Who Dares Wins
Flying Pig
This is an essay on the history of the Special Air Service, the most famous branch of the British special forces. The SAS (known as the Regiment or the Service among its member) was one of the first dedicated special forces regiments in the world, and continues to be the role model for most of the similar units in the world. It is almost unique in the British army in that its members are not allowed to admit to belonging to it; each man is considered to be a member of his former regiment (civilians are not allowed to join). This essay is an attempt to educate people a little on both history and to dispel a few myths.
Nothing contained herein is confidential. In the case of living members, I have used their pen-names or names that they go by, and in accordance with regimental tradition I have changed the names of dead soldiers in the Bravo Two Zero section (Andy McNab received quite a bit of flak from the regiment for his use of real names in his book, and I want to avoid that). Most of this can probably be found on the internet. As usual, unclear language is unintentional, and I will not comment on anything that you can't find written here or on Google. If any information about the SAS is classified, it is always for a good reason.
The Formative Years
The Africa Campaign
The chief founder of the SAS was the then Lieutenant David Stirling, who was with the Scots Guards, as L Detachment, SAS Brigade, as an volunteer airborne force to conduct raids and sabotage far behind enemy lines in the desert. The SAS name was one of the common pieces of deception practised in the war; since what would eventually become the Parachute Regiment was named the 11 SAS Battalion, so the newly Captain Stirling's detachment was named to make the enemy believe that the British airborne forces (it is important to remember that at this time the SAS was almost identical to the Long Range Desert Group; and so similar to the modern Royal Marine Commandos) were far more powerful than they actually were. What is now known as the Special Boat Service was then formed as D Squadron.
Uniquely for an infantry regiment, the SAS use cavalry terminology, so a unit under a Lieutenant is a troop, and a battalion-sized unit is a Squadron. The regiment used the title of Parachutist for a basic soldier, which later changed to Trooper in line with the cavalry. There was no selection test like there is today; troops were invited based on their commanders' opinion of them.
The new regiment only made one operation by parachute during the entire war - Operation Squatter, which was carried out on the night of November 16 1941. The objective was to destroy enemy aircraft and therefore provide air superiority for the 8th Army before they carried out their own Operation Crusader. 54 men dropped into two sites, containing in total five aircraft, in five Bristol Bombay aircraft. However, the planners had not planned for massive winds, which caused the units to scatter during the drop, and so the mission was aborted and the unit fell back to its emergency rendezvous (ERV) with the Long Range Desert Group. During the operation one aircraft was lost, along with its entire crew and five SAS soldiers. 28 were captured, and only 21 managed to RV with the waiting patrol.
Stirling was not daunted by this, and he soon organised another attack on enemy airfields with a similar objective; attacking three airfields and being transported by the ground vehicles of the Long Range Desert Group. This mission was more successful; they took out a large number (their records and those of the Axis do not agree how many) of aircraft for no casualties. The operation was done in two stages; the first mission was intended to be the final raid, but for reasons unknown they did not engage and instead made a recon of the area, and then the second, full-scale, assault destroyed the aircraft. The regiment (by now re-named 1 SAS) was augmented by another regiment raised by David Stirling's older brother William known as 2 SAS. This gave it a strength comparable to a normal infantry regiment of the time.
Operations in Europe
During the invasion of Italy, the SAS provided the advance elements of the invasion. They took the first prisoners of the campaign, but later moved on to sabotage and denying the enemy supplies, by operations such as attacking convoys and derailing trains. Another battalion, the 'Allied SAS', was formed from counter-axis insurgents found by the British. Towards the end of the campaign one SAS unit was to have huge success; they raided the HQ of the German V Corps and killed the commanding officer.
During the war in France, the SAS operated in 'sticks' (nine-man units, as opposed to a four-man 'brick'), to assist the French Resistance troops in the area rising up against the Germans. However, they adopted new tactics for the theatre; travelling by day when the Allied air support gave them a clear route and then attacking the enemy, who moved along roads in convoys, by night. Most of the troops inserted in their sticks, although at one point 144 troopers were dropped in, complete with vehicles and all of their supplies. Their actions were so worrying to the Germans that Adolf Hitler himself issued an order saying that all SAS personnel captured by the Germans were to be executed (although some generals, notably Erwin Rommel, refused to carry out this order).
