2SAS: Bill Stirling and the forgotten special forces unit of World War II

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At one point, four groups were active deep behind enemy lines laying waste to airfields, attacking convoys and derailing trains.

With David Stirling captured and Paddy Mayne now in charge of the SAS, their attention must turn from the conflict in North Africa to mainland Europe. Mayne led the special unit to Sicily and Italy in 1943 and through the final campaigns of the war in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Norway, often campaigning alongside local resistance fighters.Stirling told Cowles that Mayne was ‘under close detention’ for knocking out his commanding officer when he was invited to join the SAS. Fifty-five men would parachute into the desert and attack five airfields, destroying as many aircraft as they could with Lewes bombs. His father had land, money and status, but when he died in 1932 they passed to his brother Bill, the firstborn of his six children. Stirling had been captured in January 1943 and on his release from captivity in April 1945 he assumed he would be welcomed back into the SAS with open arms. As Stirling’s oft-told story goes, it was during his recovery period that he refined the idea that became the SAS.

Stirling was the founder of “ private military company” KAS International, also known as KAS Enterprises. In May 1942, he drove the car straight into occupied Benghazi, in Libya, bold as brass, talking his way through an Italian checkpoint and outmanoeuvring German cars. However, eyewitnesses to the shooting in Gibraltar stated in the Thames Television documentary Death On The Rock that they believed McCann and Farrell were shot with their hands up.On April 21 a signal was sent to Germany over the brigade’s communication channel: ‘David Stirling in great heart, sends many messages and congratulations to all, and hopes to come out and visit you soon’.

He was the son of Brigadier-General Archibald Stirling, of Keir, and Margaret Fraser, daughter of Simon Fraser, the Lord Lovat (a descendant of Charles II). Sir Archibald David Stirling DSO OBE (15 November 1915 – 4 November 1990) was a Scottish officer in the British Army, a mountaineer, and the founder and creator of the Special Air Service (SAS). The current Laird of the Keir estate is his nephew Archie Stirling, a millionaire businessman and former Scots Guards officer. The object was to locate escaped prisoners of war in the interior and muster them on beach locations for extraction.Further new cast members for series two of SAS Rogue Heroes include Paolo De Vita (Anonymous, La Grande Guerra del Salento), Anna Manuelli (Blocco 181, Pezzi unici), Edward Bennett (Industry, Save Me Too) and Matteo Franco.

At that time, there was already a deception organisation in the Middle East area, which wished to create a phantom airborne brigade to act as a threat to enemy planning. However, because of his opposition to universal suffrage, preferring a qualified and very elitist voting franchise, educated Africans were divided on it and it attracted insufficient support. The SAS Regiment increased their operational focus on Northern Ireland, with a small element known as the Ulster Troop that were permanently stationed in Northern Ireland to provide specialist support to the British Army and RUC.

On 1 February 1941, Layforce sailed for the Middle East, in support of the capture of Rhodes, but were soon disbanded after suffering heavy casualties in the Battle of Crete and the Battle of the Litani River. Bob Tait, who had accompanied Stirling on the first raid, produced the winning entry: the flaming sword of Excalibur, the legendary weapon of King Arthur. On mainland Italy they were involved in Operation Begonia which was the airborne counterpart to the amphibious Operation Jonquil. The following Christmas Francis decided to propose to his girlfriend in a brief window when she would be on leave in London.