How did the SAS transform the Second World War?

Voiceover: "It's 1941, and an Axis air base on the coast of North Africa is under attack. All of the planes have been destroyed and the camp officer is radioing for help. He claims the Royal Navy and Commando force have landed by sea and RAF planes are attacking from the air. The entire base is about to fall. But then, silence,  just as quickly as the attack had begun it was over and the Axis soldiers were left picking up the pieces of their destroyed aircraft and burning supplies. They had been the victims of one of the first ever SAS raids, and the entire attack had been carried out by just six men."

Damien Lewis, Author - SAS Daggers Drawn: "In North Africa. The SS destroyed on the ground more warplanes than the RAF did at the same time. It's something, it's something like 387 proven, probably more like 450 in reality. So, this small body of men who never numbered more than 600, moving in these fast-moving jeeps, destroyed more war planes on the ground than the entirety of the Royal Air Force and that's an incredible achievement."

Voiceover: "Despite many Allied commanders being opposed to their very existence, the SAS would go on to have an immense impact throughout the entirety of the Second World War and to this day remain one of the most elite military units in the world. And it all started in the unforgiving expanse of the North African desert. The North African campaign was particularly challenging because of the harsh geography of the desert environment. Bases were separated by thousands of kilometres of unmapped, arid desert, with the majority of navigable areas being towards the coast. At this uncertain stage of the Second World War, the Allies were looking for more modern and innovative methods that might turn the tide of war in their favour."

Damien Lewis: "Churchill had very, very, very alive appreciation of the promise of airborne operations. He somehow knew instinctively that airborne operations would be crucial to the Second World War. And because of that, he called for a cadre of 5,000 airborne volunteers to also be formed. And so the first of those were formed in the UK. But then, of course, in the North African Desert, you had David Stirling, who was the founder of the SAS."

Voiceover: "David Stirling was stationed in North Africa as a guards officer and had been trained as a commando. He was becoming increasingly frustrated with the way in which the officers in charge were operating, and felt that the unique skills possessed by him and his fellow commandos were being underutilised. He realised that the vast stretches of inland desert were being completely ignored, and there he saw an opportunity."

Damien Lewis: "And David Stirling had the idea; well, if we could get small bodies of men into the desert in through the desert, we could strike far, far behind the enemy lines at our will, and we'd appear by complete surprise and hit the enemy where they least expected it. So that was the genesis of the idea for what became the Special Air Service, the SAS."

Voiceover: "Stirling was given the go ahead to form a small airborne unit, which was named L Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade. Their goal was to disrupt Italian and German forces in North Africa by attacking their supply lines and disrupting their base operations."

Damien Lewis: "To start with, David Stirling had about 60 volunteers and these were hand-picked individuals, mostly they were former commandos, like, like David Stirling was himself. And initially the idea was that they would insert by parachute, by air, drop deep into the desert, approach the air bases, the initial target of the raids on foot, carry out their raids, and then be returned from those raids by the vehicles of the Long Range Desert Group, which was the forerunner, you could argue, of of all desert raiders. No one in Middle East High Command, which was the, you know, the command supposedly in charge of them, wanted them to exist or succeed or do what they intended to do. This was seen as being ungentlemanly, piratical warfare in the extreme, not the way the British officers should behave, and no one was supporting it, apart from one or two of the top generals and Churchill himself. And so one of the first things they had to do was they had to steal their own base, and they literally went round all the other Allied camps in the area stealing tents, chairs and tables, food for the mess, they even stole a grand piano for their sergeants mess, and that's how they first established their camp."

Voiceover: "The newly formed L Detachment immediately began training in their new camp, focusing mainly on navigation, sabotage and parachuting.  And the men would train for drops by jumping off makeshift platforms or even out of moving Jeeps. Due to the urgency of the situation in North Africa, the units only had a short period of training before their first mission."

