The Phantom Major
The Phantom Major

Author: Virginia Cowles

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2011-06-13

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1848849648

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An action-packed biography of “one of the legitimate storybook heroes of World War II” and the special forces regiment he founded (The New York Times). In the dark and uncertain days of 1941 and 1942, when Rommel’s Afrika Korps was sweeping toward Egypt and the Suez Canal, a small group of daring raiders made history for the Allies. They operated deep behind German lines, driving hundreds of miles through the deserts of North Africa. They hid by day and struck by night, destroying aircraft, blowing up ammunition dumps, derailing trains, and killing many times their own number. These men were the Special Air Service. The SAS was the brainchild of David Stirling, a deceptively mild-mannered man with a brilliant idea. Under his command, small teams of resourceful, highly trained men penetrated beyond the front lines of the opposing armies and wreaked havoc where the Germans least expected it. From Virginia Cowles, whose biographies have been praised as “splendidly readable” (Sunday Times) and “fascinating” (Kirkus Reviews), this is a classic account of these raids, an amazing tale of courage, impudence, and daring packed with action and high adventure. Her narrative, based on the eyewitness testimony of the men who took part, gives a compelling insight into the early years of the SAS.

David Stirling
David Stirling

Author: Gavin Mortimer

Publisher: Constable

Published: 2022-05-26

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 1472134567

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Aristocrat, gambler, innovator and special forces legend, the life of David Stirling should need no retelling. His formation of the Special Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to a new form of warfare and Stirling is remembered as the father of special forces soldiering. But was he really a military genius or in fact a shameless self-publicist who manipulated people, and the truth, for this own ends? In this gripping and controversial biography Gavin Mortimer analyses Stirling's complex character: the childhood speech impediment that shaped his formative years, the pressure from his overbearing mother, his fraught relationship with his brother, Bill, and the jealousy and inferiority he felt in the presence of his SAS second-in-command, the cold-blooded killer Paddy Mayne. Stirling lived until old age, receiving a knighthood and plaudits from military forces around the world before his death in 1990. Yet as Mortimer dazzlingly shows, while Stirling was instrumental in selling the SAS to Churchill and senior officers, it was Mayne who really carried the regiment in the early days. Stirling was at best an incompetent soldier and at worst a foolhardy one, who jeopardised his men's live with careless talk and hare-brained missions. Drawing on interviews with SAS veterans who fought with Stirling and men who worked with him on his post-war projects, and examining recently declassified governments files about Stirling's involvement in Aden, Libya and GB75, Mortimer's riveting biography is incisive, bold, honest and written with his customary narrative panache. Impeccably researched and with the courage to challenge the mythical SAS 'brand', Mortimer brings to bear his unparalleled expertise as WW2's premier special forces historian to dig beneath the legend and reveal the real David Stirling, a man who dared and deceived.

Rogue Warrior of the SAS
Rogue Warrior of the SAS

Author: Martin Dillon

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-10-14

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1780573774

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More than half a century after his death, Lt Col. Robert Blair Mayne is still regarded as one of the greatest soldiers in the history of military special operations. He was the most decorated British soldier of the Second World War, receiving four DSOs, the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d'honneur, and he pioneered tactics used today by the SAS and other special operations units worldwide. Rogue Warrior of the SAS tells the remarkable life story of 'Colonel Paddy', whose exceptional physical strength and uniquely swift reflexes made him a fearsome opponent. But his unorthodox rules of war and his resentment of authority would deny him the ultimate accolade of the Victoria Cross. Drawing on personal letters and family papers, declassified SAS files and records, together with the Official SAS Diary compiled in wartime and eyewitness accounts from many who served with him, the picture emerges of a soldier who, although a flawed hero, was unquestionably one of the most distinctive combatants of the campaigns in the Western Desert and Europe.

Stirling's Men
Stirling's Men

Author: Gavin Mortimer

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780304367061

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The first ever officially sanctioned history of the SAS in World War II A riveting history book that reads like a novel, STIRLING'S MEN investigates the story of the SAS from its creation by David Stirling to the last battles of World War II. This is the first account of the SAS to be officially supported by the veterans and based on their unique first-hand testimony. Gavin Mortimer weaves their stories together to produce a fabulous page-turning narrative that will capture the imagination.

