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Over a century later, a team of monoday explorer set out to find the sunken ship. Endurance, now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Action, action, welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland and well, we've got a special guest who gets that in a minute. We are talking today in a three part series, the first part about the SAS, the Special Air Service in France and their role in the Overlord campaigns and beyond. Jim, who are we talking to today?
We've got great friend of the show, Tom Petch, who is the man when it comes to all things SAS, having dabbled in that little area himself back in the day, but obviously not in the war, but more recent times. And dabbled would be the word James, dabbling is what I did. I always feel the guilt is I know people who command the regiment or done 22 years and that's not me, but yes dabbled.
You dabbled, but you know what you're talking about, but you're also very learning fellow and you've written that brilliant book. Anyway, you're the best person to come and talk about this, so that's great. And actually, so what we're going to do is we're going to do a little two part of because you know, this has been the great year of 80th anniversary, and we did a lot on Normandy and D.D.
But we deliberately, yes, barely mentioned the SAS when we were doing our big D.D. Normandy series. I think we just reft, didn't we, Operation Titanic on D.D. itself for diverting Eric Marx's reserves in the wrong direction. But that was literally it, but it's such a good subject. And it's so interesting and all the different operations in Brittany and to the east of Paris and further to the south near the mojo. All that stuff is really, really good.
So we thought we'd do that. But I think first and foremost, what we really want to do is put it all in perspective and give a bit of context to the whole thing. And so we're going to talk a little bit on we about the origins just to go back. We have talked about the SAS before, but it's nearly always been North Africa stuff, hasn't it? And sterling and well, I think that's the stuff people know and broke heroes just sort of rammed that home, isn't it?
Well, anyone who's read a Damien Lewis novel will know that will have read about them in France and things, but yes, I think take the point. Okay, so Tom, in the roundabout way, does this all begin? How do we end up with Grady described like a Frenchman fighting with the Machia in 1944? And why are we the only country with special forces? So are really special forces?
Those are good questions. We'll do the French dressing up a bit later, but I think the only country to have a special force in 1944, unless we forget, we didn't even have a parachute unit in 1939. So this is a quantum leap in sort of military doctrine. And that's probably what I'd say is the overall narrative to this is that Blitzkrieg was a lightning war as we now know it, our mobile warfare was such a shock to the system.
This was sort of Britain's response, you know, we can't fight these guys on a level playing field. What can we do? And that sort of in our DNA, we have things like Lawrence of Arabia, we fought a lot of guerrillas, and that is a sort of wide understanding throughout the British Army that will lead eventually in 1944 to us having an entire brigade of special air service operatives.
And also Tom, I mean, going back to the Burr commandos in the Angle-Burwa at the turn of the 20th century, that also had a massive impact on British Army thinking that actually there is a different way of doing things in the kind of the old school kind of thin red line approach.
I mean, I know they're in Karki by 1899, but you know, that old school approach of that, you know, there are traditional ways in which you fight wars. And what the Burr showed them was that actually there is a different way. This sort of slightly more guerrary type, this kind of sort of, you know, hit and run and dashing about and really, really highly maneuverable and in small numbers, comparatively small numbers.
And not to put too far to point on it, the British Army is always up against it. It's always been the junior partner to the Royal Navy traditionally. And so if they can get more bang for their buck, which is a big part of the thinking, they'll do it, won't they? That's what's also motivating this.
Yeah, if we take it through it sort of very early history, I think the place to start this really is 5th battalion Scots Guards, which goes a long way to explaining why everybody in the Special Forces is posh or most of them are, because this was a ski unit formed ostensibly to operate in Scandinavia.
They weren't quite sure where it was going to go, but it could have been, you know, ends up nearly being deployed to Norway, but not. And of course the only place you can find anyone who can ski in 1939-40 is amongst the aristocracy. So, you know, they recruit the Sterling, George Jelico, Jim Gavin and Freddie Spencer, Chapman, Brian Mayfield.
And my old friend Stephen Hastings as well was involved in that. I remember him telling me that you could literally spot their progress by the number of champagne bottles that have been flung outside of the train on their way to Switzerland. They go down to where is it Shamini? You know, famous place to train for Arctic warfare is downhill skiing. And the first thing they do is they change all their bindings and lock them into their skis they could do downhill rather than the girls country.
So that unit, when it dissipates, spreads a lot of people are quite a long way around the military who all want to form guerrilla warfare. And then the other thing to mention maybe another initiative early on is the independent companies. Yeah. Who are? Yeah, of course.
They do go to Norway, but they're terrible. I mean, they are not prepared for the German onslaught that one of the TA guys goes, imagine me a south London boy has never seen a mountain before. I mean, he's eating snow and being chased by stucas and ski troops.
They're interestingly commanded by gobbins though. And so gobbins comes back with some thoughts about how guerrilla warfare might progress. And straight after that cloud alcohol, it goes to the command drop in Narvik goes, look, we've got to sort this out. There's a lack of manliness, he says amongst the British forces. He says, he's sick with shame because he says it's lamentable in this wild and undeveloped country with all our wealth and experience. We should be at our best.
But we'll be out and over and he goes, we got to do something. And that goes up to the war office. Amazing. They're fascinating. I mean, there is a lot of worry about manliness and sons of the 1930s being soft handed and all that. But I mean, it is interesting, isn't it? And then you get the shock of Dunkirk where it's kind of proved true, isn't it? In a way on a grand scale that the army can't fight. It doesn't have its answers to what the Germans are going to do.
And Churchill's reaction to this is to famous memo in June, isn't there where he says, we're going to need a raiding force. We're going to need 5,000 parachute soldiers, which sort of sets that whole bull rolling. I think what's really interesting about this is all the different manifestations because there are many and it's sort of like it's a kaleidoscope of different groups. And as you say, lots of different people doing their own thing and any different theaters.
