The name Special Air Service (SAS) is based – appropriately – on a deception: implying to German Intelligence that Britain possessed a bigger air force than it actually did. The SAS was in fact a Commando-style ground force which specialised in espionage and sabotage operations behind enemy lines. Formed in July 1941 in North Africa, it was the brainchild of David Stirling.
Stirling (1915–90) was born in Perthshire. He had joined the Scots Guards from school and in 1939 was training to climb Mount Everest. When war was declared he quickly volunteered to join the newly-formed Commandos. In due course Stirling was posted to Cairo, he was authorised to form the SAS as a special force in North Africa. One of his inspirations was the work of Lawrence of Arabia in World War I.
For fifteen months the SAS hampered General Rommel’s advances in North Africa. They destroyed 250 enemy aircraft on the ground and hundreds more enemy vehicles, destroyed dozens of supply dumps, and wrecked roads and railway communications.
In January 1943, David Stirling was captured by the Germans. After four escapes he was finally sent to Colditz, where he remained till 1945. Apart from North Africa, the SAS saw major action in Sicily, Italy, Greece and France during World War II.
Fitzroy MacLean was a Scottish diplomat, soldier, writer and politician. His family hailed from Argyll, and his cousin was clan chief of the MacLeans. It has been suggested that his career and colourful personality inspired the world’s most famous fictional spy, Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007.
In the 1930s MacLean worked at the British embassies in Paris and then Moscow. In 1939 he joined the army and, later, the newly-formed SAS.
His autobiographical book ‘Eastern Approaches’ (1949) covers some of his Russian adventures, as well as activity in North Africa and Yugoslavia among the Partisans. He got to know Josip Tito well. There are definite hints of 007 in some of his narrative accounts.
After the war, MacLean became a Conservative MP until his retirement in 1974. He remained close to Marshal Tito, by then Yugoslav head of state, and wrote his biography, ‘Disputed Barricade’ in 1957.
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