Jock Lewes: Co-founder of the SAS
Jock Lewes: Co-founder of the SAS

Author: John Lewes

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2000-03-30

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1526788357

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Jock Lewes was a dashing young Welsh Guards officer who created a new approach to modern warfare in the SAS with less than two year's experience as a soldier. By the age of twenty-seven Jock co-founded the SAS with David Stirling. Jock was in reality the trainer and 'brains' behind this now legendary fighting force and this stunning biography describes the extent of his contribution. Jock was brought up in Australia during the Depression and later educated at Oxford. Life was rarely dull and he packed it with action and achievement. His Presidency of the Oxford University Boat Club saw Oxford breaking Cambridge University's succession of thirteen wins. Preparing for a job at the Foreign Office, Jock spent several seasons in Berlin. The record of his passion for two women, one a Nazi, the other a young linguist at Somerville College, Oxford, are part of a teeming richness of writing which he left in letters, journals and poems. His death was no less dramatic than his life: after successful raids on enemy aerodromes with his invention of Lewes Bombs, he was hunted down by a Messerschmitt 110 fighter. A highly important addition to ever popular SAS literature. Jock Lewes was the brain behind the formation of the Special Air Service.

Paddy Mayne
Paddy Mayne

Author: Hamish Ross

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2011-08-26

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0752469657

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‘Paddy’ Mayne was one of the most outstanding special forces leaders of the Second World War. Hamish Ross’s authoritative study follows Mayne from solicitor and a rugby international to troop commander in the Commandos and then the SAS, whose leader he later became and whose annals he graced, winning the DSO and three bars, the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’Honneur. Mayne’s achievements attracted attention, and after his early death legends emerged, based largely on anecdote and assertion. Hamish Ross’s closely researched biography challenges much of the received version, using contemporary sources, the official war diaries, the chronicle of 1 SAS, Mayne’s papers and diaries, and a number of extended interviews with key contemporaries. It has the support of the Mayne family and the SAS Regimental Association. In Ross’s analysis Mayne is a dynamic, yet principled and thoughtful man, committed to the unit’s original concepts; not flawless, but whose leadership qualities and tactical brilliance in the field secured the reputation of the SAS.

Rogue Heroes
Rogue Heroes

Author: Ben Macintyre

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1101904178

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by the modern master of wartime intrigue—now a limited series on Epix! “Reads like a mashup of The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, with a sprinkling of Ocean’s 11 thrown in for good measure.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “Rogue Heroes is a ripping good read.”—Washington Post (10 Best Books of the Year) Britain’s Special Air Service—or SAS—was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young aristocrat whose aimlessness belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a World War II battlefield map and saw a protracted struggle, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Defying his superiors’ conventional wisdom, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. Bringing his keen eye for detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to the SAS archives to shine a light on a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy.

The Last Gentleman of the SAS
The Last Gentleman of the SAS

Author: John Randall

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2014-03-27

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1780578342

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In 1945, John Randall was the first Allied officer to enter Bergen-Belsen – the concentration camp that would reveal the horrors of the Holocaust to the world. Randall was one of that league of extraordinary gentlemen handpicked for suicidally dangerous missions behind enemy lines in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany throughout the Second World War. He was a man of his class and of his times. He hated the Germans, liked the French and was unimpressed by the Americans and the Arabs. He was an outrageous flirt, as might be expected of a man who served in Phantom alongside film stars David Niven and Hugh Williams. He played rugby with Paddy Mayne, the larger-than-life colonel of the SAS and winner of four DSOs. He pushed Randolph Churchill, son of the Prime Minister, out of an aeroplane. He wined and dined in nightclubs as part of the generation that lived for each day because they might not see another. This extraordinary true story, partly based on previously unpublished diaries, presents a different slant on that mighty war through the eyes of a restless young man eager for action and adventure.

The SAS in Occupied France
The SAS in Occupied France

Author: Gavin Mortimer

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2020-08-30

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1526769638

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The author of Stirling’s Men recounts the WWII exploits of Britain’s legendary special forces unit in thefirst volume of this authoritative history. The British Army’s Special Air Service was formed during World War II as a commando unit for operations behind enemy lines. Their exploits in France inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans and left a trail of destruction and disorder in their wake. In 1944, they trained the French Maquis into an effective fighting force, delayed German reinforcements at Normandy, and sewed confusion for the German withdrawal. In this volume, historian Gavin Mortimer focuses on 1 SAS, describing operations Titanic, Houndsworth, Bulbasket, Gain, Haggard and Kipling in graphic detail. Using previously unpublished interviews with SAS veterans and members of the Maquis as well as rare photographs, Mortimer allows readers to walk in the footsteps of SAS heroes and see where they lived, fought and died.