But it's that memo that basically grants people permission to do this, isn't it? They go, right, okay, we'll be the commandos and whatever. There's also two things at play here with Churchill. One is that Churchill just like, you know, he loves stuff, which is kind of a bit out there and non-conventional. He loves all that stuff.
But also is it is the fact that the vast majority of the British armies, even when it started meager kit, has been left on Dunkirk. If you want to strike back and strike back quickly, it's going to be kind of a commando style kind of hit and run attacks. That's the only thing they're going to be able to do until such time that the factories have got really into gear and you've got to have artillery pieces and tanks and all the rest of it. And that's not going to happen any time soon.
And I think what Churchill recognizes is that you can't just sort of sit back and take it. We can't, you know, we sat back and took it from September until April and did absolutely bugger all. And what we need to do now is be proactive. We need to, we can't let the Germans settle. We can't let them just sort of, we can't just roll over. We've got to take the fight back to them immediately.
And the only way you can do that is by doing these kind of hit and run strikes and little special little mini operations. Because there isn't the army or the kit to do anything larger. And then we've got to mention our, your friend of mine, Dudley Clark at this moment and and Ross and sex and the book on the subject is that exactly what happens. I mean, Dudley Clark, which we won't talk a lot about Dudley Clark. He's going to come up a couple of times.
I think in this discussion is that here's this extraordinary staff office. He's basically sort of in intelligence. He's actually at that moment of Dunkirk working for Jack Dill, who's chief in charge of the general staff, who he knows from Palestine from before the war. So the thing about Clark gets called in as a sort of crisis manager by several generals once Jack Dill, another's wavel.
But this moment Jack Dill's made him his sort of glorified PA and and Dill's looking out over Whitehall. This is the night after the Dunkirk evacuation going what the bloody Halloween does. Church is down the road making a speech out of the jaws of death and shame, you know, the basically wars are not won by decorations. We're going to do something Jack. So what the hell are we going to do? And Clark, I've got this idea because his family come from South Africa.
And he's at they were the siege of Lady Smith, which was a siege base in the great command. So the siege of Lady Spish, broken by the British bit of history. At which point the birds go into the belt and that obviously is the name he chooses for his little outfit. He goes to Dill, he goes, look, I've got this idea. You know, we need a gorilla force like the burrs had, you know, someone we can get back across the channel, probably in boats and start hitting the Germans, dissipate their strength.
And he pitches the name and says, look, we should call them the commando, so they've got a brand and everyone understands what they are. And Jack Dill goes, yeah, go home, drop that up. So he goes back to Straton Street, where he's got his flat, drops up, comes in the following morning, hands him the draft and Jack Dill goes to the Chiefs of Stass meeting. And by lunch time that Dets commissioned he goes, yeah, you're on because of Churchill gets it goes, that's what we need.
You know, that is exactly what we need. God, God, the days before regulation, I think it's desperation. Is it James? Yes, I mean, you know, there's other things motivating people out there. I mean, well, I know I just think about how long it takes to make it any way. And how long it takes to make it any decision whatsoever. Back to the memorial flight, still grounded because no one's prepared to make a decision to put them back in the air again.
Yeah, but that's the window in these opportunities that gives them averics and that I kind of class it, that the opportunities to throw something wild in there is their desperate. I mean, we've got no, as you say, no weapons, no equipment. We've come back across the channel. And Churchill loves that because it feeds into his view of what we should be doing. He loves that idea.
He needs bright people with bright ideas. I mean, it's a two-way street. There are these people and he's prepared to entertain them. And they need each other as much as, you know, it's mutual, isn't it? Yeah. These people want to make their mark, need someone who's prepared to entertain them. Yeah. But the ideas then come very, very quickly. You know, the training is sort of pretty much immediately set up.
And it's like a well spring of people who were able to throw this together quite quickly, aren't they? We've got some firm ideas. Yeah, when the Prime Minister and the Chief of Staff said this is going to happen, it's going to happen, you know? So, yeah. The actual first rain, which is the L2K raid, happens in three weeks. Clock gets on a train to Glasgow. Go to see the independent companies that have come back looking at their wounds after Norway.
Bumps into a couple of mates who've been in the Transjordan frontier force with them. And says, look guys, we need to get a gorilla force together. They say they recruit their 100 best troops, put them in RF crash boats and they're back across the channel. And they're chucking grenades in Toronto to go 24th of June. I mean, that's pretty quick, you know, by anyone's standards, you know? Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. But obviously, if there's need developing, doesn't it?
It does, but I think this is the thing that always sort of happens. So obviously we know Clark is a master of deception. So his ideas are around pinpricks and mosquito stings, whatever you're going to call them. But Churchill is you've alluded to that out. He wants something much bigger. And then this sort of tug of war between Clark's idea, which is small rating groups behind the lines in Churchill's thousands of power-trip troops and an armoured tank that they fly, you know? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's a thing. You know, if you really, I want a tank that could fly. Okay, well, you see, see? Yeah, good luck with that. But you can do something like the Lattuke raid of the 24th of June, 1940 on the fly. But if you're going to do anything more than that, there's got to be a structure to it. There's got to be training programs.
They've got to actually think about, are these just ordinary soldiers or are they going to be specially trained for special things and hand-hung fighting and blah blah blah and all this kind of stuff. So how does it then develop? Because it develops pretty quickly again, doesn't it? But into different units and HQ in London, there's training camps up in Scotland and also.
Yeah, I mean, that's where the posh boys get involved again. So the aristone is getting involved because while this is going on, Brian Mayfield and Bill Sterling attempt to get to Norway to help them out over there. Again, this is supposed to be a guerrilla raid, but they run into a magnetic mine in this submarine just off Scarborough Flo. And then they go back to Sterling's castle and they sit there drinking whiskey going, what are we going to do now?
