For educational purposes
The brainchild of a junior British officer, the Special Air Service first saw action in North Africa, making daring raids against Axis airfields.
Thereafter it continued to specialise in operations behind enemy lines in Italy, the Greek Islands, and North-West Europe.
The skills that the SAS acquired during World War 2 enabled it to become one of today's foremost Special Forces throughout the world.
The brainchild of a junior British officer, the Special Air Service first saw action in North Africa, making daring raids against Axis airfields.
Thereafter it continued to specialise in operations behind enemy lines in Italy, the Greek Islands, and North-West Europe.
The skills that the SAS acquired during World War 2 enabled it to become one of today's foremost Special Forces throughout the world.
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LearningTranscript
00:30The
00:555th of May, 1980. Masked men storm the Iranian embassy in the heart of London in the glare
01:02of the world's television cameras. Their mission? To rescue hostages seized by Iraqi
01:12terrorists. For the first time ever, the British Army's elite Special Air Service Regiment
01:19is seen in action. Inside the building, the SAS cleared each room using carefully pre-planned
01:28drills. In the road outside, other SAS men watched for anyone attempting to escape from
01:40the building and checked for any explosive devices that the terrorists might have planted.
01:49Within ten minutes, the surviving hostages had been rescued and all the terrorists accounted
01:54for. This may have seemed a far cry from the deserts of Egypt and Libya where the SAS cut
02:03its teeth during World War II. But the techniques it developed during its raids on Axis airfields
02:11and supply dumps were put to good effect, not just during the Iranian embassy siege,
02:17but also in its operations during the 1982 Falklands War, especially the raids on the
02:22Argentinian airstrip on Pebble Island, and in the 1991 Gulf War.
02:33In the summer of 1941, the British and Dominion forces in Egypt were stalemated. Earlier in
02:42the year, they had triumphantly driven the Italians out of Saarenayaka, the westernmost
02:47province of Libya. The Italian Tenth Army had been destroyed, and tens of thousands
02:55of prisoners fell into British hands. But Hitler had then sent General Erwin Rommel
03:08and the Afrika Korps to help his Italian ally. Rommel wasted little time. Within six
03:19weeks of arriving, he attacked, driving the British back into Egypt. Efforts to dislodge
03:28Rommel in the early summer of 1941 failed, and the British suffered heavy tank casualties.
03:39The only encouraging fact was that although under close siege, the garrison of the Libyan
03:44port of Tobruk continued to hold out against the Axis forces. During the stalemate, a 24-year-old
04:02commando officer, David Sterling, lay in hospital in Alexandria. He was recovering from injuries
04:08caused by a parachute jump that went wrong. Sterling had plenty of time to think about
04:18why the war in the Middle East seemed to be deadlocked, and how this could be broken.
04:27One of the most notable factors about the war in the western desert was the immense
04:31distances that needed to be covered. The distance from Tripoli, where the Afrika Korps had landed,
04:39to Alexandria, the main British base, was over a thousand miles. There were few proper roads,
04:48and to the south was an open flank of desert which could be navigated by experienced troops.
04:53Sterling realized that this made Rommel's supply lines particularly long and vulnerable.
05:04So, too, were the Afrika Korps airfields and supply docks.
