PREVIEW： Epochs #247 ｜ SAS： Origin Story
Episode Stats
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180.9762
Summary
The story of the founding of the SAS begins in the deserts of North Africa in World War II, and tells the story of how the SAS came to be, and how it became one of the most daring and daring forces in the world.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome back to Epochs. This week, now I've finally finished my Verdun series,
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I did a little poll on Twitter, you may or may not have seen it, if you follow me on Twitter,
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at HistoryBro1, if you're interested in following me on there. I did a little poll, I said,
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would people rather me continue my series on the English monarchy? We'd got up to, we'd finished
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Henry V, hadn't we? So we're up to Henry VI, it would be, which I absolutely will continue,
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there's no doubt about that, it's just what to do next. So do you want to do that? Do you want to do
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more Special Forces stories, or the Cambridge Five, spiring, which I also will do, promise you
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I will do at some point. And anyway, on the Twitter poll, it came back, a few hundred votes, so it
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wasn't just like 16 people, but it was a fair few hundred votes, and it came back, the winner was
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Special Forces stories. So at least this week, maybe for the next few weeks, I'll do a whole bunch of
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different Special Forces stories. So the question then is where to begin, or what one to do, what
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one to pick out. And I decided that let's start at the beginning, sort of, kind of. I thought,
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let's do the story of the founding of the SAS. Because if I do more of these stories, which I
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almost certainly will do, I'll do for all over the world. I'll do like some sort of German thing,
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Navy SEALs thing, all different stuff. But I thought, let's start with another SAS story,
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and the beginning of the SAS, essentially. So let's just jump straight into that. The SAS
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was not originally called the SAS 22 Regiment Special Air Service. It began as a couple of
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different things. But we can definitely say that it began in the deserts of North Africa in World
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War II, founded by one David Sterling, later to become Colonel David Sterling. At the time, he was
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just Lieutenant David Sterling. So let's tell the story all about that. Before I even sort of tell
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you about him, let's say a couple of words just about the North African campaign, the battles and the
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war in North Africa in World War II. Because this is the theatre where it was born. So just to sort
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of set the scene, let's say a few words about that. I would say one of the first things to say about
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the North African campaign, or the war in all of Africa really, but particularly North and East
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Africa in World War II, is that it's a real ding dong back and forth. It really did go back and forth
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quite a lot. At one point early on, it's basically the British versus the Italians. For a very
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brief moment, it looks shaky for the English, but then it's completely reversed and the English serve
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up the Italians, a remarkable defeat, a victory for the English. It looks like the English, the British
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rather, sorry, the British Empire, is going to just be all dominant in the African, North African
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theatre. But then they get completely reversed. Rommel comes along, the Africa Corps, the Germans
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turn up to sort of save the Italians and defeat the British. And then there's just a real back and
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forth over basically about three years. Goes on for well over two years of complete back and forth,
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fighting over the northern strip of land and coastal regions and ports all along North Africa,
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all the way from Morocco, Casablanca, all the way, all the way through modern day,
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you know, Tunisia and Libya and Egypt, all the way to Cairo and the Suez Canal. Back and forth,
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back and forth. At one point, it looks like Rommel's completely defeated, and then he reverses it,
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and Cairo's in trouble. And then back and forth, back and forth, and the Americans turn up.
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And, you know, it spells the beginning of the end for the Germans, but they put up a plucky
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resistance and against all the odds, keep winning for a bit. And then it goes on and on and on,
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and it's a fantastic story. I would, should like to do maybe even a miniseries, but definitely a
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whole epoch just about the North African campaign. The war in North Africa, it's a fantastic thing.
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Well, I think, you know, it's one of the most sort of romantic, in the limited sense of the word,
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romantic parts of World War II. Lots and lots of heroism, daring do, bloody adventure, sort of
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incredible stories. Like the great, the Battle of El Aname and the taking and retaking of Tobruk,
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and on and on and on. The Desert Fox, the jewel in the desert between Monty and the Desert Fox Rommel,
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and even Ike Eisenhower himself is involved and is there, and Omar Bradley and some great,
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great names. So, but the story I'm telling here is actually one tiny, tiny part of that story,
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right? I'd like to do, in fact, I will try and do at some point an epoch talking about a grand
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overview of everything that happened. I can do that. If you're interested in that, let me know. I would
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like to do that. So, but this story, the story of David Sterling and the SAS, what became the SAS rather,
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it's really, really just a small, tiny cog, tiny component, basically, in, in that much,
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much grander story. So, in a nutshell, there's this, this, this chap, very posh, basically,
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aristocratic chap, David Sterling, and he's been, he's been with, he's in the Scots Guards,
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he's in North Africa, he's in the Scots Guards, and he's wounded his back. He's doing parachute
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training, parachute jump, landed too heavily and cracked his back quite badly. He's sort of,
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sort of basically paralysed from the waist down, temporarily. And he's in hospital,
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in Cairo, I believe. And so, he's just got lots of time to just lay in bed, just loads and loads
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of time to just lay there and think. It's actually a relatively similar story to when Lawrence of
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Arabia, Lawrence of Arabia, T.E. Lawrence, got a fever at one point and just had to lay in a tent
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for a few days on end, sweating it out. And in that time, he had nothing to do but think,
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and he dreamt up a great strategy. Something, something similar-ish happened to David Sterling,
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when he's in hospital with his back. He just dreamt up a whole new, basically, it's not entirely,
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entirely new, but he dreamt up a basically sort of a new way of, of doing war. You know,
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because there had been commandos before the North African campaign in World War II. There had been
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such a thing as sort of a special troops, highly trained, specialised troops, even in the desert.
