User Guide

Unfazed—and impressed with the way the LRDG jeep troops were able to

extract his men—Stirling redesigned his combat tactics for ground insertion,

rather than the dangerous and unpredictable parachuting. Teaming with the A

Squadron of the LRDG, the SAS set up an advance base deep in the desert south

of Benghazi, where they were tasked with disrupting enemy air movement in

anticipation of an operation on 21 and 22 December of 1941.

This operation was considerably more successful. Jock Lewes had developed

a compact demolition charge, the “Lewes Bomb,” that weighed only a pound.

Placed on top of the wing of a parked enemy aircraft, it would burn a hole

through the skin, then drop, flaming, into the fuel tank; a single trooper could

carry enough of them to destroy an entire squadron of enemy aircraft. (There

were, of course, other means as well. When one of Stirling’s most famous offi-

cers, Irish rugby player Patrick “Paddy” Mayne, found himself faced with one

more aircraft than he had Lewes bombs for, he simply climbed into its cockpit and

ripped the wiring from behind its instrument panel with his bare hands.)

Thus, the Special Air Service was born. In subsequent months, it became

Rommel’s scourge in North Africa, destroying some 400-odd aircraft and scores

of supply depots and, on at least one occasion, coming close to either capturing

or killing the Desert Fox himself. By late 1942, the SAS had grown to regiment

strength.

Within the regiment, in addition to “regular” SAS troopers (if anyone in such

an “irregular” unit could be so described), were some highly specialized units.

The Special Interrogation Group (SIG), for instance, was composed entirely of

German speakers (largely Palestinian Jews—the later Israelis—of German

descent). Wearing only captured German uniforms and equipment and speak-

ing only German, the deceptively named SIG could move about behind enemy

lines with relative impunity. Another unit, the SAS Special Boat Section (not to be

confused with other, later SBS units attached to the Royal Marines) used inflata-

bles and folding canoes to penetrate enemy installations by water—for example,

to attach limpet mines to German shipping in ports considered secure by the

enemy.

Meanwhile, back in the desert, David Stirling carried on SAS operations with

his customary panache. Inspired by the LRDG, SAS had developed formidable

armed Jeeps of their own. While they often continued to infiltrate German desert

airstrips by stealth, another favorite tactic was to simply come driving in out of the

desert at high speed, guns blazing, to destroy as many aircraft and supplies as

they could in one quick pass before vanishing into the darkness once again. They

also did a good deal of old-fashioned spying; in March of 1942, Stirling brazen-

ly drove his own Jeep, christened “Blitz Buggy,” into the German-held dockyards

at Benghazi, parked it in a convenient garage, and donning a pair of sunglass-

es as a disguise, strolled casually about the docks. At one point, he and one of

his German-speaking friends even berated a German sentry for his lax perform-

ance of duty.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SAS