05:12Attempts to disrupt them through commando raids from the sea had failed,
05:25because Axis forces were too alert. Also, the Royal Navy's Mediterranean fleet could
05:34not spare the ships for major amphibious operations. Its priority was to keep the still
05:44powerful Italian fleet at bay. The Navy was also struggling to keep Tobruk, as well as
05:53the strategically important island of Malta, supplied in the face of constant Axis air
05:58attacks from both Italy and North Africa. Sterling concluded that a possible alternative
06:10was small groups of men which would be infiltrated through the Axis lines. Not only would the enemy
06:16find it more difficult to detect them, but they were capable of causing as much damage
06:20to supply dumps and airfields as larger bodies. For his raiding force to be effective, Sterling
06:36believed that it must be responsible for its own training and be directly answerable to the
06:41commander-in-chief Middle East. He also proposed that his force should be sent in by parachute
06:47and operate in conjunction with any future British offensive. Once out of hospital,
06:56Sterling decided that if he had submitted his proposal through normal channels, it would
07:00merely get lost in the bureaucracy that was headquarters Middle East. He decided that a
07:06direct approach to the very top was the only way to get his ideas considered. Sterling therefore
07:14went in person to General Neil Ritchie, the deputy chief of staff of headquarters Middle East,
07:19and handed him his pencil written memorandum. Ritchie was impressed. He assured Sterling that
07:25he would show it in person to the commander-in-chief General Sir Claude Auchinleck. Auchinleck also
07:31liked Sterling's ideas and authorized him to recruit a force of six officers and 60 soldiers
07:36from the commandos in the Middle East. Thus, the SAS was born. David Sterling now had his
07:48commander-in-chief's approval for his special force. Next, he needed a name for it and to
07:53choose his man. The name was the idea of Brigadier Dudley Clark, who was in charge of deception
08:03operations in the Middle East. It arose out of a plan to convince the Axis that the British had a
08:08large airborne force in the area. Sterling's 66 officers and men were rather grandly titled L
08:14Detachment Special Air Service Brigade. Sterling's recruitment methods were informal. He was looking
08:29for men who could cope with the sort of deep penetration warfare he had in mind. Among his
08:34first recruits was his fellow guardsman Captain Jock Lewis, a born organizer. Lewis had already
08:46gained considerable experience of carrying out raiding operations from Tobruk. Another was the
08:59pre-war Irish rugby football international Blair Paddy Main, who was always thirsting for a fight.
09:05Main had operated with Number 11 Commando during the recent campaign against the Vichy French in
09:12Syria. Many of the other founder members of the SAS were guardsmen who had been in Sterling's
09:25Commando. Sterling had not been given anywhere for his new force to base itself, so the SAS's
09:35first task was to steal a camp from a New Zealand unit which was at the front. After this act of
09:41piracy, Sterling imposed strict Brigade of Guards discipline. Parachute training for all SAS members
09:50was a priority, but Sterling had to improvise his own training equipment. He then had to persuade
09:58the RAF to lend him an elderly Bombay transport aircraft from which his recruits could complete
10:03their training. Aware that his men would be operating deep behind enemy lines, Sterling
10:14insisted that they become experts on German and Italian weapons. From the start, the SAS was
10:25obsessed with being the toughest of the tough. And, as David Sterling later explained, its methods
10:35and organisation were very different from more conventional army units. The whole purpose of
10:42the SAS was to be able to live long periods behind the lines. Whereas the smallest unit
10:50in the Commando was 12 men. In the case of the SAS, each troop should be divided down to two
11:01sub-units of four men, and each should be capable of operating by itself. We were a totally strategic
11:11type unit. One man would know a particular amount of navigation, another would be fully trained in
11:18medical side, another would have his specialist learning in explosives and every form of sabotage,
11:26and so on. Each of them were equally capable of doing any task. The magic of having four men was
11:38that it wasn't commanded by any particular one of them. The SAS's winged dagger cap badge was
11:45designed by Sergeant Bob Tate. The motto, Who Dares Wins, was Sterling's own invention, and
11:51aptly summed up the aim of the new unit. The SAS soon had an opportunity to prove itself. The
11:59British were preparing to go over to the offensive. Auchinleck was planning a major assault, Operation
12:08Crusader, for November 1941, which would relieve Tobruk and drive Rommel out of Saranaiga.
12:17The SAS was to be dropped two nights before the attack, and raid Axis airfields in the areas of
12:23Timimi and Gazala. They would then place demolition charges on as many aircraft as possible.
12:32Once they had carried out their attacks, Sterling and his men needed to be extricated and brought
12:43back to the British lines. He decided that this was an ideal task for the long-range
12:52desert group, which had been formed in June 1940 as an intelligence gathering unit.
13:02The LRDG used its skills at navigation and survival to take advantage of the open desert flank to the
13:09south of the desert battlefield to get behind the Axis lines. They would use the same method
13:16to collect the SAS after the raid. On the evening of the 16th of November 1941, Sterling and his
13:29men were gathered at a forward airfield in Egypt. The weather was not good, with a sandstorm brewing.