The SAS Victoria Cross
During the war in Italy, the SAS received its only Victoria Cross - Anders Lassen, a major, won a posthumous award. The major had already migrated to the United Kingdom from Denmark shortly after the war broke out, and he had served with the British Commandos in almost all of the North African theatre. On 9 April 1945 at Lake Comacchio, Major Lassen lead a decoy operation on the north shore of the lake, taking a patrol and masquerading as a full-scale landing. The enemy had a lot of men there, but he still managed to take out three enemy positioned. When the unit tried to evacuate Major Lassen, mortally wounded, refused to be evacuated in case it held up the rest of his men. The award was cited:
In Italy, on the night of 8/9 April, 1945, Major Lassen was ordered to take out a patrol and raid the north shore of Lake Comacchio. His task was to cause casualties, capture prisoners and give the impression of a major landing. The patrol was challenged and came under machine-gun fire. Major Lassen himself attacked with grenades and silenced two enemy posts, capturing two prisoners and killing several Germans. The patrol had suffered casualties and was still under fire. Major Lassen moved forward and flung more grenades into a third enemy position, calling upon the enemy to surrender. He was then hit and mortally wounded, but whilst falling he flung a grenade, wounding more of the enemy and enabling his patrol to capture this last position. Finally, he refused to be evacuated lest he should impede the withdrawal and endanger further lives. His high sense of devotion to duty and the esteem in which he was held by the men he led, added to his own magnificent courage, enabled Major Lassen to carry out with complete success all the tasks he had been given.
By the end of the war, the SAS had five battalion-scale units (which were known, and continue to be known, as regiments): 1 and 2 SAS were British, 3 and 4 were French (which are now in the French army as the 1er RPIMa) and 5 SAS was Belgian. The SBS was now a separate unit, although it kept the SAS cap badge and was generally considered a brother unit. In total, about 2500 personnel served with the SAS during the war. On 15 August 1945, the SBS was disbanded.
Malaya - Reforming the unit
The War Office followed up by disbanding the entire unit in 1946, however Britain found that before long it needed its heroes once again. Just a year later they reformed the name of the SAS in 21 SAS (the former Artists' Rifles Regiment) as a Territorial Army (TA) unit. In 1948, a terrorist group called the MRLA (Malayan Races Liberation Army) began what came to be known as the Malayan Emergency. in 1950, as a direct consequence of this, the former commander of the Chindits, Mike Calvert (now a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Engineers), reformed a unit similar to his old command known as the SAS (Malayan Scouts),, which recruited from former SAS veterans, serving soldiers recommended by their COs (Commanding Officers) and a special squadron of 21 SAS known as K Squadron which was sent in from Korea.
At first, the strategy was one of damage limitation - defending locations like plantations or mines where it was anticipated that the enemy would be able to strike and cause damage. Later on, the commander there (General Sir Harold Briggs) implemented a strategy known as the Briggs Plan which is still hugely influential in modern counter-insurgency warfare. Without going into too much detail, there were basically two sides to the plan - the first was to cut down support for the guerrillas and shore up support for the British, and the second was to ensure that the guerrillas could not make contact with those civilians who were sympathetic to them.
The plan began by moving those groups known to support the MRLA (mostly the Chinese) from their temporary (and technically illegal) communities on the edges of the forests to new settlements called New Villages, which were newly built and fortified with barbed wire, police positions and searchlights, in order to keep the civilians in (officially, for their own protection) and the guerrillas out. This was originally not very popular, although the way that the camps were built and run lead to good living conditions, so it was widely felt after a while that the British were doing the inhabitants a favour. About 450 of these were built during the war.
