Dan Snow's History Hit - Rogue Heroes: Veteran of the SAS

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Mike Sadler is the last surviving original member of the SAS and is featured in the new television series SAS Rogue Heroes as a dashing young man and master of desert warfare. Major Sadler, now 101, was the navigator for the regiment’s founder David Stirling, guiding raiding columns for hundreds of miles behind enemy lines in North Africa. In this archive interview, he talks to Dan about how he came to join this legendary unit at its very conception and his service during the Second World War.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!Download History Hit app from the Google Play store.Download History Hit app from the Apple Store.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. There's a new TV show in the UK that's proving a hit.

It's a dramatisation of Ben McIntyre's book. Ben McIntyre's been on the podcast talking about the early years, the formation of the SAS in North Africa 80 years ago. That has now been dramatized, and it's proving very popular. I love it. Not because it's particularly accurate, doesn't give you a particularly insightful portrayal into the course of the war in North Africa, but because it's really good. Like all the best historical fiction, from Shakespeare's Henry V to Gladiator. It's amazing. It's not history, but it's amazing. I like watching it. It's cool. Anyway, I thought this would be a chance to go back into our archives and rebroadcast one of the first podcasts I ever made. Years ago, when history was just a little baby, a little infant,

I went to talk to Mike Sadler. He is the only surviving veteran of the early days of the SAS. He's now 101 years old. I talked to him about five years ago, and as you'll hear, he was in fine form. He is still alive, thankfully. He's still with us. He's a national treasure, and he's featured in this drama as a dashing young man, master of desert warfare so please enjoy this old episode of Dan Snow's History Hit with the one and only original SAS veteran Mike Sadler T-minus 10 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima God save the king no No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.

How did you come to serve in North Africa during the Second World War? Well, I was working in Rhodesia at the time and got into the army there and went through up to Somaliland as an anti-tank gunner in those days. And we were then sent up to North Africa, up to Suez, and ended up digging trenches around Merzema True for defensive places for our two pounders. So at that stage, it looked like the Germans were going to go all the way to Suez. Well, the Germans were at that time in Tobruk, and they were expected to be breaking out and coming down to Alamein.

And so we were actually at Merzema True, which is a bit east of Tobruk. And from there, I did actually get a few days holiday. And I was in Cairo and met a lot of Rhodesians. And they mentioned the LRDG to me, the Long Range Desert Group, which I had never heard of, and, you know, drinking in various bars. They said, would you like to join? Because they thought they needed an anti-tank gunner, which I happened to be at the time.

So they told me about the LRDG. It sounded exciting and interesting. So you joined the LRDG, the Long Range Desert Group, the forerunner of the SAS because you were drinking in the right bars. That's right, yes. But it wasn't actually the forerunner because the SAS was at the time forming up in, although I didn't know that either, it was being formed by David Sterling down in the Canal Zone.

And so I joined the LRDG, which had just started, not very long before. And the headquarters were at the time in Kufra, in southern Libya. And it was quite a journey from Cairo, because eventually they kindly accepted me and I was transferred. And on the journey down to Kufra, I was so fascinated to see. They had to shoot the stars and so on to find out where we were. And I sat up with them during the night to see what they did.

And when we got to Kufra, the first thing I found, I was joining a Rhodesian patrol in Kufra, and the first thing they said when I arrived was, would you like to be a navigator? And I thought, oh, yes, that was, I never looked at another anti-tank gun after that. So I became a navigator, and I learned the business in a fortnight in Kufra

and then went out on a patrol. And from then on, I was a navigator in the LRDG. And what was the job of the LRDG at that point? Well, it was largely reconnaissance because nobody knew anything about the desert. And at the time, or rather sometime before, it was believed in HQ in Cairo that the deserts were more or less impossible and that therefore there was no possible threat coming from the Italians at the time down in those parts of Libya.

And so it was partly a reconnaissance business. And then also they did a road watch where we got up to a long way behind the front line and sat on the roadside and recorded what was going up towards the front. And then that was transmitted back at night, two chaps walked down every night to

the road side and lay behind a suitable bush through the following day recording what went to and fro on the roads which was the only road going up to the front. It was probably pretty interesting. Did you ever think, this is a bit hairy,

I wish I had my old job back working as a regular artilleryman, or was this great, was it exciting? No, I didn't really particularly want to be an artilleryman. It was just the only thing that I could get into at the time. No, I had no experience. I wasn't a proper soldier. I was, you know, just a wartime soldier. But still, we did get in.