13:45But Sterling was determined to go ahead with the operation.
13:50Five Bombay aircraft, each containing an SAS group, took off.
13:54The first operation did not go well. Because of the sandstorm, the drop was scattered and much
14:04equipment lost. The airfield attacks had to be aborted, and only three out of the five groups
14:10made it to the rendezvous. The remaining 34 men were captured. An LRDG patrol duly collected the
14:18survivors and took them to an oasis at Jalan, behind Axis lines, but deep in the desert to
14:24lick their wounds. Sterling himself returned to Cairo, fearing that he might be ordered to disband
14:30his unit. But he found that the British headquarters was preoccupied with more pressing matters. This
14:36gave the SAS another chance to prove itself. For on the morning of the 18th of November 1941,
14:45while Sterling and his men were waiting to meet up with a long-range desert group,
14:49the main British attack on Erwin Rommel and his Axis forces had opened.
14:53It did not go quite as planned.
15:06The British armour became involved in bitter tank battles, with heavy casualties on both sides.
15:11Rommel also created confusion through a sudden thrust aimed at destroying British forward supply
15:23dumps. But running short of fuel, he was forced to withdraw. Auchinleck, seeing his opportunity
15:39to lift the siege of Tobruk, ordered a fresh attack. Brigadier Dennis Reid, with a motorised
15:48column, met up at Jalo with David Sterling and his SAS men. Reid received orders to move north
15:58and link up with the main attack near Benghazi. He asked Sterling to attack the airfield at Agadabir.
16:04An enthusiastic Sterling enlarged the plan to include attacks on airfields at El Agheila,
16:11Sirte and Tamit. The LRDG would take the SAS to their targets. Paddy Main and his team were able
16:26to infiltrate Sirte without being spotted, and proceeded to destroy no less than 37 aircraft.
16:35After running out of bombs, he dealt with his last one by climbing into the cockpit and wrenching
16:41out the instrument panel. The SAS also had success at El Agheila, destroying a number of aircraft.
16:48But Sterling was foiled by mines at Tamit, and Jock Lewis found no planes at Agadabir.
16:55The Allied assault relieved Tobruk, and Rommel began to withdraw his forces from
17:03Cyrenaica. Encouraged by the success of his airfield raids in support of Dennis Reid's
17:11advance, Sterling launched a further series of attacks over the Christmas period against Axis
17:16airfields. But none of the SAS teams was able to penetrate the German and Italian defences,
17:24and the long-range Desert Group patrol, with whom Jock Lewis was operating,
17:28came under attack from Italian aircraft.
17:30Tragically, Lewis, whom Sterling regarded as his right-hand man, was killed.
17:40With Rommel driven back into Tripolitania, Sterling returned to Cairo and obtained
17:48Auchinleck's backing to recruit further men. Among them was a free French troop
17:56under Commandant Berger, and a young officer from the Cameron Highlanders, Fitzroy MacLean,
18:05who would later lead the British military mission to Tito in Yugoslavia.
18:09On the 22nd of January 1942, Rommel struck again, driving the British back to Gazala.
18:20As the British retreated, the SAS carried out two attacks on the port of Benghazi
18:26and nearby airfields. These had mixed success. Benina had no aircraft,
18:32Slonter was too heavily defended, and only one was destroyed at Barsi.
18:36The main airstrip to Berger could not be found, but Paddy Main was able to attack an adjoining strip.
18:42Rommel attacked once more at the end of May, driving the British back into Egypt
18:50after five weeks of fierce fighting. This meant that Malta could again be
18:56attacked from Axis bases in North Africa, as well as Italy and Greece.
18:59The SAS was instructed to raid these airfields, together with one on the island of Crete,
19:10which was assigned to the free French. Carried out in mid-June, these attacks
19:15again met with varying success. Despite this, the SAS was now proving itself a valuable weapon
19:21in the desert war. Axis troops were well aware of its existence, and increasing numbers were
19:26being detached to step up airfield security and guard supply dumps.