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But David Sterling takes it to a whole new level, a whole new paradigm. You know, the idea that a
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soldier is not just simply a cog in a giant machine and he's there to do as he's told and nothing else
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ever. Sterling has the idea that each man, or even a small unit of men, sometimes just two men,
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sometimes a small, often a small unit of three, four, five men, that they're sort of, that they can
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act as sort of an independent body, an independently thinking small unit, and that they can make,
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should be able to make decisions of their own on the fly, tactical and even strategic decisions on
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the fly, and that that could work. And then, of course, there's the element of going deep behind
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enemy lines. But we'll get into all of that. So David Sterling has this idea, a few different ideas,
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of how to do things differently in North Africa. And at that particular point, Britain in North
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Africa was a bit of a shaky ebb. We weren't at our all-time high, like we'd just beaten the Italians,
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or we'd just annihilated a big chunk of Rommel's Africa Corps, anything like that. We were looking
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for new ideas, anything to help, really, anything that could help. And so I've got an account here
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from John Lewis, and I'll let him tell the story. Again, it's only a few pages,
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and I'll just sort of fairly constantly interrupt myself to add in further details.
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Most of the North African campaign of 1940 to 1943 was fought out in the narrow coastal strip,
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which runs the long arc from Tunis to Cairo. South of the coastal strip lies the Sahara,
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an immense secret place of shifting sands and cauldron-like heat. Few paid much attention to
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this wilderness, but in its unguarded vastness, a young British second lieutenant saw the possibility
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of a new type of unit to operate, a unit which would strike swift and hard, and then disappear
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like a phantom into the desert from which it had emerged." So, end quote. So that's sort of the broadest
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possible concept. And it is quite, relatively speaking, a narrow strip of land across the
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shores, all across the top of North Africa. Obviously, north of that is the sea. And then
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south of that, quite quickly, we'll show maps, turns into just the Sahara. And no one expected
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to be raided from the south, right? The Sahara is just a pitiless, empty, just completely lifeless
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desert. And there's no way that the enemy will just come out of the south, out of the Sahara,
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and attack you from that area, and then disappear back into it. So you don't defend yourself from
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that position. You're going to be attacked from the east or from the west, but not from the south.
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So, you know, if we can take advantage of that as a concept. I mean, again, there are parallels with
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Lawrence of Arabia again, where in the deserts of Arabia, the deserts of the Hejaz and Mesopotamia,
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and even Syria, modern-day Syria and Lebanon and stuff. The idea that people wouldn't expect to be
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attacked from the desert side, wherever that is in their location. They're flanked by a desert,
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and suddenly the enemy comes roaring out of that area. It's not expected. OK, Lewis continues saying
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this. The Special Air Service was conceived in a hospital bed in Egypt. Injured during some
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unofficial parachute training, David Sterling, a subaltern with No. 8 Guards Commando, this is
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the Scots Guards, decided to use his enforced stay in the Alexandria Scottish Military Hospital
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to develop a scheme for special operations in the desert. I can only imagine he had read Seven
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Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence's memoir. I don't actually know. I have seen David Sterling himself
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in interview a few times. I've never seen anyone ask him that, and I've never seen him talk about
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it himself. And I've read around this quite a lot over the years. I've never seen David Sterling
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actually just explicitly say, I lifted a fair few of my ideas from T.E. Lawrence. But I would have
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thought he did. Lawrence of Arabia was extremely famous in the interwar years. A household name famous.
