The Regiment

by Michael Asher

  The boys were advised to be circumspect about the French natives they turned to for help. The poor were more likely to be sympathetic than the middle classes; the old, with their memories of the First World War, were better bets than the young. The Maquis was riddled with moles and informers, some acting out of misguided patriotism, others, such as the dreaded Milice – the French Gestapo – were fully paid-up Nazi stooges. In the field they should never relax until they were certain who their friends were.

  Mayne had spent his first few weeks back home on an intensive recruiting drive, selecting men for both 1 and 2 SAS. Though he had managed to poach a few from the Airborne divisions, and obtained a handful from his parent regiment, the Royal Ulster Rifles, the largest single group – more than three hundred in all – came from the Auxiliary Units of the British Resistance Organisation. These were regular soldiers trained to fight as guerrillas in ‘stay behind’ parties, should Britain be invaded by the Germans. Their training was deemed appropriate for an SAS role, and they were invited to volunteer for the Brigade.

  Mayne selected recruits according to his own subjective ideal of what an SAS soldier should be. He didn’t like men who were too full of themselves. He had a reputation for being able to size a man up immediately, and once told Derrick Harrison that he carried a blueprint of the typical SAS-man in his head. ‘No one fits it exactly,’ he said, ‘but when I look at a man and listen to him, he must come close to it.’6 Harrison extrapolated from this that Mayne’s values included a high standard of mental and physical stamina, intelligence, teamwork, versatility and confidence without rashness. These were more or less Stirling’s values, too, although he had laid more emphasis on individual initiative than teamwork. For now, though, Mayne admitted, in a letter dated 17 March, that some of the men he had recruited fell short of the qualities he was looking for.

  Of Mayne’s five squadron commanders, only one – the Officer Commanding D Squadron, Major Ian Fenwick – came from the Auxiliary Units. The others – Bill Fraser, Tony Marsh, Ted Lepine and Tom Langton – had served previously with the SAS.

  Mayne was keen on making use of the reservoir of experience among the senior NCOs. One day in February, he called Reg Seekings to the Turf Hotel and showed him a list of non-coms he was recommending for a commission. Seekings’s name was on top of the list. Although his best mate, Cooper, was now an officer, and despite being one of the most decorated men in the Regiment, Seekings turned it down. It was all very well for Stirling to talk about a ‘classless’ unit, but in practice most officers still came from the upper echelons of society, and however distinguished in battle, Seekings knew he could never really be one of them.

  Instead, Mayne offered him the post of Squadron Sergeant-Major of the elite A Squadron, and Seekings accepted. He was in good company. Mayne’s RSM was Johnny Rose, the man who’d fixed the Blitz Buggy during Stirling’s walkabout in Benghazi. SSM B Squadron was Cyril Feebury, ex-Coldstream Guards, ex-8 Commando, a former SBS-man who’d distinguished himself on the Rommel Raid in Libya. C Squadron’s SSM was another ‘Original’, Bob Lilley – the man who’d killed an Italian barehanded near Benghazi, before joining up with Mayne.

  A parachute training school had been set up at Prestwick, where all ranks had to undergo a refresher-course of four jumps. Bombays were now out of service, and in future SAS units would jump from Stirling, Halifax and Albemarle bombers, most of them incorporating a hatchway in the base of the fuselage. SOPs had improved since Squatter. The parachutist now carried his main weapon with him in a special sleeve strapped to the leg, rather than packed in a separate container.

  The standard issue .45 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver the SAS had hefted on earlier missions had been replaced by the .45 Colt automatic. The Colt was heavy and inaccurate, and SAS troops came to prefer the less freely available 9mm Browning GP35, which would be so highly favoured by post-war SAS anti-terrorist teams. The Tommy-gun was still around, but had been supplemented by the ‘baked bean can’ 9mm parabellum Sten-gun, and the superior but limited-issue Patchett 9mm. The No.36 Mills grenade ‘pineapple’ was used side by side with the Lewes bomb and the No.82 ‘Gammon’ bomb – a kilo of plastic explosive in a canvas bag connected to a fuse that exploded on impact, capable of damaging armoured vehicles.