19:30By now, the British Eighth Army had fallen back to the El Alamein line. This was the last defensible
19:40system before the Suez Canal, since its southern flank was not open, but rested on the Qatara
19:46Depression, which lay below an escarpment and was virtually impassable to vehicles.
19:51The British succeeded in preventing Rommel from breaking through, but were unable to drive him
19:58back. As the fighting continued, Sterling was looking at ways of increasing the effectiveness
20:03of the SAS. The general pattern was that its raids would be mounted during the moonless period of
20:09each month. Then the raiders would be brought back to base by the long-range desert group to
20:14prepare for the next one. Sterling decided that this wasted time, and that if his men could subsist
20:20on their own in the desert for weeks at a time, they could mount many more raids. But to do this,
20:25the SAS needed its own transport. Sterling already had a stripped-down Ford shooting
20:36known as the Blitz buggy, which he took on raids, painting it grey so that it could pass as a German
20:42staff car. He now managed to acquire some Willys Jeeps, which had just been sent to the Middle
20:51East by the Americans and had an excellent cross-country capability. These were modified,
20:59some with pairs of Vickers K .303-inch machine guns. Others were given an even heavier armament,
21:12a .5-inch Browning machine gun, together with a single Vickers K in the front and twin Vickers
21:17in the rear of the Jeep. Sterling reckoned that with this armament he could attack Axis
21:29aircraft without having to dismount. The chassis was also strengthened and extra fuel
21:35tanks installed. A water condenser was also fitted on the front. With the modifications
21:48completed, the SAS was ready for action once more. It was ordered to strike forward Axis
21:57landing grounds in support of an attack that Auchinleck was mounting at El Alamein.
22:01Sterling and his men slipped around the desert flank, negotiating their way along the escarpment
22:10of the Qatara Depression. They then met up with an LRDG patrol, which was to guide them to their
22:20targets. One group, led by Sterling and Maine, attacked the airfield at Bagush. They simply drove
22:39down rows of parked aircraft, blazing away with their Brownings and Vickers K machine guns,
22:44which were loaded with a mixture incendiary, explosive and tracer rounds. Such was the
22:50surprise they achieved that not a single shot was fired at them. The other groups found their
23:01airfields more heavily guarded, but also managed to destroy some aircraft. At the end of July 1942,
23:13Sterling carried out a massed raid on Sidi Hanesh airfield, near Foucault airfield with his jeeps.
23:19Forty aircraft were destroyed. The SAS's new tactics were clearly working.
23:29Following the success of its new tactics against Rommel's forces massed in front of El Alamein,
23:44the SAS was ordered back to its base at Qubrit in Egypt. Dramatic changes had just taken place
23:53in the command structure of the Middle East, following a visit in early August by Prime
23:58Minister Winston Churchill. He had decided that Auchinleck was exhausted, and replaced him by
24:10General Sir Harold Alexander. General Bernard Montgomery was given command of the 8th Army.
24:16Sterling feared that as a result, the SAS might lose its independence. But he was able to meet
24:24Churchill and convince him of his plans to expand the SAS and launch more raids. The unit's future
24:30was therefore secure. Sterling was now ordered to raid the port of Benghazi once more, to disrupt
24:36Rommel's supply line across the Mediterranean from Europe. He set up a forward base at Kufra,
24:44an oasis in southern Libya which had long been used by the LRDG. From there his men set out on
24:52the 4th of September. The attack was a disaster. It was supposed to take place under cover of an
24:57RAF bombing raid on the port. But the raiders were late, and it was almost over when they reached
25:03the target. The garrison was on full alert, and a fierce firefight developed, in which at least
25:17one jeep was set on fire. The SAS were forced to withdraw, and for the next two days the team was
25:33repeatedly attacked from the air. 25 vehicles were destroyed. The remainder managed to reach
25:46Jalan, where they found enough fuel to get them back to Kufra. However, the SAS was not blamed
25:59for this failure. And at the end of September 1942, L Detachment was enlarged to become one
26:05SAS regiment, with four combat squadrons. Sterling himself was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
26:11Montgomery was now planning to take the offensive at El Alamein. The SAS role would
26:20be to attack Rommel's lines of communication. Throughout the subsequent battle at El Alamein,
26:29and the pursuit of Rommel that followed, the SAS mounted a series of raids from its
26:33desert base at Kufra against the Axis lines of communication.