Then as a result of being a navigator in the RDG, the SAS had a disastrous first experience by parachute, and then they realized that they could get there by land instead. And their first experience was due to the hazards of parachuting in a high wind and in the dark and so on, and with very little experience. And so the LRDG actually picked up the few survivors, and David Sterling was very keen to do an operation as soon as possible

after that so that his unit wouldn't be wiped out as being a disaster. And so he had managed to arrange for the LRDG to take them to their targets for their first successful operation. And I happened to navigate Paddy Main, who was the sort of star operator, to the furthest west airfield in Libya, Wadi Tamit it was called at that time or Tamit which was a successful operation, although

I didn't participate, we only got them there and brought them home again. But you were a star navigating, just going by the stars, like a ship across an ocean It was just like being on the ocean except there weren't the currents to contend with. But the training became useful later when I was sailing.

But I had to add to the knowledge by learning about the tides and currents. But no, it was somewhat similar. It was a daytime, Colonel Bagnold, who did the groundwork before the war, which gave rise to the NRDG, and he indeed set it up originally. And he had invented or designed a sun compass, a very, very good sun compass, which was much more, the army had a great compass and something like a soup plate with all the ephemera on it practically and he produced

a little, a very little neat compass with a dial about that size and a needle, a sun compass so you could set a course on it and have a few tables to work out where the sun was at any given moment in the day and you could set a course on it and have a few tables to work out

where the sun was at any given moment in the day and you could set the right setting on it and then just drive on the shadow because you had a 360 degrees around the top aligned with the vehicle that you were in and with the aid of that you could drive fairly accurately in the daytime, provided that the sun usually was shining then.

And that was all you had to do, really. And then at night, one had to use an airplane compass with graticules and things. You could set a course on that. But then it was an awful fiddle because it was totally inaccurate, the compass, because it's so affected by metal in the vehicle and stuff being moved. Or you move a jerry can around the back, it altered the setting on the compass. And so the only way to really use it at night was to get away from the jeep and line it up with a hand-bearing compass, and then you just use the aeroplane compass just merely to maintain the course that it was on.

And what about that first expedition with Blair Maynes, one of the legendary figures of World War II in the British Army? What do you remember about him on that first journey? Well, I didn't know him to start with. Well, I suppose I didn't really know him anyway, because he was with a little party of his own. We just had him in the Jeeps. No, they were not in the Jeeps, in the

LRDG Laureus rather, which we had at that time. well, I thought he was, you know, I was very impressed by him. He was a very quiet fellow. He always was. Both he and David Sterling were amazingly quiet. They never really raised

their voices. They were very quiet. They were great leaders. They were both, yes, they were natural leaders. David Sterling could get you to do anything, you know. You couldn't refuse. You know, it was awesome. By saying, well, Mike, I wonder if you

would do this. You know, you'd feel, oh yes, I would. And what do you remember about that first operation that's the first SAS's

first successful operation how did it go there was the first time we

met them we drove up from Kufra to Jalo which was sort of halfway up

to the coast and met this ragged team of survivors and well we were

pretty ragged as well of of course. And then we got allocated a team to go to various airfields. And I was lucky enough to get Blair Main. So, yes, that was it. We left where we met, and then we set off on quite a long journey westwards to Temet. I can't remember now how far it was, but I think it was two or three days. And that part of it was all great fun in those days because I loved the desert

and I loved the navigation. And one was discovering, it was a voyage of discovery because the maps except in the very coastal regions had nothing much on them except longitude and latitude lines and undotted lines

with a believed camel track or something like that so it was entirely like being at sea. And then when we got to Wadi Temit, it's a very big, long, deep wadi leading up to where the airfield was. And we got down in there and they went off and had a very successful raid. Some disputed parts about it, but it was very successful.

I think they put bombs on about 30 airplanes there, and believed to be, I think they were confirmed as successive. And it was the most successful of that group of race because two or three people David went to another one and there was a third airfield visited I can't remember, I think Aljadabia and

on that Jock Lewis who was a sort of co-founder of the SAS was hit by a strafing founder of the SAS was hit by a strafing aircraft afterwards, that was the snag

about these rays you always got chased afterwards and he actually got hit and died well he was killed in fact and he was one of the co-founders with David of the SAS so he was killed in fact and he was one of the co-founders with David of the SS so he was a great

loss It must have been pretty hairy escaping from those raids was it a matter of hiding or was it a matter of getting out of there as fast as you could Well it was a matter of combination because you could get

that far away. I mean, on one of the raids, the Foucault or Sidionish raid, my duty was to go to one corner of the airfield while they drove jeeps around it, shooting up the aircraft and wait until dawn in case somebody had been lost and they had somewhere to go to where they might be brought back. So I got away from there really at dawn after the raid. And I actually drove through a German column that had set out into the desert to look for us. What happened then?