Following this this, the SAS (and, in 1954, elements of the Parachute Regiment) began operations to take out the enemy. They sent out patrols, inserting either by tabbing (marching in a state of battle-readiness with full kit), parachute or by helicopter (generally, owning to the terrain, by static line). These patrols typically were about four or five men strong, and carried two weeks' kit with expectation of re-supply. Jungle patrols are incredibly disliked operations by the men - on average there is about one contact every three weeks and while not in contact the conditions are difficult, hot and humid, and there is a constant threat of ambush and enemy traps. Nevertheless, this was to become one of the SAS' specialist operations.
The final stage of the plan was to gather support from the locals and turn them against the guerrillas. This began in 1951, when the SAS began their 'hearts and minds' campaign. They inserted into the jungle normally by parachute, and gave out medical help, food and any other sort of assistance that they could provide (although they were keen to avoid acting as policemen) for free. Coupled with the patrols that were going out at the same time, they drove the enemy deeper and deeper into the forest and cut off their supplies, meaning that the enemy were on an irreversible slide to defeat.
The operation fundamentally changed the way that the SAS worked, and laid the foundations for its modern character. The men learned to track the enemy through the jungle from native troops called the Iban, began to patrol in units of two or four (to this day, the standard tactical unit is either the 'stick' or the 'team' of two), learned first aid (an SAS soldier is as competent in first aid as a regular medic) and began patrolling for up to three months. The jungle also forced them to become competent in CQB (close-quarters battle), which was later to become an important facet of their training. In 1958 (or 1957 for the Parachute Regiment) the operation finished, with five Sabre (front-line) squadrons in action there.
Middle Eastern Operations 1958-1980
After Malaya, the SAS carried out a lot of other operations. They fought in a small campaign in defence of the Sultanate of Oman in 1958-1959 known as the Jebel Akhdar War, which was the first of two times that the SAS was to intervene to keep Oman safe. They also supported the withdrawal of the British from Aden in the mid-1960s, setting up their positions along main roads and volatile areas of the cities. The second time they deployed to Oman was during the Dhofar rebellion, during which they managed once again to keep Oman intact despite its internal problems. These operations were often shared with other army units, especially the Parachute Regiment.
The Battle of Mirbat
On 19 July 1972, in the town of Mirbat, a group of SAS soldiers sent to train the Omani army spotted a movement of men on a nearby Jebel. This was usual for the time of night - there were night pickets of loyal Omanis stationed there to warn the SAS of the enemy when they approached. What was not normal this time was that the men were Adoo - the enemy. They had all killed the night picket and were moving to capture the town and port, killing the SAS team in the process.
The team was under the command of a good, well-respected officer called Mike Kealy. He assumed that the men on the ridge were the night picket coming back to warn of an assault. After a short while, at which point the Adoo were about 1000 metres from the BATT (British Army Training Team) house in which the SAS were stationed, Captain Kealy realised his mistake and ordered the men to open fire with SLR rifles, a 'gimpy' or GPMG and an infantry mortar. Among his men were two Fijians, known as Tak and Laba, and a medic who had just joined the regiment. His name was Trooper Tommy Tobin.
A short way from the BATT house was - they moved it to the Imperial War Museum after the British left Aden - a 25-pounder field gun, which is a gate guard to an Omani special forces billet. This is a weapon normally crewed by three men of the Royal Artillery, whose role it was to provide covering fire while the night picket ran off the Jebel. Laba, realising that the Adoo were far too numerous to defeat with small arms and out of effective range - half a mile - anyway, ran across the desert and into the gun pit, all the while under automatic fire from the Adoo. The other men of the SAS covered him with rifles, machine-gun and mortar fire. He managed to not only reach the pit but fired the weapon, distracting the enemy from the other eight men in the BATT house. For an infantryman to operate this weapon alone would normally be unthinkable, but Laba was hugely strong - the very archetype of a Fijian in the British army - and the heavy shells were nothing to him. The Adoo were confused by this, and moved so that about half of them were attacking each SAS position. All the while Laba had been trying to convince the Omani troops from their fort, but without success.