26:37One striking incident involved Private David Silito. During an attack on the railway near
27:02Sidi Barani, Silito's vehicle was shot up, and he found himself alone with just a water bottle
27:07and compass. He set out on foot to rejoin his unit, covering 200 miles in eight days,
27:13before being picked up by another SAS patrol. Such incidents were not publicized because of
27:20the SAS's obsession with secrecy, but rumors of its work and the toughness of men like Silito
27:25were spreading throughout the Eighth Army. As the pursuit of Rommel across Libya continued,
27:37a new campaign opened at the other end of North Africa. On the 8th of November 1942,
27:51Anglo-US forces landed in French Northwest Africa. They quickly subdued the Vichy French
27:58forces there, bringing Morocco and Algeria into the Allied camp. The Allies then advanced into
28:06Tunisia to engage the Axis troops, which were being hastily deployed from Europe.
28:22Hopes that Tunisia might be quickly secured proved false, and the Allies were faced with
28:27a winter campaign in the west of the country, while Montgomery closed in from the east.
28:42The SAS now began to operate in Tunisia, again concentrating on Rommel's supply lines as he
28:49withdrew from neighboring Libya. But disaster struck. Sterling and his party were lying up
29:05in some scrub when they were surrounded by Germans. After a firefight, some men were able
29:14to escape, but David Sterling was captured. The reputation of the Phantom Major, as the Germans
29:20now called him, had grown to such proportions that he was imprisoned in Kolditz, the supposedly
29:25escape-proof castle where he spent the remainder of the war. The loss of David Sterling, the man
29:34who had founded and inspired the SAS, was a grievous blow. But the successes of the unit
29:42he had founded, and the effect that its raids were having on the Germans and Italians, meant
29:46that there was no question that it would continue its operations. In fact, while the campaign in
29:59Tunisia continued into 1943, and the Axis forces were being ground down, Sterling's capture led to
30:06a reorganization of the SAS. It was divided into two. One part became the Special Boat Squadron,
30:15under the Earl Jellicoe, son of the Admiral who had commanded the British fleet at the Battle
30:19of Jutland in 1916. Paddy Maine took command of the other, which was renamed the Special
30:25Raiding Squadron. Among the new recruits for Jellicoe's SBS was Lieutenant Anders Lassen,
30:37a Danish merchant seaman who arrived in Britain at the end of 1940. He had joined a secret commando
30:44unit, the small-scale raiding force, and had distinguished himself in a number of cross-channel
30:49raids. When this was disbanded, he was posted to the SBS. The Allies now turned across the
30:58Mediterranean. Sicily was invaded on the 10th of July. Paddy Maine's SRS was ordered to take
31:09an Italian coastal battery before the Maine assault. They not only did this, but also captured
31:15another battery. Forty-eight hours later, the SRS landed again and captured the town of Augusta,
31:22holding it until relieved by the Maine force. A new SAS unit, 2 SAS Regiment, was also involved
31:30in the invasion of Sicily. This had been formed in northwest Africa by David Sterling's brother,
31:35Bill. One section of 2 SAS was assigned to capture a prominent lighthouse on D-Day. This
31:42proved easy, as it turned out to be undefended. Another section of 2 SAS was parachuted in small
31:51groups to disrupt Axis communications, the SAS's original role. The drop, however, was scattered,
31:57and many of those taking part had not been in combat before. Little was achieved. In early
32:05September 1943, the SRS supported Montgomery's landings in the toe of Italy by capturing the
32:11town of Bagnara and holding it for three days until relieved. This was followed by a more
32:19elaborate operation. Paddy Maine's men landed with two commando units behind the German lines
32:24at Termoli, on the Adriatic coast. Simultaneously, elements of 2 SAS landed at Taranto, led by Major
32:32Roy Farrum, a cavalryman who was a veteran of the tank battles in the desert and the fighting on
32:37Crete. Farrum then moved northwards with his jeeps and linked up with Paddy Maine at Termoli.
