“The SAS was ‘special’ because it was much smaller in size and focused on guerrilla warfare”
WHAT IS THE SAS?
The SAS (Special Air Service) is Britain’s elite special forces unit, formed in the summer of 1941 by two Scottish brothers, David and Bill Stirling, who were stationed in Cairo. The war in North Africa was not going well for the British, and the Stirlings came up with the idea for a small parachute unit of volunteers to undertake guerrilla raids deep inside enemy territory.
The first operation was launched on 16 November 1941, but it coincided with a fierce storm, and of the 55 men who parachuted into Libya to attack German and Italian airfields, 34 were killed or captured. Undeterred, David Stirling changed tactics for their next raid in December and hitched a lift to the target in lorries driven by the Long Range