Well, I drove through it from the back. Nobody noticed. I don't think they expected anyone to be behind. And they'd stopped to have a cup of tea and stuff on the roadside. And so I drove on and out and luckily joined up with somebody further down. And that was, well, everything tended to be a bit of luck at the time because we didn't really know what was going on very much. But I found, I just had one Jeep and another chap, a driver,

I was trying to navigate. And when we, I suppose about 10 miles further on, we got away from that column. They didn't think, nobody thought anything of it. I suppose there were a lot of cars driving about. And I saw a fellow on the horizon saying, get down, get down. And when we got there, we found that we had to lie up for the day there because we couldn't have moved.

A load of aircraft came. I can't remember what they were now. I think they were Stukas, either Stukas or ME-109. And they flew around us and then flew away again. And we discovered then that over the ridge there was a German recovery unit collecting wrecked vehicles on the other side of the ridge. So that was why the aircraft didn't bore us. They probably thought we were part of the same thing.

Was it an exciting feeling that you were contributing really tangibly to the war effort rather than just sitting, manning the defences in Allemhalter or somewhere like that? Well, yes, it was a nice, it was outdoor life, and it was quite exciting. I mean, it was alarming at times. It was quite alarming, and there was a possibility of you being hit by somebody.

But, no, I wasn't all that keen on being shot or anything. But, you know, who was? It was just a hard life. I mean, it was very hot. We didn't have enough water or food for quite long periods, that sort of thing. But still, I personally enjoyed it really on the whole. And you forget about the bad bits to some extent. So I can remember the good things like the camping in the evening.

like camping in the evening. And we found that we got used to get a little ration of rum and lime last thing in the day to restore our spirits. And if you put it in a plate under one of the cars, the cool breeze blowing would cool it down and make a very nice drink. And that was the sort of thing we remembered with pleasure. But you also had an extraordinary adventure eventually, didn't you, of escape and evasion. Tell me what happened there.

Oh, well, that was when David Stirling was captured. Well, we had a very long journey. Actually, I met up with David in Cairo because he was planning this and he intended to get into southern Tunisia and do an operation possibly

on the way through to join up with the first army which had landed there and the second SAS who had also landed there, and the Second SAS, who had also landed there. So they were the Americans? They were the Americans, yes. Well, there were British there as well. No, all were there.

No, I think they were mainly Americans. We certainly joined. And the French weren't there, but they were coming out from Lake Chad. General Leclerc and his army or his division were making their way out from Lake Chad in the south. And there was an SAS unit that David had raised and trained and so on with them. trained and so on, with them. And he wanted, he commissioned me there. He said, I'm in his brother's flat in Cairo. His brother was in the embassy there.

And he lived in Cairo, so he had a flat, which David tended to use as his unofficial headquarters and he called he asked for me to go there to help with some planning on this operation and

halfway through the meeting he said Mike I need you as an officer he said go and get yourself some bits in the bazaar. So that's what I did. And we then

planned this operation, which was to do a sort of long desert journey through, along the inside of Libya to the south of Tunisia. Then we had to go through a gap, a narrow gap between the sea and a big salt lake, the Gavez Gap, which was only a few miles wide and was a sort of holding point, a possible

front line, and then to do some operation there and join up with his brother and give them the benefit of our experience. So it was a long journey. I can't really remember how long, but we had to take some extra Jeeps with just petrol and leave them in the desert, having removed any useful bits in order to get there. And when we met up with the French, with a French SS unit south of the garbage gap,

a unit south of the garbage gap. And we were very tired. And eventually, at nighttime, we drove through the garbage gap. We drove over and we suddenly found airplanes appearing around us. And we were driving over an airfield that we didn't even know existed. And then early next morning, just first light, we drove through a German unit that was gathering its wits by the roadside again. And we had to hurry on from there as well.

Did you engage them or did you just whiz past? No, we wanted to get to our destination. So, no, we just whiz past and drove as far as possible. We thought... We knew there was a coast road and we knew that there was

a route along the south side of the lakes and we thought that if we divided the angles, you'd get as far as possible away from both sides. And quickly, what we didn't know was that there was another one which did just that. And anyway, we drove.