32:50The two groups and the commandos held the port until relieved. These operations showed that
32:56the SAS could operate closely with conventional forces, as well as on its own. While this was
33:05going on, two other groups of 2 SAS were dropped in northern Italy to cut railway lines in an
33:11operation codenamed Speedwell. After blowing a number of bridges and viaducts, the raiders
33:25made epic treks through the mountains of Italy to reach the Allied lines further south.
33:36SAS operations continued in January 1944, in support of an attempt to outflank the formidable
33:42German defences of the Gustav Line. The Allies landed at Anzio, to the southwest of the Italian
33:48capital, and further groups of 2 SAS were dropped behind the lines to attack German communications
33:54in the region. In the event, this counted for little, as the Allies failed to exploit their
34:04initial success by rapidly advancing inland, and the Germans were able to contain the beachhead.
34:10While the SAS was operating in Italy, Earl Jellicoe and the special boat squadron had
34:32been busy in the Aegean, often using fishing boats as transport. In one of the few SAS
34:39operations that was actually filmed, the SBS took advantage of the Italian surrender in
34:44September 1943 to make landings on islands in the Dodecanese, bringing the Italian garrisons
34:51on to their side. Further reinforcements were sent, but the British lacked the resources to
35:09sustain the garrisons on the islands. The Germans launched attacks on them and seized them back,
35:15one by one, during the first half of 1944. The SBS suffered a number of casualties during
35:35these attacks, but continued its raiding operations in the Aegean. In the spring of
35:441944, the SAS was enlarged to brigade size, and concentrated in Britain to prepare for the
35:50invasion of France. The special raiding squadron became one SAS regiment, and two SAS was brought
35:57back from Italy in March. The original French troop was augmented by two parachute battalions,
36:03and became three and four SAS regiments. With the addition of a Belgian parachute company,
36:09as five SAS, the special air service was now some 2,500 men strong. Their task was to be
36:18dropped into central France, and cooperate there with the French secret army, the Marquis,
36:23in attacks on German communications. The first SAS teams were deployed during the early hours
36:32of D-Day. The woods and forests in the area proved excellent cover for the SAS teams and
36:43their jeeps. Using intelligence gathered by the Marquis, SAS jeep patrols mounted numerous attacks
36:54on German bases. A favorite tactic was to drive at speed through a German occupied village,
37:03away at houses being used as billets or storage. These raids helped to tie down
37:23German troops who could have otherwise been sent to join the battle in Normandy.
37:32One group was given the unusual job of assassinating Rommel at his HQ in northern
37:37France. They dropped on the 25th of July, not realizing that Rommel had been badly
37:42wounded in an air attack a week earlier, and was back in Germany. The Germans reacted to
37:55the SAS attacks by mounting sweeps of the woods in which they were hiding. Sometimes the SAS was
38:01caught by surprise and had to fight desperate rearguard actions as they tried to extricate
38:06themselves. One group of 35 SAS men operating in the Poitiers region in early July 1944 were
38:21totally surrounded. Almost all those who survived the firefight that followed were captured. One
38:30wounded SAS man was beaten to death with rifle butts, while 30 others, together with an American
38:36airman, were shot in cold blood. In spite of disasters like this, the SAS operations in the
38:47French countryside played their part in disrupting the German rear areas and helping the Allied
38:52breakout from Normandy and subsequent rapid advance across France. But with the liberation
39:00of France, the scope for independent operations deep in enemy territory declined dramatically,
39:04especially once the Allied advance slowed because of overstretched supply lines. It
39:10seemed to some in the British high command that the SAS no longer had a relevant role.
39:14Partly to deflect these, an SAS squadron returned to Italy in the autumn of 1944. There was more
39:27scope for the type of operation they excelled in, and small parties were dropped in the north
39:32of the country to assist the partisans. The SAS men hoped to carry out attacks on communications,
39:38although German retaliation was often bitter. The SBS enjoyed a happier time towards the end of
39:501944 when they took part in the liberation of the Greek mainland. But despite these attempts
40:07to find useful employment for it, by the beginning of 1945 the future of the SAS was looking doubtful.