  Seven-inch Sykes-Fairburn stiletto fighting knives, manufactured by Wilkinsons, were issued for ‘silent killing’. The SAS never liked this weapon much, because it was impractical, and blew their cover if they were captured. A bayonet was better, because it had multiple uses, and was standard issue to all units. In practice, ‘silent killing’ was a messier and more difficult business than it appeared in the movies, usually requiring at least two men to carry it out efficiently. The ‘fighting knife’ was mostly used for preparing food, and even then was of less value than the unromantic clasp-knife.

  The .303 Lee-Enfield Mark IV had been replaced by the US-made .30 calibre Winchester M1-A1 carbine. At only three kilos, the carbine was half the weight of a Lee-Enfield, and ideal for paratroops. Though not so accurate, and lacking the range of the Mark IV, it had a semi-automatic capability and could produce a higher rate of fire. Its rounds were only half the weight of .303 rounds, meaning that the shooter could carry more.

  Separate containers were still deployed for explosives, wireless sets, petrol, spare water and rations, but all personal kit was stowed in a canvas Bergen rucksack with an external steel frame and the new jungle-green ’44 pattern webbing. As well as a more easily accessible water-bottle, with a fitted lightweight steel mug, the new webbing incorporated ammo pouches slung lower than the old ’37 pattern, which tended to prevent the soldier from lying flat. Heavy ‘Compo’ rations had been supplemented by twenty-four-hour ration-packs in cardboard containers that could be packed easily into the webbing. The rations consisted of tinned sardines, cheese and meat dripping, oatmeal blocks, meat blocks, soup cubes, tea, biscuits, sweets and chocolate. A new and highly efficient solid-fuel Hexamine cooker had also been developed.

  For parachuting, the gear was stuffed in a cylindrical container known as a ‘leg-bag’. The bag rested on the leg during the exit, but was held in place by a couple of hooks that were released after the canopy developed. The bag dropped and dangled below the parachutist at the end of a fifteen-foot cord, attached to his harness. This system took the weight off the parachutist as he hit the ground, and also increased his stability in the air. The main drawback was that the leg-bags tended to get snagged on the edge of the hatchway as the men went out.

  All parachute troops wore rubber-soled boots and a specially designed dennison smock with a leg-strap to prevent it flying up during the descent. They were also issued with a dome-shaped helmet with a chin-pad, to replace the old broad-brimmed helmet whose design went back to 1914. Much of this new generation of ‘airborne’ gear would be retained for decades after the war.

  2 SAS under Bill Stirling returned from Italy on 17 March and was established at Monkton, near Prestwick. 3 SAS, originally 3 Battalion d’Infanterie de l’Air, under Commandant Pierre Chateau-Jobert, had been raised in Algiers mainly from Vichy French soldiers. It was stationed at Auchinleck, twenty miles south of Darvel. Its sister battalion, 4 SAS, formerly 1 Battalion d’Infanterie de l’Air, under its one-armed veteran CO, Commandant Pierre Bourgoin, was established at Galston, five miles west of Darvel. 4 SAS was recruited from pro-Gaullist troops, so relations between the two battalions were strained – it was said that they hated each other worse than the enemy.

  Intra-brigade rivalry wasn’t confined to the French. Mayne’s 1 SAS saw itself as a cut above the less experienced, Johnny-come-lately 2 SAS. When Roy Farran asked Mayne if it was true that his battalion looked down on 2 SAS, Mayne told him, ‘No, we don’t. We don’t think about you at all.’7

  Competition filtered down to squadron level and below. A Squadron, the direct heir of L Detachment, thought of itself as the crème de la crème, and this continued in the latter days of the war, when its Officer Commanding, Bil
l Fraser, its troop commanders, Cooper, Wiseman and Muirhead, its SSM, Seekings, and many of its senior NCOs – Jeff Du Vivier, Fred White, Bob Tait, Jimmy Brough and others – were desert or SRS veterans. Inter-squadron jealousy was another trait that would continue after the war’s end. ‘As the squadrons took shape,’ wrote Johnny Cooper, ‘a rivalry was born which has continued through the history of the SAS via Malaya, Oman, Borneo, and even the Falklands.’8

  Even within the squadrons there was a new axis of distinction between the ‘old operatives’ and the recent recruits. Men who had been there from Day One, like Seekings, were worth their weight in gold because, as Derrick Harrison, now a troop-commander in C Squadron, pointed out, there was no manual of SAS operating procedures. ‘Everything had been developed in the light of experience,’ he wrote, ‘and from our mistakes. The whole fund of knowledge of this type of work lay in the minds of the “old operatives”.’9