Laba managed to put out a round a minute for quite a while. Eventually he radioed back to the BATT house that he had been shot in the face, and was alive but wounded. Captain Kealy asked for a volunteer to go and aid him, to which the other Fijian in the team, Tak, agreed. He went to help operate the gun, since Laba had managed somehow to bandage up his face. He shouted to the Omani soldiers to come and help, at which one of them ran out of the door and into the gunpit. He was however shot dead almost straight away, leaving the SAS in not much of a better situation. However, the Adoo had managed to come very close to the pit, and the BATT house recieved a message that urgent help, including medical evacuation, was needed. Captain Kealy went to help, and of course the medic Tommy 'Little Tommy' Tobin volunteered. Taking everyone's morphine and as many bandages as he could fit into his gear, he ran for the gun pit. Meanwhile Laba, who had gone to fetch a mortar from a nearby pit, was shot in the head and mortally wounded. Tak was also hit in the shoulder.
The captain made it in one peice, but Trooper Tobin saw that Laba was in a serious state. He went to him, but as he turned his head to look through his kit took a bullet, which killed him instantly. Now two men down, the SAS were in a fairly desperate situation. Tak, who was propping himself up against the sandbags on the side of the gun pit, was hit again in the stomach but still fired his SLR at the enemy. By this time, the RAF had arrived and provided air support, which coupled with the timely arrival of G Squadron drove off the Adoo and saved the day. Laba recieved a MID (which many people believe should have been a VC), Captain Kealy a DSO, and Tak won a DCM.
During this period, the SAS evolved into something far more recognisable as its current form. Although it never, like the US Delta Force, denied its own existence, it became normal for members to hide their identity and for the regiment to operate on missions that they could deny, generally wearing the uniform of other units or civilian clothes (with the notable exception of the start of Operation Banner), and the government began the policy of not discussing anything about the regiment. Medals awarded to the men were, and still are, credited to the man's former unit. It also began working in VIP Protection (BG) and Counter-Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) operations.
Borneo
From 1963-1966, the SAS intervened in the undeclared war over Borneo between Indonesia and Malaysia. In 1963 a squadron deployed in to gather information about the (at the time not confirmed) movements of Indonesia troops into the border between the two states on Borneo, which expanded to 3 squadrons of 22 SAS and 2 of the SBS. The operation was commanded by a veteran of Malaya, who used the lessons learned there to develop a new strategy based on close co-operation between combat units (including the Navy and Air units in the area), reconnaissance to gather information quickly and accurately, fast movement, secure positions and control of area, and later on trying to win over the local people.
However, there were still only 5 squadrons in operation there for a thousand-mile border that needed to be patrolled. They fixed this problem by actually making new units: the GIPC (Guards Independent Parachute Company, which was already a recon unit for the 16 Parachute Brigade), the Ghurkha Independent Parachute Company (an entirely new unit), bringing in more SBS sections (which were mostly used for amphibious attacks) and men of the Parachute Regiment, which made two new companies (C and D). They got more men in 1965 when the Australians and New Zealanders sent in their men, the Australian SAS and the New Zealand Rangers.
The war provided even more scope for the British to learn the art of jungle warfare. Tactics centred around moving with minimal equipment and on foot, being impossible to track for the enemy, and being self-sufficient for a long time without the need for a noisy and potentially compromising re-supply. They operated on what is now known as 'hard routine' which means that it can be literally impossible to spot the unit at very short range and completely impossible to track them down - strict silence was maintained via the use of hand signals, de-odorant with any sort of perfume was banned, as was anything else that smells including cooked food and any sort of flame or boiling. Most operations were 'stick patrols' although on occasion larger raids took place. Sections would move in single file - the lead scouts went first, then the section IC (commander), the main body of the section, and finally the rear man or 'tail-end Charlie) who was normally armed with some sort of LSW (light support weapon). Battle drills became sophisticated and important, notably crossing obstacles and contact drills, which meant that the commander needed little input for his men to make a good attack. The idea of an ARD (all-round-defence) camp also began here. When the section gave contact, it was almost always in the form of an ambush; taking out convoys, enemy patrols or even bases through sudden, unexpected and decisive action. After Operation Claret, in which the British seized the initiative with considerable help from the SAS, the conflict was resolved.