And they come up with the plan to create a guerrilla training unit in Scotland. This is the Lock Lock training wing. And of course, at that moment, in Whitehall, this initiative is happening and this sort of just amazingly gels together. And suddenly you're going, oh yeah, of course, training in Scotland like the gillies stalking, living off the land. That's brilliant. That's what this unit's supposed to be.
And so straight away, you have this training outfit set up, which then gets all sorts of people like Mad Mike Calvert, who's part of the SS story, who's demolitions. They've got Fairbends, Fairbends and Sykes. So that's what the fighting knife gets named after there. They're from Shanghai and they've been doing things to the communists over there. And now they come back to teach people to do them in Britain.
This is the moment, isn't there, where there is an SAS that is not the SAS, of course. And that caused some confusion for some... Some confusion. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to credit the fact that the first day the Paris is going to hate this. Sorry, I'll... But the SAS three days, the party regiment, because of this. So, yeah. So in the midst of all this sort of, we're making the commandos.
And the commandos basically quickly outgrow clock, and they become a combined arms units, big battalions. They lack some important bits of kit like mortars. So they're always a bit stuffed, because they're supposed to live off the land, but they actually get used like infantry units. Yeah. However, in the clock's initiative, one of the key things he thought would be really important, because he's seen paratroopers in Norway where he was deployed.
So he knows airborne troops are terrifying to the enemy, and he thinks we need an airborne unit, because what would be better than going by boat into France, is if we can parachute the S... Well, it's not called the SSN, the parachute commandos. And then recover them by submarine. That would really go some to worry the Germans. And so one of the units, which is called two commandos, gets converted to a parachute unit and starts training RF ringway.
And then there's this tussle between the RF and Army, and basically, the Army are fed up because all these soldiers aren't getting employed, you know. And the RF go, well, look, sort that. We'll take them back under command. We've got 500 train power troops. We'll take them on command. And one of the things that everyone hates is the name commandos, because it's the buzz. It's our enemy.
The staff officer in November, 1940 goes, oh, there's special service troops. They're special air service troops. Yeah. Types on cyber, a special air service. And there you go. 11 SAS or two SAS, depending on... Yeah. Well, depending on two or a... Depending on... Depending on... depending on... depending on the base. Depending on what you want to believe. Yeah. They then do colossus, don't they? And that happens pretty quickly.
It's the thing. Again, one of the interesting things about all this is that it is all happening fast, isn't it? And you've got people inventing and trying to... Well, they're not just inventing concepts. They're then trying to deliver proof of concept pretty much straight away. So there's not a lot of hanging around, is there? No. But it's very ad hoc. I mean, they're cutting holes on the bottom of Whitley bombers.
Yeah. As you know, and the early parachuting is just bloody dangerous, really. Yeah, quite frankly. Yeah. But they get that going. They do quite an important demonstration down on Swazby Plane. X-Trup SAS drop there to do a demonstration. They're posing as German parachutes. So this is at the end of 1940. There's a huge crowd of staff officers. So that's quite influential, because you've got people like Alkanaelac there.
You've got people like... You know, a lot of the generals are going to be North Africa. See this drop. And the key thing about that drop is that they're so surrounded by staff officers, they can't see the target, which is the bridges over the River Tilt and Trouton and places like that. So, you know, one arm park comes up to a troop and goes, Hey, you're all gunned down. He goes, where's the brain carrying? He goes over there. I can't see it. So there's staff officers.
So one troop of the SS, in typical SS fire, go bugger this. We'll go to the staff officer's car, but I can make a car. So they nick the Crown Prince's Norway's car and the spatula is bike. And they drive to the bridge over chill and catch it. Completely derailing the defenders and everyone goes, bloody hell, that's quite good initiative from that lot,
whatever they are about. Yeah. And everyone's quite oppressed, backs up and leaves. If you like, there's a beginning of a feeling that that could be something. But it's also with Operation Colossus in Southern Italy. Is there a sense that that's a complete failure? Because from Dudley Classpoint of view, it actually does kind of what he wants, doesn't it? It's sort of seeding paranoia and Mussolini and the Axis. Yes, destabilizing the other side and all that.
And the other thing about Colossus is it's a proof of concept because they put long range fuel tanks in their aircraft, which let's face it in beginning of 1941. It's pretty ambitious. They stage, they fly through occupied front, stage out of water. And they actually hit the acquidup. So they do do their job. I suppose it's just not a very impressive raid because they blocked the acquidup, but that doesn't really do much.
And they don't recover anyone. No, no, they don't. They would never recovered anywhere. It's one of the aircraft went down. But the commandos are still on the existence of this point. Basically that job comes from an engineer called Mr. Yardley. And he's a civil engineer and he knows about this aquiduct. He just goes into the war office and pitches it, say, here, there's this aquiduct.
Can you knock it over? And there's a meeting in the war office and he had the RF going, we can't hit a barn door and secret service going, well, we can't get it. We got no one in Southern Italy that could get to that with explosives. At which point the RF remember they've got something called the SCS. Go, hey, those guys, those guys, we could get some engineers and expose the conveyorate.
And that is then the plan. But you're right. What happens is by that time Dudley Clark's gone to North Africa. He's working for Wavel. He's his head of deception, which is a role in the British Army has never existed before. Wavel's created it. And clogged it's wind of it. It goes hang on. That's quite inspired by Wavel, isn't it? I mean, a very inspired, yeah.
Which Wavel's thing though is to encourage different ways of looking at stuff. I mean, he's been running the counter-insurgency Palestine before the war. You know, Wingate is one of his people for doing things differently. He's tuned into this sort of alternative warfare stuff. Wavel, it's part of his signature really. And he's really stretched. I mean, there's thousands of Italians down there. He's got a tiny force. He's got to make it look bigger.
And then Clark gets to hear, Clossus is going to go off. It's typical British. He's cc'd by mistake on the op order. So he finds that and goes, he's got to do what he's supposed to go to, but it does because he's still on the distribution. He goes, bloody hell, that's a very useful bit of information. At the same time, this is the start of O'Connor's advance. So they started capturing Italians. And also don't forget, at this stage, the LRDG, so it's a long range, it doesn't group up and running.