Damien Lewis: "Their first operation; Operation Squatter, which was in the autumn of 1941, was sadly a disaster, and it was in a sense it was a disaster because they were so unpopular. So, basically the five aircraft were flying in to attack three airbases, to drop the SAS and attack three airbases, and it was timed to coincide with a new Allied offensive. And the morning that they were supposed to board the aircrafts and fly in, they would drop in at night. It sounds ridiculous, but a storm blew up in the desert, a terrible rainstorm, and with that came a sandstorm, visibility was extremely low, and so really, they knew they should have stood the mission down, that was obvious, but you see, they knew that if they didn't go, then that could be used by Middle East High Command as an excuse to say, well, you know, you're obviously not up to the job and disband them. And so they went ahead anyway and jumped.  And of the 62 who deployed, two dozen came back and the rest were either, you know, killed on impact or wounded on the, on the drop zone and captured. And none of, none of the objectives were actually hit and carried out. And so at that stage, their fortunes were at the lowest possible ebb. And it was at that moment that one of the commanders of the Long Range Desert Group said to them, "why are you parachuting in to target? You know, we can drive you in." And so without really going back to somewhere where they could be controlled by Middle East High Command, they went off and did a series of operations with the LRDG, because they knew they had to prove themselves at this moment. And those those first operations which were in kind of October, November 1941, were a raid on a string of air bases along the coast of North Africa and they were extremely, extremely successful. And that was where they proved this concept, this new concept that this fast moving, hit and run piratical kind of operation would actually succeed. You know, you might have imagined they would sit back on their laurels and think, you know, we've pulled it off, we've achieved it. But instead they decided to do the last thing the enemy would expect, which was to go back and attack exactly the same air bases again, and to do so between Christmas and New Year, the season of goodwill towards all men. Because one, you would never expect these raiders to come and attack the same base so quickly. And secondly, during that time of year. So they carried out another series of equally successful raids, and by that time they had proven that, you know, this concept of, of these, these surprise attacks, these shoot and scoot operations could work."

Voiceover: "The unit's reputation grew as they successfully executed daring raids and sabotage missions behind enemy lines. This success attracted volunteers from other units and even civilians, and their numbers began to climb rapidly. In October 1942, the unit was renamed, getting rid of the 'L detachment' and 'Brigade'. They would become known more simply as the SAS. As the British Army recognised the effectiveness of the SAS tactics, more resources were allocated to the unit and this allowed them to experiment with new tactics." 

Damien Lewis: "Like they acquired a few Jeeps to test out, and these were brilliant vehicles, obviously, for traversing the desert. Perfect. You know, you could very nimble 4x4 great over all terrain. Plus you could carry a lot of your equipment in the back. So they were perfect. But what they didn't have is weaponry. And so they went and scavenged these Vickers K machine guns from some obsolete Allied warplanes. They bolted them onto the jeeps on pivots, and they realised that they could drive into enemy air bases, use the machine guns on pivots to just shoot up all the warplanes and drive out again just as quickly. As soon as they departed their base they were a law unto themselves, and that's one of the things that really, really, you know, got a middle East High commander, a lot of the middle ranking officers was that they had no control over the SAS, really on the ground once they departed on operations. And that was the great strength of a of their way of waging war. It meant they could try things out. It meant they could think the unthinkable and put it into action. Just like that idea with the Vickers machine guns, and test out whether it was possible."

Voiceover: "The SAS was not only gaining a reputation amongst the Allies, but Axis soldiers too. Word was beginning to spread about these night time raids, where, seemingly out of nowhere, Allied soldiers would attack and destroy vital equipment and supplies, then disappear just as fast."  

Damien Lewis: "Initially, the enemy didn't believe these, that they they just couldn't conceive that these raiders were coming from the desert, that that's impossible. They can't be coming from the desert, so we can rule that out, so they thought they were commando raids from the sea. And then eventually, of course, you know, individuals were spied coming from the desert. So eventually they had to accept the fact that somehow these, you know, completely unorthodox British operations were somehow coming through thousands of kilometres.

Erwin Rommel said of the SAS, "this one unit has caused me more harm and damage than any other unit of similar size within Allied forces." And it wasn't just harm and damage in terms of war material destroyed, it was actually much more harm and damage to the morale of his troops because if you can be attacked anywhere when you're asleep in your bed at night, hundreds of miles behind the front line, it's absolutely devastating for your morale."

Voiceover: "After their time in North Africa, the SAS would continue to grow in size. They would go on to play a vital role on D-Day and continue to disrupt, destroy and intimidate German forces to great effect throughout France and Germany until the end of the war." 

Damien Lewis: "By October 1945, the SAS had been disbanded. That's how we thank them for five years of waging war in the way they had. They were just some summarily disbanded. We don't need you anymore. You were fine at a time of war. We don't need individuals like you at a time of peace. So it wasn't until, you know, 1952, several years later, that they were actually reformed and it was for the Malaya emergency, in fact, when we realised that we actually had a pressing need for those kind of irregular operations."

Voiceover: "From its humble beginnings in the North African desert, the SAS has evolved into a global force, leaving an indelible mark on the history of warfare and proving that, in the words of their founder, David Stirling, "Who dares wins."

Damien Lewis: "So, SAS Daggers Drawn publishes in October this year, it will be available on all good bookshops, on Amazon and all good online retailers. And you know, SAS Daggers Drawn will, it's special book because it is, it is in my view, certainly Germany especially is the least known part of the SAS' history in World War two, so it's really worth having a read of it for that reason."