Storming the Embassy - Onto the World Stage
The SAS' most famous operation was their attack on the Iranian Embassy, London, in 1980. This happened when, on 30 April at about midday, six men from the DRMLA (Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan) stormed the embassy, taking 26 hostages and demanding independence for Arabistan (also known as Khuzestan), in south Iran, and the release of 91 members of their group imprisoned in Iran.
Over five days, the police tried to wear down the group by sending in supplies of food and cigarettes, which lead to the release of five hostages. The situation got worse when the terrorists made a statement (released on Radio 2) stating that they were going to kill a hostage, prompted by the fact that they found out that they had been mislead by their commander, who had promised them that the ambassador from Jordan would intervene on their behalf. B Squadron 22 SAS, who were currently involved in a CRW (Counter-Revolutionary Warfare) role, although not actually in action, were placed on standby. They spent the first five days of the siege nearby, staying in a nearby barracks and listening to news reports on the situation, as well as practising for any assault (which was generally thought fairly likely) in a mock-up of the embassy that they had built with architectural plans and information from the freed hostages (it has been said that the real motto of the SAS is not 'who dares wins' but 'check and test, check and test' due to their huge emphasis on planning).
The squadron was given the go order (the notification that they were about to attack) on the sixth day, when the terrorists inside killed a press man and threw him outside. The Prime Minister herself sent a note to the MoD (Ministry of Defence) stating 'this is now a military operation'.
Unfortunately for the assault team, not only was the final of the world snooker championships on (and pretty much the entire squadron was watching it) but there were news teams camped outside the embassy. To stop the terrorists having any idea that they were going in, the SAS made the reporters broadcast the events some time after they really happened. To further ensure that they could enter the building without the enemy anticipating them, aircraft from Heathrow were instructed to fly lower over the embassy while road works began nearby, creating a lot of noise inside the embassy.
They knew that the first two floors had bulletproof windows, so that they would need explosives to get into the embassy in the first place, and that there were two skylights - one in a bathroom on the top floor and one on the roof of the second floor. They therefore decided to have five bricks insert at the same time: the famous one through the balcony on the first floor, one through the second floor skylight, one to abseil from the roof onto the second floor balcony, and two through the door, of which one would clear the basement and the other sort out the ground floor. They were to carry out a classic building assault, using MP5 sub-machine guns in short bursts, Browning pistols (this was one of the few operations where every man was able to find a sidearm; they're normally in huge demand from the squadron stores) and flashbangs (grenades that do not fragment, but instead stun everyone in the room). When a room is assaulted (normally by at least two men) a flashbang goes in, and everyone with a weapon gets three rounds from a submachine gun (since there is no burst setting on an MP5, three is the easiest number above 1 to get off quickly without wasting too much ammunition) and two from a pistol (known as a double tap). This ensures that rooms are taken without civilian casualties or danger to the attackers.
At 1923 hours, the attack began. The second-floor skylight was blown with a large explosive charge, power to the building was cut, and the team tasked to enter it went it. The famous first man on the balcony as seen on the television was a Warrant Officer and the commander of the mission, John McAleese, whose son Paul has recently been killed in Afghanistan serving with 2 Rifles. All of the hostages save one, who was killed by the terrorists, were saved. Only one man from the SAS was wounded - Staff Sergeant "Tak", who was tangled in his abseiling gear while entering with team 3 and caught in a fire started by a flashbang. Two of the terrorists left the embassy - they were posing as hostages and taken out by the SAS. One was killed when a real hostage recognised him coming down the stairs, and he was shot when he entered the 'killing zone' where the SAS could shoot without injuring anyone else, and someone shouted 'he's got a grenade!'. The other was identified outside the building, and would have been taken back inside and shot had an NCO not pointed out to the trooper about to do it that the news teams were watching.
very good read