And their Italians are getting worried that the British really have a special force or the comparative. And they capture this diary. So this is the winter of 1940 stroke, New Year's, 1941. And then the diary and the Italian officer goes last night, British Pratchews landed near my position.
Well, that's impossible. Could be the LRDG. Could be a record unit. Could be something. But if the Italian officers are reporting that, Clark thinks, well, when this Clossus rate goes off, I can just pretend, which is what he does. I can pretend the SSI here in North Africa. Because logically, that's where you'd mount that rate for you, you wouldn't do it for more if middle school. That's where it comes from. You do it from somewhere in Africa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's fascinating, isn't it? Clark is tangled up in this. He's really very satisfying because he's such an interesting character. Yeah, no, we have big fans on. We have ways, aren't we? Yeah, we need to take a quick break. We'll be back in a second. Welcome back to We Have Ways. Jim and I are talking to Tom Petch. And the SAS are up to their next in it in France in 1944. So then we are, we do start to be talking about the SAS as in the SAS rather than the SAS.
Yeah, rather than the SAS. So now we're in Roque Heroes. Roque Heroes, the factual account of the evolution of the SAS. So yes. Yeah, OK, Sterling pitches up basically an eight commando. And he's out of work because as we know, the commandos aren't very useful in the Mediterranean. They get there to do things in roads and stuff like that. But actually, by the time they get there, the Luftwaffe are completely dominant.
The idea of sending a boat anywhere is a non starter. And so you've just got, I always like mentioned this, but my great, great, great grandfather's hotel, which is Sheppens of Cardiff. Oh, yeah, amazing. And Sterling, yeah, he's Sterling and his mates are hanging out there, getting drunk, shooting pigeons out the window, leaving messages for each other at the reception.
So the German can read where eight commando are, all of which is going down very badly. And Sterling probably reads the writing on the wall goes, I've probably not that long for this job. I'm going to end up back in the Scots guards, you know, as they all are going to be returned to their units. And that didn't really suit them. As I said, these are guys who wanted to go skiing and the George show goes to this world. They didn't want to do regular soldiering.
And Sterling gets introduced to Clark and Clark thinks, here's a useful chap. He doesn't open the books completely initially, but he goes, goes, this guy could be very helpful if he wants to parachute. And at the same time, Jocke Lewis wants to parachute by any minds. And all of those guys basically get sponsors to do a trial drop. And then that leads to the creation of the real SES.
Who have all much discussed history and we could use the word mythology. I think there's a fair bit swirls around them. Some of it not helped by rogue heroes, perhaps. Although I don't know, I thought it captured the spirit of the thing of them really basically doing their own thing.
Yes. And sometimes there's annoying to their own side as the, as the enemy perhaps. I think, you know, they need a little turn to beginning. It says, based on a story, where you could just start with this is complete fantasy. Quite entertaining. But anyway, you need another, you know, another caveat. But the point is they do have this sweet moment, don't they, which is in the summer and early autumn of 1942.
It's really when they're absolutely, but they're kind of swashbuckling bass and going around and shooting up airfields and disrupting lines and supply and, and so on. And then there's the big one where they go in in two columns and shoot everything up. And, you know, they represent good news at the time where there isn't much.
That's the other thing. And that's often the thing with special forces people is if something for them goes well, you can take comfort in that or get headlines out of it in a way that the summer of 1942, as you say, Jim, things are not brilliant in the desert. And then there's all finally some good news, which is sort of what Wingate, for instance, goes on to manage to spin in Burma. Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree with you there. I think that it's sort of the right moment. And they're very lucky.
The long range desert group is sort of the joined up bit of the operation. They're up and running and they can do long range penetration by the lines. Because we all know the power shooting bit is a disaster. You know, that doesn't work at all. And actually, as you know, the trouble with Paris is once around the ground, they're not mobile at that stage. Obviously, we're 44 going to be talking about G's, but right then they can't drop anything more than the cells in a bit of gear.
So once you're in the desert, or you're just infantry in the middle of nowhere, which is going nowhere. But also what they've all trained for the sterling SAS, the train for is operations in the desert. And that's obviously coming to an end with the great charm for Valamaine and the something that charging across the whole of North Africa.
And in a way, it's almost appropriate, isn't it, that sterling gets captured at the end of the in February 1943 because it fits the shape of things. Certainly, you know, his role of this has sort of come to an end anyway. I mean, you kind of wonder what he would have how would have continued. I think there's two big sort of points. The hubris, which is around the beheading of the great stagger of Ork and leck is one because he was a great sponsor of the SAS along with Richie.
He's also sacked. You have the Carl in Cairo and there's no way of saying anything that Monty was not a fan of the SS. It's not Monty. It doesn't fit in Monty's sort of picture of his battle and LLMA. The Alkalega that poem was sponsoring a four squadron Regis, which never comes about because essentially Sean Hackett, who you know, Sean Hackett, who becomes a parter at that point, he's put in charge.
He becomes a sort of proto DSF drift special forces because they need someone who can public face this organization in headquarters because sterlings in the desert charging around main doesn't want to do it. They send Bill Fraser and sometimes Bill Fraser is a quietest man in the world. You know, so it's like you need someone who can be in the staff and that's Hackett.
And him and David Sterling go to see Monty because the thing about the SAS, I think about special forces, you need trained troops. You can't use recruits. You need someone who's done at least two years and they need to learn to suffer as you know infantry or cabaret wherever they are before you can put them into the organization.
And of course there's a famous bus stop where this is before the second battle at Alamayn where Monty goes, well what makes you think they'll fight better under your command the mine to which sterling can't resist going well, what about the next battle of this one?
