died

and he said "Mirren".

We were a unit, if anybody got killed that was the end of it.

You know, we...

There was no shedding tears and...

getting handkerchiefs out or drying your eyes.

Thinking: "There's my best pal, I'll get the Germans for this"

you know, like the Americans do it.

None of that.

I mean, you took your chance and... and that was it.

By January 1942

'L' Detachment had destroyed more than 90 planes

and left almost as many enemy dead.

Behind them was a trail of wrecked munitions, vehicles

and a demoralised and mystified enemy.

The SAS returned to Cairo with their heads held high.

Stirling was promoted to Major

and Auchinleck, recognising the great potential

of his newest fighting force

authorised the recruitment of six more officers

and 40 more men.

'L' Detachment were no longer 'Learners'

but success had come at a price.

34 men had been lost

in the first doomed parachute raid.

And now the unit had also lost the man

who had been instrumental in their success.

STIRLING: Well, it was very grave on all of us

and it did leave a very big gap.

The grave of Jock Lewes was never found

lost forever in the Great Sand Sea.

JOHN LEWES: Jock was absolutely key

to this incredible regiment.

And by the time he died

everything he'd done had proved that it could survive.

But it still needed guarding.

Without his right hand man

Stirling would have to rely on the newly-promoted Captain Paddy Mayne,.

An officer as unpredictable and dangerous

as the new phase of war that was about to begin.

The SAS would have to adapt if it was going to survive.

BEN: But the game was changing.

The airfields were now being heavily defended.

And unknown to David Stirling

the Germans were training special units

to track, intercept and kill the marauding SAS.

The hunters would soon become the hunted.

Ripped & Corrected By mstoll February 2017

Ripped & Corrected By mstoll March 2017 - Released on www.Addic7ed.com