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So, there you go. Alright. Lewis continues. On his release from hospital in July 1941,
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Sterling determined to bring his plan to the attention of the Commander-in-Chief. As Commander-in-Chiefs are
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not, by and large, in the habit of granting interviews to junior officers, Sterling decided
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to ignore the usual channels. Classic thing he did all the time. Sort of his special move is ignoring
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official channels. Sort of the main thing he did, really. Instead, he hobbled on his crutches to the
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British Army Middle East HQ and tricked his way past the sentry. Inside, Sterling found his way into
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the office of Deputy Commander Middle East, one General, Neil Ritchie, who's basically the second
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most powerful man in the Army, and who has, of course, got the ear of the overall commander,
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Auchinleck. So, it's the next best thing, Neil Ritchie. Sterling apologized to the somewhat surprised
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Ritchie for the unconventional call, but instead said that he had something, quote,
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of great operational importance, quote, to tell him. And as I said earlier, they're looking for
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anything that might help, any tiny little advantage, any little detail, anything, really. I mean,
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it's almost desperate. It's to the point where some random Lieutenant has got in to see Neil Ritchie,
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and he's like, yeah, go on then, go on then, what have you got? It just might work. It's just so
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crazy it might work. You know, because in the normal course of events, it'd be like, how dare you
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just enter into my presence? Get lost. I haven't given you a formal interview. I haven't ordered
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you to come and see me, so get lost. Get lost. Be gone. But no, at this point, Neil Ritchie's like,
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all right, I'm listening. Whatever it is you've got to say is almost probably worth a shot.
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Ritchie offered him a seat, and Sterling pulled out the penciled memo on a desert raiding force he had
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prepared in hospital. Yeah, apparently, uh, David Sterling just had a, a few scraps of paper,
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basically, that he just, with a pencil, just scribbled out a few notes. Yeah, it's very,
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very sort of slapdash, isn't it? It's very sort of informal and fly-by-wire. It's all sort of held
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together with baling wire and Scotch tape. It's all a bit cobbled together. Okay, Lewis goes on here
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saying, Ritchie spent several minutes reading it. It was then Sterling's turn to be surprised.
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Ritchie looked up and said briskly, I think this may be the sort of plan we're looking for.
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I will discuss it with the Commander-in-Chief and let you know our decision in the next day
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or so. Probably said it in a lot posher accent than that. I think this may be the sort of plan
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we're looking for. I will discuss it with the Commander-in-Chief and let you know our decision
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in the next day or so. The Commander-in-Chief was General Auchinleck, new to his command and under
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pressure from Churchill to mount an offensive. Yeah, as I say, by this point in the war, Rommel and the
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Africa Corps has arrived and started pushing the British back and he's besieging Tobruk.
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And we're just on the back foot. In a number of ways, we're on the back foot. And Churchill,
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not that long before, six months before or a year or so before, thought we'd had it all sewn up in
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Africa. He's seen the first great victories of the war, i.e. when we smashed the Italians.
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We've seen that first great victory disappear almost. And, you know, it's not inconceivable that the
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Germans and Rommel might even take Egypt and Cairo and the Suez Canal and boot the British out of
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Africa and Egypt entirely. So Churchill is putting all sorts of pressure on Auchinleck and the armies
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in North Africa to push forward, to be aggressive, to, you know, do what you can. Don't just sit there
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and peter out and die, you know, get things going, light a fire under it. So that's what they're
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looking for. So someone like David Sterling, basically a crazy SOB, so crazy that most commandos
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think it's a bit mental. They're looking for something like that, like a game changer, something
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out of something out of the ordinary, you know, out of the box thinking, however you want to say it.
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So Churchill and Auchinleck are looking for something like this. Lewis goes on,
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Stirling's plan was indeed what Auchinleck was looking for. It required few resources and it was
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original. The unit Stirling proposed was to operate behind enemy lines in order to attack vulnerable
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targets like extended supply lines and airfields. What is more, the raids were to be carried out
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by very small groups of men between five and ten, rather than the standard commando force of hundreds.
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So that's the other thing. Not only do they need some sort of game changer, but they need to do it
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on a shoe street, right? That's the other thing. Because to move around and conduct operations in
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the desert is extremely difficult. Every single man needs loads and loads of water, right? Every
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single day, obviously, without fail, otherwise you die quickly. And food, and the logistics. Any vehicle
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needs loads and loads of petrol, of course, and it needs loads and loads of maintenance. In other words,
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there are more or less difficult theatres of war, right? Just a normal temperate zone is basically
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the easiest. But anything like really high mountains, deserts, jungles, it's very, very difficult. And
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the deserts of North Africa were very, very difficult for a number of different reasons. And so,
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if Stirling's coming to him and saying, look, we don't need to be able to, my plan, my idea,
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the concept is that we don't need battalions worth of men. We don't need hundreds and hundreds of
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vehicles and millions of gallons of petrol, right? So let me do stuff with little gangs,
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little teams of five or ten men, sometimes just two men, with one Jeep, right? Give me four guys
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and one Jeep. Let me see what I can do. And they're like, we like that. You know, the senior brass, like,
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we could stretch to four guys and a Jeep. We could cover that, actually. Yeah, okay. Give it a whirl.