Yeah, Monty smash the table goes there be no more battles in Africa, which is of course in Pollux because there are a lot more battles in Africa could have really done with the four squadron SAS, but that leaves sterling are high and dry with some raw recruits in the squadrons, which then causes the problems which eventually lead to his capture.
I think that's the story there. So the SS has broken up resurfaces as the SRS in Italy, but then under a completely different head. He's got, you know, he's not a tactical head. He's an operational head, isn't he?
You know, I have to slightly big up. Well, not going to be a big up. I will big up the special boat service. They really adopt the special forces role at this moment. They're running around the power police and doing stuff like that, whereas SRS are stuck in Italy grinding their way in a commander unit basically. They're part of a command overgate.
You've obviously got now two SAS, which is important because when we come to 44 that's a factor, but that's a bit of an anomaly that's formed under David's brother. And they are being used more like special forces in Italy. So you got Roy Farhan running around forming part of Zangripp's and blowing up the headquarters office being told not to do it, stuff like that. So they are more special forces than SRS, I think.
But then once Italy's over this, this overlords coming. So I mean, Jim, in often talks about the tyranny of overlords, all attention is now being turned to the invasion of mainland Europe. And so therefore things start to be organized along those lines and people are drawn away from other campaigns and sort of fed into preparation for overlord. And this is when we get the SS brigade in Britain formed over all sort of formalized and we do.
You know, it's the army trying to get this thing under control a bit. Right. Broaded from the cold. Yeah, they tried to try to get them in the orbit, order a battle. I mean, the thing about the SS, they're just not part of anything to that point. They're this outlier unit. But one of the problems with the SS is because if you're in the cavalry or the artillery or the infantry, you'll have generals who understand what the units do.
Whereas the SS, no one's got a plural or the general level, no one's served in the SS. So there's a no wide understanding of what this outfit could do. But you're right, they pull them all back. So you've got one SS, which is mains unit, then you've got two SS at that point under Bill Sterling.
And then you've got the three of the two French SS's, three and four, which we're talking about in a bit. And then you've got this Belgian company who kind of end up with the SS because they're just not, they're not like the poles where the poles are battalion so they can be parrots. You've only got 120 men and they're going, we can't make that part of another battalion. Let's give them to the SS so that the Belgium, Belgium's end up as a company of special air service and become five SS.
But Tom, who is it who's actually in mean if there's no generals or brigadiers or anything who understand this stuff? Who is it who's formed the SAS brigade? So as I lose you, special service means troops, we don't really know what to do with special air service means troops. We don't really know what to do is have an air in the middle and they're all pulled under airborne forces. So I'm being a bit facetious.
Are they under browning? They're under brownies, actually, because they're airborne. And that is a little bit of a problem because, you know, one SS don't want to get rid of their berets. They get red berets and that makes them really unhappy. Then there's this business like we need a commander. Well the French have sorted themselves out and they get a Demi Brigade commander.
But they get this guy Roderick McLeod, Royal Artillery. And I love this quote. He says, I shocked the posting as I had no previous experience and not prepared me for the problems of command over such unorthodox units. So he gets put in there to manage this brigade. But actually turns out pretty well because as I said he's a gunner but he has been on the Northwest Frontier, 32.
He was actually CO first air landing regiment light artillery but didn't go to Sicily. And he was commander Royal Artillery first airborne division as well. But he hasn't had much operation. But he has done that course and he understands the nature of airborne forces.
Well, but this is the irony with a lot of the airborne people as they haven't really haven't got very much experience. They may be specialized and they may be trained for whatever it is they're going to do but they haven't very much experience of it because the bigger it gets the less light you are to use it as airborne goes.
Once they're not raiding anymore, once they're not doing Booneval or Colossus, they get deployed less often. So you've that peculiar thing if they've got their own idea of expertise but not so much experience. It's a weird mix.
I think it's very interesting. They're not liking the red berries. I think that's very funny given how powerful the red berries are seen as a brand for the parachute and airborne and of things anyway that you've got one lot of people who love the idea for the Maru Berry and a lot of people who don't want to impose on them because they've already got their own burray as the point.
Yeah, they got the wing of dagger or flaming sword, whatever you want to call the cat badge on their head and they got they got the sand color berry and that dates back to L. Dett and start of it. So you've got a lot of guys in one SS. They're all swans. You've got Maine, Bill Fraser, Registrate, you can listen. There's a lot of men in there who've been right from the get go. They've been in the unit.
And they're kind of they saw themselves out really because I've talked about the recruitment problem that basically Maine goes on a recruiting drive and one of the places he hits pay der is the auxiliary units who are stay behind units formed in 1940 initially under military intelligence research. And then they sort of fall under the world of gubbins and Coles Hill and all of that. But these stay behind units have been kept to fight the German invasion.
So they're sort of small teams living underground layers around the country and now they're released. And of course they've got special forces skills. They're designed to stay behind co-verly in Britain, admittedly and fight the Germans. And this is a real great moment for Maine. It gets about 70 of them because they're all expanding. So SS is going up to about 500 men. And that's great. And he also gets a little powers.
The one SS really becomes a very good unit. The old sweats, the Xerry unit got powers. This is a good force. This is a very good special force. Well, and Sterling has 140 raw recruits. Who were the French though? I mean, yeah. So as I said, they've got a Demi Brigade commander who's Norbert Durran, who is he was free French. He fought in Tunisia.
But really the characters are, so I'm going to call them, I think I'll call them by their British deraise nation, which is three SS and four SS because all the words we get into the French parish. So very shoot you. And it's all a different number. So anyway, it's three SS. And there's here is Pierre Chetot-Jubur, who's Conan. And Conan in the Breton means the wolf.
And he, I mean, all these guys are just to imagine he's got pressed combat. He's incredibly short. He's basically asterix. He's got pressed combat and a big berry on his head. He's about five foot nothing. You can imagine him parachuting to Jim Bufour with a jeton between his lips or in Algeria, a busting stuff up, which is what he goes on to do to be honest.
