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

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While there, Stirling is thought to have met Captain Julius Morris Green, a Scottish prisoner of war who worked as a spy for MI9 during his time at the prisoner camp. He organised a private band of mercenaries to operate against Egyptian forces in Yemen – paid for by the Saudis. They were prevented from conducting operations until after the start of the invasion by 21st Army Group. Cleary, an IRA staff officer, was detained by five soldiers in a field while waiting for a helicopter to land. The first mission came from a bet with an RAF captain, who said that Stirling’s men couldn’t sneak into an airfield near Kabrit.

The original name – L Detachment Special Air Service – came from a bogus “1 st Special Air Service Brigade”, already invented by Colonel Dudley Clarke to fool the enemy. It was his eldest brother, Bill, who had the intellectual drive and the military understanding to grasp in the late summer of 1941 that the Axis airfields were vulnerable to a small, well-trained force of guerrillas. After the war, the SAS were disbanded only to be reformed as a Territorial Army regiment, which then led onto the formation of the regular army 22 SAS Regiment.By the end of 1954 it was struggling financially and required the generosity of his brother Bill to keep it afloat. Stirling was depicted by Connor Swindells in the 2022 television historical drama SAS: Rogue Heroes. Their task was then to stop German reinforcements reaching the front line, [18] by being parachuted behind the lines to assist the French Resistance. After his death, Westmacott was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in Northern Ireland during the period 1 February 1980 to 30 April 1980.

Operation Narcissus was a raid by 40 members of 2nd SAS on a lighthouse on the southeast coast of Sicily.It began to dawn on me that Stirling was more Phoney than Phantom, and while he had shamelessly embellished his own image, it was to the detriment of the deceased Mayne, who had been portrayed as a wild, inarticulate, brooding and undisciplined Irishman, which he was not. According to Reg Seekings, one of the original members of the SAS, when the war ended Stirling and Mayne ‘weren’t speaking to each other because there were certain people feeding stories to one another, deliberately building up trouble’. His real name was David Stirling, founder of the Special Air Service (SAS), and a man, opined the columnist, "famous in the war for his desert exploits".

The company operated in Zambia and in Sierra Leone, providing training teams and advising on security matters, but its founders' maverick ways of doing business caused its eventual downfall. Stirling - who neither attended Mayne's funeral or paid tribute to his exploits - came back to Britain and was soon collaborating with a well-known American biographer, Virginia Cowles, on his war memoir. For larger pre-planned operations, Ulster Troop was reinforced by SAS personnel, often in small 2- or 3-man teams from the Special Projects Team.Along with several associates, Stirling formed Watchguard International Ltd, initially with offices in Sloane Street (where the Chelsea Hotel later opened), latterly in South Audley Street in Mayfair. At the same time Stirling was cultivating his contacts in the Iranian government and exploring the chances of obtaining work in Africa. This was followed up in March by a raid on Benghazi harbour with limited success although the raiding party did damage 15 aircraft at Al-Berka.

His Boy's Own heroics captured the imagination of the British people, who needed a reminder of past glories. After planting bombs on German planes, engines, and equipment, Stirling spotted a guardhouse full of Germans.The most damning description of Mayne, however, was the biography Rogue Warrior of the SAS, published in 1987, for which Stirling wrote the foreword and contributed his opinion of Mayne. He was in command of an eight-man plain clothes SAS patrol that had been alerted by the Royal Ulster Constabulary that an IRA gun team had taken over a house in Belfast. He was headhunted by Middle East HQ as an unofficial assistant to Lt-Gen Arthur Smith, Chief of the General Staff, whose boss was General Archibald Wavell, the commander-in-chief, Middle East.