British SAS

Origins

The Special Air Service began in 1941 as David Stirling's argument that a handful of men behind the lines could do a brigade's damage. Stirling, a young Scots Guards officer serving with the commandos in Egypt, persuaded senior commanders to let him raise a small unit, named L Detachment, SAS Brigade, a title meant to make the enemy believe a large British parachute force existed. The first parachute raid, in November 1941, was a disaster in a storm. After that the Long Range Desert Group drove the raiders to their targets, and later the SAS used its own heavily armed jeeps. Striking Axis airfields at night with Lewes bombs, named after their inventor Jock Lewes, the regiment is usually credited with destroying more than 250 aircraft on the ground. The winged dagger badge and the motto "Who Dares Wins" date from those first improvised months.

Organization & Training

After Stirling's capture in January 1943, Blair "Paddy" Mayne took over 1st SAS, which fought in Sicily and Italy and dropped behind German lines in France in 1944. It was disbanded in 1945. A reserve regiment followed, and in 1950 a unit called the Malayan Scouts was raised for the Malayan Emergency. It became 22 SAS in 1952, the regular regiment that exists today. In Malaya it learned deep jungle patrols lasting months and the "hearts and minds" work of winning over local people.

The regiment is organized in squadrons of about sixty men, each split into four-man patrols. Volunteers from across the armed forces must pass Selection, a course of long, timed marches carrying heavy loads over the Brecon Beacons in Wales, followed by jungle training and a test of resistance to interrogation. Most candidates fail. The regiment's base at Hereford includes the "Killing House," a building used to practice close-quarter fighting and hostage rescue.

Weapons & Equipment

In the desert, raiders carried the Thompson Submachine Gun, the Lee-Enfield Rifle and the Bren, while their jeeps mounted twin Vickers K machine guns. In France in 1944 the Sten Gun was common. After the war the regiment used the FN FAL, and in Borneo and Oman it was an early British user of the American Armalite, the M16 Rifle and its variants. For counterterrorism the HK MP5 and the Sig Sauer P226 became standard, and the HK MP7 followed.

Notable Actions

During the Cold War the regiment fought in Malaya, Borneo, Aden and Oman. In Oman's Dhofar war, on 19 July 1972, nine SAS soldiers and local fighters held the small town of Mirbat against several hundred rebels until help arrived. In May 1980 the regiment ended the six-day siege of the Iranian Embassy in London in an assault lasting less than twenty minutes, filmed live on television. Five of the six gunmen were killed, and all but one of the remaining hostages survived. In the 1982 Falklands War it raided Pebble Island, destroying Argentine aircraft on the ground. In the 1991 Gulf War its patrols hunted Scud missile launchers in western Iraq. One patrol, Bravo Two Zero, was discovered and lost three men killed and four captured. Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan followed.

Legacy

The SAS is widely seen as the model for modern special forces. Its selection methods, small-patrol structure and counterterrorist skills were copied by allies, and the founder of America's Delta Force, Charlie Beckwith, served with the regiment before building his own unit in its image. Poland's GROM and many other units followed the same pattern.

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