  51. ‘We just picked up our rucksacks and left’

  SHAEF – Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force – under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, had been planning the invasion of France for the past year. By March, though, the role of the SAS Brigade still hadn’t been worked out. When Mayne was finally issued with Operation Order No.2 on 29 March, outlining the SAS job on Overlord, he saw at once that it was a kamikaze mission. Dropped behind the coastal strip of Normandy between the Cotentin peninsula and Dieppe, up to thirty-six hours before the D-Day landings, the SAS was to form a defensive line and stop three German panzer divisions from reinforcing the front. Not only would such an action throw all SAS skills to the wind, it would involve a fight to the death, or at least end in devastating casualties. ‘The [plan was] to drop the SAS not behind enemy lines but between his front line infantry and his armour,’ David Stirling commented. ‘It would have been bloody suicidal … It would have been quite ineffective and marvellous opportunities would have been totally missed.’1 It also contradicted the policy of Montgomery’s 21 Army Group, that no SAS troops were to be inserted into the area prior to D-Day, for security reasons.

  It was Bill Stirling who rose to the challenge. Primed by his argument with HQ Allied Forces over operations in Italy the previous year, Stirling drafted a letter to Browning, demanding a return to the strategic principles on which his brother had founded the unit. His model was the classic pre-Alamein campaign David had waged against Rommel in North Africa before and after the Benghazi debacle, when SAS raiders had operated from a forward base behind enemy lines. SAS units, Bill Stirling said, should parachute in behind the German front and set up bases, from where they would sally forth on foot or in jeeps and hit enemy lines of communication. Most SAS officers agreed with Stirling. ‘It was ridiculous to think that scattered parties of parachutists could do anything much to delay the arrival of panzer divisions,’ wrote Roy Farran. ‘… Far better to employ us further inland where we might operate for months.’2

  As Operation Order No.2 was still subject to amendment, though, Stirling delayed sending the letter. On 8 May Browning himself wrote the Chief of Staff, 21 Army Group, suggesting that, because of the delay in the formation, equipping and training of 1 SAS Brigade, its role should be shifted to harassing enemy lines of communication and assisting resistance groups in delaying the advance of panzer divisions.

  This seemed to be all that Stirling wanted, but he sent his letter anyway. Whether he resigned voluntarily or was bowler-hatted by Browning remains unknown, but from this point he vanished from the scene. Farran considered resigning, and was convinced that had he done so most 2 SAS officers would have followed suit. But Stirling asked him to stay and work under his replacement, Major Brian Franks, Middlesex Yeomanry, who had served with Layforce and with the Commando Brigade in Italy. Like McLeod, Franks was an outsider, but he was widely respected by the SAS. ‘[Franks] proved to be one of the best commanding officers one could wish for,’ said Farran.3 He would become one of the three men upon whom the post-war survival of the SAS depended, and would be considered by David Stirling one of the five other ‘fathers’ of the Regiment.

  It seemed on the surface that Bill Stirling had sacrificed his command for nothing. The SAS role still hadn’t been officially defined, though, and his stand probably influenced the final decision. According to Reg Seekings, Mayne stood aloof from the wrangling, commenting only that the command were ‘having disagreements’.

  David Stirling claimed later to have played a role in the debate by getting a letter to his brother from his prison camp, urging him to refuse to allow 2 SAS Regiment to be used in semi-tactical roles. Stirling said later that his brother had to make a stand, because Mayne wasn’t au fait with the top brass. David believed that Bill had sacrificed himself, not only for 2 SAS but for the other regiments as well.

  On 28 May, after days of wrangling, Browning issued Operation Order No.1 – apparently in reverse sequence – stating that the SAS role during the invasion of France would be to set up bases in the German rear and undertake a programme of sabotage that would inflict crippling damage on their lines of communication. The actual areas of operation were selected by the Commander, SAS, and the initial points of focus would be Operation Loyton, in the Vosges, Operation Houndsworth, based in the Morvan mountains, west of Dijon, and Operation Bulbasket, in the Vienne, east of Poitiers. Operation Gain, in the Orléans gap, south of Paris, was added at the last moment. These ops would be only four of a total of forty-three SAS missions that were planned in France, incorporating all five regiments.