And he's escaped France in 1940. He's free French artillery. We're injured in Syria. And then he comes up to command three SES. But there's a bit of a problem because three SS and four SS hate each other because three SS basically have formed in June 1943. And they contain some V-Shi French. So they've been recruiting around Africa. So you can imagine how that's going to go down with someone who's been fighting since 1940 on the other side.
And so there is some tension. Put it this way. Big Lord says they're basically, they didn't kill each other, but they're in air. So they would have killed each other. They'd be left in a bar. There is regularly a massive disruption. And then we got four SES. And this is Pierre Liu Louis-Bougain, Le Mâchel or the Penguin. If the Cone and the Wolf is Astrid, this is Obelix. This man is huge. He's going to break.
Because he's going to go and smash up some Germans. And he's born Algeria, teacher, wounded twice. Join the SES as part of the independent French-Pashe company.
So anyone who knows SS history will heard of George Birch, who's the guy who basically bails the SES out. This again we can mention Clark. Because Clark's friends with General Croutrou, when Sterling sort of people, this is after the first Crusader raid, he goes to the Levant to recruit in Beirut, the French-Pashe who just, and they come over to Traclade to them with George Birch. And they become very effective soldiers.
And that's where this unit sort of heritage comes from. And then Birgain, he works with Jordan, who's one of them. And he gets again, coming back from Tunisia February 43 when he's attacked by Germany, a Croft and Alcara, gunned down, loses his right arm. They pull 37 pieces of scrap out of him. And when he comes back to command the unit, he's going to eat girders for breakfast with a guy.
Really, and if you see a picture of him, he's always got a jittown with no filter between his fingers, and he's huddled with some, you know, Mackey or some French-Pashe who's in some desperate situation. So then we come to the Belgian company, and this is Caput, I'm going to get the pronunciation wrong, blondie, blondie, probably. And he's a reserve officer.
So he was actually an America studying as a dentist at Northwestern University, Chicago, when War breaks out, but he's a reservist. Apparently, he's a member of the Belgian scouts, like, you know, the British scouts, in spectrophscaouts. And he volunteers, so it goes up to the correct, they're all called up the Belgians. And he's called up, he goes to compact, reports her duty. And when he comes in, he bonters as a par-er.
And there's a bit of a tussle within the Belgian military, because they don't really like the idea of par-ers. In fact, he's told that his unit should be wrecky. And poetry, but not really appropriate. And so they sort of float around really, because there's not enough of them. There's 120's alluded to. And they can't form part of anything else so they get given to the SES, which I have to say is brilliant, because they are very, very, very good soldiers, highly motivated.
And the only hiccup for them is because of the sort of politics that they're only really supposed to be used in Belgium, which is a bit of an issue, given where DJ is going to take place. Yeah. And we'll feed into what happens to them in the end, because it's frustrating if you can only be drops in Belgium and you're invading Normandy. That's a frustrating thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course it's all just like, you know, what am I actually going to do here?
Well, particularly for what you really want to do is fight the Germans. It's after all the thing motivating all of these guys, right? It's like the Polish potato arm. It's like you're sitting around going, what am I going to do now? I want to get on the front line and I can't. But Tom, there's also a phantom squadron, isn't it?
Phantom squadron are vitally important. So the phantom squadron are real breakthrough. And this is an initiative to create strategic communications throughout the British Army. So what this will give the SES is the ability to communicate back to Britain from France, from wherever they are. Wow. Okay. And this is going to be, and we'll come to this in the episode about France and what actually happens. This is an absolute game changer. Be able to call in air.
Yes. And there's several examples where that really pays off, isn't it? Yeah, because you can imagine that's a huge part of this story, really actually massive part of this story. But that's been invented to just really to improve communications throughout the British Army. So the war office can have some idea of what's going on on the ground. But of course it rolls out here into special forces and they have got long range communications. And David Niven is part of that.
Yes. And David Niven is part of that. That's right, yeah, isn't he? Yeah. Because he sadly once said he was partly SS and he really was because he was originally a commando. He was part of Dali Clark's Carnage. So he was special forces, really. I mean, did the course. Yeah, he did, didn't he? Yeah. Did the course in Lockout and then he famously sent a message to his then girlfriend who called the Great Daning saying,
I'm coming to London with secret weapon, which got intercepted. So he got picked up the station in London. The secret weapon was obviously not a single weapon. But he said, what are you doing? He was picked up and interrogated anyway. David Niven has had a legend. He is. But yeah, he was a pantom team guy. Yeah, I had a lot of the squadrons. So then they're brought under airborne command. And of course the airborne people are kind of in 21st,
but they're not really in 21st Army group. They're adjacent, which leads to all sorts of problems later on, where no one really understands the other. But you touched on it earlier, you said, Bill Sterling is around for a bit. What happens to Bill Sterling? Well, the problems start because the SS are in the airborne establishment. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And so when you're looking at Montescott, quite firm plans and there's a, there's a, there's a, as you know, there's an airborne plan for Normandy.
And to start with, the SS is sort of fitted into that plan with 21st Army Group saying, look, we want the SS to parachute between Normandy and Brussels, you know, as they said, let's scattered like confetti, you know, to, to slow the Germans down, because it's all about stopping the panzers and reaching the beach.
It's, this would have been as we all know a bit of a disaster for the SS, because you know, small numbers of troops scattered in the middle of nowhere, not going to be able to stop panzers. That they'll be able to do very little. And that leads to Bill Sterling going to see boy Browning basically to have a row, a massive row, they have a massive sort of row, because boy Browning's on board with this 21st Army Group plan. He thinks that that's what the SS should do.
And boy Browning probably doesn't really get what the SS can do, but Bill Sterling's are very much a theorist. He's got good ideas about how special forces can be used. His weakness is he's never been in combat, and that is his problem. And he has a bit of a problem because two SS have mutated against him, just prior to this on the boat back from Italy. Because unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately, he went home while they were in combat in Italy.