40:13One squadron was selected for counterintelligence duties in Germany, especially hunting down war
40:19criminals. One and two SAS were earmarked for the liberation of Norway, but the Allied strategy was
40:27to leave the large German garrison there until after Germany itself had been overrun. In the
40:32meantime, there seemed to be little for the SAS to do. In March 1945, Brigadier Mike Calvert took
40:43command of the SAS Brigade. As a veteran of the Chindit operations in Burma, he was an expert in
40:49deep penetration raiding and a forceful advocate for his new troops. After much debate, he obtained
40:56agreement that they should spearhead the advance of 21st Army Group east of the Rhine. Five
41:07squadrons took part in the final advance, acting as screening forces for the 1st Canadian and 2nd
41:13British armies. But the lightly armoured SAS jeeps were very vulnerable to ambushes and suffered a
41:34number of casualties. It was in one of these ambushes that the redoubtable Paddy Main had his
41:43last fight of the war. He came to the rescue of one of his patrols which was in trouble and forced
41:48the Germans to withdraw through the ferocity of his fire. This earned Main his fourth Distinguished
41:54Service Order. The SAS jeep patrols finally reached the German naval base at Kiel. As the
42:07men gazed in amazement at the destruction caused by Allied bombing to the port and the naval vessels
42:12based there, other SAS patrols were sweeping east and north as the war came to an end.
42:24The Special Boat Squadron was also involved in the final Allied offensive in Italy in April 1945.
42:41One of its members, Anders Larsen, now a Major, carried out raiding operations on Lake Komaki.
42:55During these he won the SAS's only Victoria Cross for covering the withdrawal of his men
43:01under heavy fire until he was killed. Larsen had already won three military crosses and he was
43:11deeply mourned by all who had known this outstanding officer. As the war ended, one and
43:23two SAS, together with the brigade headquarters and paratroopers, were sent as anticipated to
43:29Norway to oversee the disarming of the German forces there. Despite its professionalism and
43:40skills, the authorities did not envisage a role for the SAS in the post-war British Army and by
43:46the end of 1945 it had been completely disbanded. But this was not the end of the story, for the
43:58SAS was reborn during the 12-year campaign against communist terrorists in Malaysia. The regiment
44:04reassumed its role of long-range penetration, developing techniques for parachuting into the
44:09jungle. Subsequent campaigns took the SAS to the barren wastes of South Arabia, where it gave
44:19active support to the Sultan of Oman in his fight against Marxist insurgents who threatened to
44:24overcome the country. The SAS trained the local tribesmen and led them in battle against the
44:31rebels. During the 1982 Falklands campaign, the SAS carried out an operation only too familiar to
44:40those who had served with it in North Africa 40 years before. This was the highly successful raid
44:46on the Argentine airstrip on Pebble Island, before the British landings on East Falkland.
44:51The SAS men gained total surprise and succeeded in destroying six Pucara and four Turbo Mentor
45:04ground-attack aircraft and a Skyvan transport plane. The raid left the Argentines without any
45:13aircraft on the islands to attack the landings when they took place four days later.
45:22A decade later, the SAS was back in the desert and again operating deep behind enemy lines,
45:34this time in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. In an extraordinary replay of the battles 50 years
45:42earlier in which it had won its spurs, the SAS used Land Rovers as well as helicopters to disrupt
45:47Iraqi communications. A more modern task was hunting down the Scud rocket launchers with
45:55which Saddam Hussein was threatening his neighbours. In the years since 1945, the SAS has taken on a
46:07variety of new roles, especially in the field of counter-terrorism in Northern Ireland,
46:12when it carried out numerous covert surveillance operations as well as ambushes. The regiment has
46:19remained true to the principles developed by David Sterling and the other founder members
46:23in the deserts of Egypt and Libya. Its men continue to wear its famous beige beret and
46:31winged dagger cap badge with pride and competition to get into the regiment is fierce, with only a
46:38small number of applicants being accepted. Its actions have almost always been carried out in
46:47complete secrecy, the taking of the Iranian embassy being the only time that its troops
46:52have ever been seen in action. Above all, the SAS maintains the spirit encapsulated in its motto,
47:02coined by David Sterling in the desert in 1941, who dares, wins.