  Most of the ops would follow similar lines. A recce party of one or two officers would be parachuted in to make contact with the local Maquis, via a Jedburgh Team – one of eighty-six units run jointly by the Special Operations Executive and the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS). ‘Jeds’ – usually consisting of a French officer and a British or American officer or NCO, and a wireless operator – were tasked to help arm, organize and assist the local Maquis, to carry out acts of sabotage, and to provide a link between the partisans and the SAS.

  Once contacts with the Maquis were established, an SAS ‘Main Recce’ party would follow, then a ‘Base Party’, consisting of the operation commander and a troop of signallers. They would set up a signals-base and a drop-zone, where the main party could be parachuted in, followed by parachutages of supplies, ammunition, jeeps, mortars, folding ‘airborne’ bicycles, and even six-pounder anti-tank guns.

  A system of parachuting heavy equipment – ‘heavy drop’ – had been developed. Jeeps were slung under the open bomb-doors of an Albemarle, packed into a wooden cradle, with collapsing air-tanks beneath to absorb the impact on landing. The jeep was partly dismantled, with steering-wheel, petrol tanks, and other components packed separately. It was parachuted down on four static-line canopies.

  Operating from bases within the specified area, SAS patrols would move out and hit German lines of communication, initially railways, later roads and any other targets that came up. Though some parties would start out with specific objectives, once in the field targets would be left to the discretion of the commander. The jeeps would allow SAS parties to operate far from their bases, which always ran the risk of being compromised by Maquis moles, or ‘Dee-Effed’ – ‘Direction-Found’ – by triangulation on their wireless signals.

  At the end of May, under hush-hush conditions, small groups began to vanish from Darvel. Taking only their Bergens, so as not to reveal that a major movement was in progress, they reappeared at Fairford, otherwise known as ‘The Cage’, a secure transit-camp in Gloucestershire, where the SAS parties would be briefed for operations. It was sited on an airfield used by the RAF’s 38 Squadron, a new air unit raised and trained for special forces work. Once the SAS had heard the details, they were kept under strict quarantine. ‘Fairford was like a concentration camp,’ Reg Seekings commented, ‘surrounded by barbed wire, watch-towers, machine-guns, searchlights. It took three security checks to go and have a shower, and that was under armed guard.’4

  On 1 June Mike Sa
dler turned up at Fairford with a three-tonner and, without any explanation, singled out four officers to accompany him to London. They included Ian Wellsted and John Stewart of A Squadron, and John Tonkin and Richard Crisp of B Squadron. Twenty-three-year-old Tonkin, who had been captured at Termoli and escaped, was the most seasoned of the four. Born in Singapore, he had been brought up on the Isle of Man and had a degree in civil engineering from Bristol University. He was to lead the advance-party for Op Bulbasket, with his oppo Richard Crisp, a Sandhurst-trained officer of the North Irish Horse, who had yet to see action.

  In London they were joined by an SOE security major who told them that they were not to stray from his sight. If any of them needed to answer the call of nature, they would all go together. Sadler took them to the operational flat of the Special Operations Executive at 46 Devonshire Close, where they spent most of the next two days studying mug-shots of their SOE contacts and learning codes. Tonkin and Crisp were then shifted to SAS Brigade HQ at Moor Park, where they received their final briefing.

  They didn’t return to Fairford, but spent their last hours at Hassell’s Hall, near Sandy in Bedfordshire – the SOE dispatching centre – where they packed their Bergens and received final instructions. Paddy Mayne made a final appearance to wish them luck. 5 June passed featurelessly watching films and doing jig-saw puzzles. ‘We just couldn’t realize the invasion was to start that night,’ Tonkin said. ‘… At 2000 hours the cars came for us, so we just picked up our rucksacks, waved goodbye to the others and left.’5

  52. The biggest airborne assault in history

  In the early hours of 6 June, more than twenty-three thousand Allied troops dropped out of the sky over Normandy, on parachutes and in gliders – the biggest airborne assault in history. They were accompanied by thirteen hundred RAF bombers that reamed over German shore defences, pounding them in wave after wave. At 0550 hours guns thundered fire from Allied warships standing offshore, sounding like the rhythmic boom of a million giant kettledrums. First light fell on a vast armada of transport vessels crammed with troops and weaponry. By sunup, a hundred and thirty thousand Allied soldiers, mostly Canadian, American and British, were scrambling ashore on beaches Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword, stretching fifty miles along the Normandy coast.