And that didn't go down very well with some officers, particularly Milbank, who's got an MC from around the time of Don Kirk. And most of the officers, finally off, Roy Fran supports Bill Sterling. So Roy Fran, who is the Winged Dagger author and legendary, you know, very kinetic officer of the SES, supports Bill Sterling, because he says Bill Sterling's right, but unfortunately most of them are against him.
So I think Bill Sterling falls between not having the support of his own unit, and boy Browning going, get out of here, you know. So whether he resigns or, you know, he says he comes out at a meeting, saying, I've got to find my bowler hat in on the civilian. But then there's a lucky moment where they get Frank's, Brian Frank's, who's outstanding. So they get lucky. He was the brigade major at Termillion, things like that.
So they get him sort of shoehorned in at the last minute just before the draw. And for those who don't know, the terminus is that Seaborn, Operation sort of outflanking, John Positions, coming into his little coastal port on the Adriatic coast in Italy. And I think if I remember right, he is beginning of October. And the SES, they do fine, but they have his one disaster, where the six 88 millimeter shells rain in and hit a truck just as they're loading up and loads of them get killed.
It's a fatal traumatic experience for the SRS. Termily kind of sits badly amongst the kind of the die-hards of the desert, the originals just to give you a bit of context. Yeah, it's a bit of a thing where I think probably you'd say that there are special forces troops that have been a bit misemployed. You know, they could be behind the lines. Based on that route, then flexed eyes on how there is a problem with the airborne plan.
And he sends some general bulls, he's planning officer down to 21st Army Group to have a meeting with Fredy Jigwigaan, who we know is Montes Royale, man. And say, look, what's going on here? What are you talking about? You're going to pass it the SES here. And at the end of that meeting, he then decides eyes and how. The 21st Army Group will only retain planning for the SES in their operational area, which is a bit like that corner of Gaul in Astro-Claulblix. It's the top right-hand corner.
You can have Brittany, you can have Normandy, but that's your lot. You're not planning beyond that. And we will give you, we will decide what forces you have in that area. And just to explain, because the Americans have been developing a office of street services, which is their equivalent of special operators executive, so S.O.E. They want to drop these agents all around France with the S.O.E. to work with the Mackie. So they've got a different concept of operations.
Eyes and eyes concept is get the Mackie fired up, drop them tons of weapons, and they can really mess up the Germans. Yeah. But the Americans don't have a special force. They have a V1, and that is the SES. So they want to use the SES squadrons to augment those Mackie deployments. So, I mean, that's the, basically, the Jedbra concept emerges from that. But yes, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because it is interesting the Americans are late to this, aren't they?
They haven't factored any of this in, really, have they? And given now the American kind of like use of special forces 80 years later, that they're sort of central to the things they do. It's quite interesting that they're not really up to speed at all, isn't it? It's interesting because actually they replicate the commandos.
So, while Bill Donovan, who's Roosevelt sort of Republican-fac-fighting man, as part of his tour of Europe and the Middle East, ends up sitting down with Clark, only Clark and Cairo. But he's also the first head of the OSS as well. Yeah, he is. He creates the OSS after he sees Clarks.
He comes back with a non-volute with the plans for the commandos, which the British don't forward to the Americans, because there's a memo saying, we don't want to teach the Americans to suck eggs, which makes me think, well, what were we not teaching them? Was that because of the American war of independence? They already know how to do this, do you know what I mean? Why not just give them the blue pin for the commandos, which is what Clark is?
Because they do that in 1942 because that becomes the the Rangers. They're taught by commandos. They are commandos. And they originally call themselves the commandos. And then Marshall says, we can't call them the commandos, because that's what the British call them, it's called to be distinct. And he remembers the the Rangers of pre-revolutionary four days.
Well, Clark claims that's his idea, because he says he saw, he watched the Cagney film North Westside, and he told, well, this is in his memoirs, well, Bill Donovan, this is called in the US Rangers, because he needed a brand name. But anyway, whatever, I think Clark might be claiming quite a lot there. But anyway, they create that. But when Donovan goes back, basically Roosevelt, he wants to create a secret service like ours. And Donovan goes, no, you don't want that.
What you want is something that can do black ops and other things. And there are actually commandos within OSS. They have commandos, you know, as part of their outfit, they can do active stuff, besides their agents. So, but that's all going on. You're right, that becomes Jedborough, and then, you know, made 44 Donovan checks into clarages. And by that, the time in Britain, there are 2,900 OSS men and women, which we're helping screen, actually.
So we screen them out and put them through during a warfare training. And we'll come to this in France, is the standard of the Jebretrins' ranges from absolutely fantastic to not very good at all. You know, it just depends who you get. And the SS, it really depends. Like, sometimes they jump blind, because they don't totally trust the Jebretr set up. First teams in, go, yeah, we don't really want to be hooked up with that outfit at the moment.
We'll see what they like on the ground, just for security reasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, what is the concept of operations? What's it going to be for the invasion? The easiest part of this really is what happens. So 21st Army Group are given 4SES. So I'll call in the penguin, then ever remember that. French Cavalier Officer, one arm, lost, you know, obelix, basically. He's going to be tasked by 21st Army Group to cut off Brittany, right? There's a lot of Germans guarding that bit of coast.
And what you don't want them to do, obviously, is move straight across the Normandy and mess everything up. So he's going to deploy and cut Brittany off at the neck with two operations. He's going to have another team that's going to parachute in there and destroy railway links. And that's going to take out the whole of Brittany and prevent the Germans reaching Normandy from Brittany. Right. And then you've got all the road rail links that come up from various places.
