THE PHANTOM MAJOR AND THE FOUNDING OF THE SAS
On 10 September 1942 the Stirling Observer ran a story about a local lad under the headline “Daring Deeds in the Middle East”. The newspaper dubbed David Stirling the ‘Phantom Major’ and it gave its readers a flavour of his work deep behind German lines in Libya: “A favourite method was to steal in among the enemy, perhaps after journeys of upwards of four hundred miles, and plant delayed action incendiary bombs in aircraft, hangars and transport. After one such exploit he sent all his men away and waited alone for the first explosion. The moment it came he opened the door of the German guard-house. In front of him he saw a startled officer sitting at a desk. Around the walls in bunks were about eighteen Nazi soldiers. Stirling had a grenade in his hand. ‘Nein, nein, nein!’ said the Nazi, groping for his revolver. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said the British major, and he lobbed the grenade and slammed the door. As he ran into the darkness there was an explosion.”
More than one reader must have started as they read the ‘Boys’ Own’ account. Was this the same Stirling they had known before the war? The privileged aristocrat, the indolent loafer, the lounge lizard, as the press called the foppish young men of the 1930s who preferred nightclubs and cinemas to hard