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That's sort of how it, you know, sort of how it works out. Lewis continues, quote,
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Meanwhile, Richie looked into Stirling's background. He was pleased with what he found. David Stirling,
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born in 1915, was the youngest son of the aristocratic Brigadier Archibald Stirling of Keir.
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After three years at Cambridge, David Stirling had joined the Scots Guards for transferring to Number
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8 Commando as part of the Layforce Brigade Number 8 and been dispatched to North Africa,
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where its seaborne raids had all proved to be washouts. The unit, along with the rest of Layforce,
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had been marked for disbandment. Stirling, however, had remained so keen on the Commando idea that he
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had jumped, literally, at the chance of doing some parachuting with shoots that another officer in
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Number 8, Jock Lewis had scrounged. Incidentally, Jock Lewis goes on to be in the SAS, right? Once
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David Stirling is given the green light to start his, well, it's not called the SAS to begin with,
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it's called L Detachment. Once he does get the green light to sort of form L Detachment,
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it's Jock Lewis is one of the first he goes to and says, do you want to be in this? They've let me,
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they've let me have my own detachment. You're in, right? And Jock Lewis was like, yeah, sure,
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definitely. In fact, there's the Lewis bomb. You may well have heard of the Lewis bomb.
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Well, that's named after this Jock Lewis. He was like a demolitions expert. He was an explosives
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expert. Okay. The jumping trials had taken place near Mercer Matra. The aircraft used a lumbering
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Valentia biplane, was not equipped for parachuting, and the men had secured the static lines which
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opened the parachutes to seat legs. Stirling's parachute had caught on the door and snagged.
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He had descended far too rapidly and damaged his back badly on landing, which is how he had come
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to be in the Alexandria hospital. Three days after his meeting with Ritchie, Stirling was back in
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Middle East HQ, this time with a pass, you know, formally allowed to be there. Auchinleck saw him
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in person. Again, remarkable. Auchinleck's the overall commander, right? He reports directly to the,
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to the war office and Churchill, right? He'd go on to be ennobled and stuff. The fact that Stirling,
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just a lieutenant, second lieutenant, a failed commando, kind of a nobody, basically a nobody,
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really, at this stage. But he even gets to, to see and speak to Auchinleck is quite something.
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That's the thing they say about Stirling, they always said about David Stirling,
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that he was quite likeable. He was charismatic. He was interesting. He had, he had something about
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him, you know, that you shouldn't say quite. He had, he had a light about him. And, you know,
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sometimes that can go a very, very long way. Just a little bit of that can sometimes take you very,
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very far in life. And that he had the gift of the gab. And, you know, you could talk your way into and out
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of things. Yeah. There you go. Stirling was given permission to recruit a force of six other
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officers and 60 men. Again, just blagged his way into it. Just was good enough and polite enough to
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ask and charismatic enough to get it. That's that special something. David Stirling had it. The unit
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was to be called, quote, L Detachment SAS Brigade. The SAS stood for Special Air Service, which did not
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exist. The name was dreamt up by Brigadier Dudley Clarke, a staff intelligence officer, as a means of
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convincing the enemy that the British possessed a large airborne force in North Africa, which they
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didn't. Right. It was just an intelligence trick. To mark his new appointment, Stirling was promoted to
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captain. Again, gives you the measure of it. You get, you get a few minutes with, with the top brass and
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they give you a whole new detachment, 60 men, you know, a budget, not a very big budget, but a budget and a
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promotion. All because, well, a couple of plate, a couple of promotions. He was a second lieutenant
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and now he's captain. Just because you're quite likable and charismatic and got the gift of the
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gab. I mean, well, that's world time for you. Something like that just certainly wouldn't have
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happened in peacetime, would it? But when needs must, Lewis continues, the recruiting took less than a week
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because Stirling already had in mind the men and the type of men he wanted and he knew them. Right.
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He's already been in commando brigade. He knows the, he knows these men often. Right. Personal
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acquaintances, mostly. Or people he'd already worked with. There were two particular officers
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Stirling wanted. The first was Jock Lewis, who was in Tobruk, where he had been carrying out small
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raids against enemy outposts. Now, old Jock's already basically doing special forces stuff, SAS style
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stuff. He's just doing it on his own. That's the sort of man you would want though, right? Like,
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self-selected, a self-selected type. We don't have to train you and tell you what to do. You're already
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just doing it naturally. It's already what your natural inclination is. It's to go and take it to
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the enemy behind anyone. Just do enemy, do raids on, on the enemy without even really being ordered to.
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