So if you think Bordeaux, the lot that come up from Bordeaux goes via Pottiere. So there's a like the roads and rail links go through. That becomes Operation Bullbasket, which is one SS is operation to sever that link. And this is between Pottiere and Lemos, isn't it? Yeah, Pottiere and Lemos. Yeah. And then, light down south in the Moorvern Forest. That becomes Operation Houndsworth, which is a squadron one SS and will embrace that.
And that's a cut off all those road rail links that come up from the South of France. Because of course, the moment they work out Rommel, Rudens to everyone works out, this is the real deal. They're going to pull everything and try and get to Normandy. And it's going to be the SS job to stop them doing that.
So I think it's also worth saying that at the same time, what's happened is there's been this based on the back of the work of Jean-Moulin in uniting French resistance into a kind of amorphous hole. By the beginning of 1944, you've got the French forces of the interior and that's run by Pierre Cernick, who is the hero of free French operations in North Africa and also in Syria and he's now back in London.
He is the ostensible commander of the French forces in the interior, albeit from London, which is also working in coos with the BCRA, which is the French Secret Intelligence Service for the free French, also operating in London, which in turn is also under the umbrella of SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service MI6. So it's all linked together. And Pierre Cernick is directly under the command of Schaeff, under Eisenhower as well. So all these special forces are now coming under Eisenhower.
But the whole point about about French resistance is, as you're saying, the Allies don't want, is French resistance getting in the way. So it's really interesting that all the different, you know, they know about all the different Machi operations and Jed Brasicentin, where they want the Machi to be controlled and organized and not running a mock. But there are also lots and lots of other French resistance and organizations, Machi, which are promised arms and promised support.
But the British never have, or the Allies rather have no intention whatsoever of fulfilling those promises. Because what they want to do is they want to keep them keen. They want them to do limited amounts of sabotage. But the last thing they want is lots of potential French commies running around with Tommy guns and Stan guns and Frank guns and grenades getting in the way. So it's a completely ruthless and pragmatic approach to the French resistance.
And the SAS have a role within all this, you know. And that's, I just think it's so interesting that this is all about, it's about sabotage, but it's about very controlled sabotage that's going on behind the lines run by London. Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head because, I mean, there's a memo of SOE memo, which goes, the OSS, they're capacitive of blundering the, to delicate European situations about which they know very little. That's a black and white memo in the SOE file.
It's because there are communists there, and we were dropping 10,000 tons of, you know, weapons and explosives to them before D-Day. And you're absolutely right. The next thing, you know, cut to the end of a Germans in France and the last thing you want is a civil war. So you're right. And the SAS are obviously completely under control. They're, you know, all people. They can augment them.
And I suppose as that element of, we'll come to that in the actual operations, they can massively improve the effectiveness of the Macke. I mean, yes, but I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that it has been worked out very carefully which Macke groups are going to be trained, organized, controlled, directed, given arms. And everyone else has just placed their knee cast a sunder to gun him. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Just just left down the code, exactly that.
And obviously where they're, where they're controlling it is obviously in Britain, where it's an incredibly controlled and an organized operation. But also these other ones, Bullbarskin, Houndsworth and all the rest of it. But it's, as you say, it's where you can actively make a difference to German lines of communication coming to reinforce the bridgehead in Normandy. That's where you're going to make your focus.
And where you put the SAS is in your absolute top three locations that you want to really have under control. And that's where they go as opposed to, you know, three-man jeopardy and it's going Huckermarger all over the place. Yeah, I mean, it would have been a waste to drop the SS up by, you know, sort of Calle and... Yeah, it could really be a waste of time. Yeah, waste of time, total waste of time. Yeah, yeah.
The resistance, when they do take things into their own hands, the fruits of that kind of stuff are tend to be disastrous, don't they? The unfortunate truth, isn't it? When they do do their own thing and poorly trained, they can't fight modern combined arms opponents and all that sort of stuff, can they? So, you know, you can see completely why the British and the Americans are doing this. It makes, it makes total sense, doesn't it?
And you're using the resistance as a sort of not really a force magnifier. Are you using them to sort of move things along a little, but you're not relying on them at all? I mean, it's very interesting because, you know, you come out the other end of it, the French resistance stories of the nation rising to overthrow the Germans. And it's much, much, much, much more complicated than that. And in many ways, nothing like that at all.
I'd like to thank our French listener for the last four years and now they say goodbye. But you have to say that I'm going to defend the French, because you have to say that the French within the SS fight like absolute demons. I mean, they want to rescue you. They want to rescue your reputation. But you're absolutely right.
In a way, what's quite amazing about this story is, here we are in 1944 and you've got a strategic special force being used by strategic command to carry out strategic action. And imagine that in 1940, we were nowhere near thinking like this. And here we are. It's a big jump, it's what I'm saying, in the evolution of warfare. And there's the deepest penetration on D.D.A. isn't it? More than, yes. So then we get a signal from eyes and an hour to the air unit for the SS.
And can you get your troops to more than and they go, yes, we can. And that will become the A squadron SS drop. And that will be the deepest penetration into France on D.D.A. Right. Okay. So the scene is set for D.D.A. Thanks for listening to this episode, everyone. As you can tell, we're talking to Tom Petch about, well, operations of the Second World War that haven't yet been on Telly. Let's just put it that way. So maybe on Telly soon, just not like this.
Slides are probably not like this much. But who knows? Anyway, so join us, we hope, for the next part of this. We were going to do two parts, but it's looking like three, isn't that right, Jim? Yeah, but I think that's very much in the tradition of, of, of we have ways. I'd also, in the tradition of, of the SAS, what starts small goes a bit bigger. If you want to listen to this all day one, go. Of course you could subscribe to our officer class on Apple podcasts, our channel.
Or you can join our Patreon, become one of our patrons, even more benefits, including finding out when we have ways fest will be before anyone else. Anyway, we will, we will see you in our next episode. Thanks everyone for listening, Gerry O. Thanks very much guys, that was great. I'll see you on the next one.