And you could see some nice hills in the distance. The sun shone, sun rose. And we drove across all sorts of scrubby desert fields you know and little huts and things and but we thought we would get shell and get some shelter of some kind and in these hills and finally got them find a lovely wadi and went into that. I was in the first vehicle at the time, navigating and so on, and drove up the wadi as far as possible.

You couldn't go any further. And we stopped there. And then the rest of them stopped all the way down the wadi. And we were absolutely dead because it was a long journey and a hard night, no sleep. And so we'd fallen asleep. Johnny Cooper and I were in sleeping bags. And first thing I knew, I was being kicked by someone. And I looked up and there was an Africa Corps fellow holding me with his schweizer or whatever it was

and kicked me in the... I was in a sleeping bag. And Johnny Cooper was the same. So, but our jeep, we couldn't... There was nothing we could do. They told us to keep lying down in our bags and they went on a bit down the wadi. I think they were on a recce.

But we couldn't do anything because our jeep was covered in camouflage and tarpaulins and so on. And so we couldn't reach anything and we had no weapons with us. So we finally, in an instantaneous decision, decided we were either going to go into a POW camp or make a break for it. So we did. And, oh, a long day. This was sort of, I suppose it was about midday sometime, perhaps a bit later in the afternoon. I suppose it was about midday sometime, perhaps a bit later in the afternoon.

And Johnny and I and a Frenchman, we'd been picked, we'd been allotted a Frenchman from the Lake Chad party. We scarpered up the hillside and, well, because the other fellas had just gone down to a little corner a few yards further down the wadi. And eventually we managed to hide up on top of the river, we got to the ridge more dead than alive, and managed to hide in a little narrow wadi. And was lucky enough to have a goat herder come round with his goats

all round our area. So I think they did look for us because they knew we'd got away. And oddly enough, a little while ago, I got an account from somebody, I've forgotten who, of a German unit that claimed to have been involved in capturing David. And in it there was a little description by the chap who wrote it of kicking a man in a sleeping bag and poking him in the ribs with his gun. And I think it was me. So it was interesting to see afterwards.

But you were then stuck with no water or food? No, we just thought we got jumped out of our sleeping bags with, which was nothing. But we had got our boots on luckily. We hadn't removed them. And we had, it was winter times, and we had it was winter times and we had

some rudiments of military clothing, battle dress top and probably shorts as I can't remember now and so we had to wait until sunset until it got dark and we then started moving on

we knew that I knew that if, I knew that if we got about 100 miles along to the west to Tuzor we could with luck it might be in French hands. We thought it might be in French hands.

So we had a long walk and we did get some, managed to get one of the, we met bad arrows and good arrows, and we were stoned by the bad ones. And the good ones, some of the good ones gave us an old goat skin full of water. We had to tie up holes on the sides.

But we had that leaking goat skin. And we had a few dates. They also gave us a few dates. But you walked 100 miles? Yes, it was more than 100 miles. But that was quite a journey too. And of course our shoes felt a bit when we got there we were met some staggering a lot of shoe stuffs towards the palm trees

some African native troops came out burn its figs and captured us and there we were in Tozawa You listened to Dan Snow's History.

We're talking about the birth of the SAS with Mike Sadler, the last surviving veteran. More coming up. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. And the French were there.

The French were there, and they had jerry cans full of Algerian wine. So we had a fairly good welcome. But they couldn't keep us, and so later that same night, because they said we were in the American zone and they couldn't accept responsibility for us. So we were carted off and surrendered to the Americans. That was a funny occasion too. There was an American war reporter there whose name I can't, he's written a book I've got here. And he happened to be at the local headquarters and he spoke French. So when the French people explained

our situation, he went up to get the local fellow, the local commander from upstairs and he came down as a squad of soldiers came in and we we were. I was still clutching my goatskin bag and really were tattered beyond belief. And he came in with a squad of soldiers surrounding the room. And he said, have these men covered, Sergeant? There we were. They were all. What a joke. But he decided he couldn't deal with such a heavy responsibility,

and so he loaded us into an ambulance and sent us off the very same night off up to north Tunisia to go to the American Head Court. And we were followed by this correspondent who's written a little description of our arrival in a book of his. And one jeep were full of correspondents, including this chap, and another jeep full of armed Americans in case we tried to escape. of armed Americans in case we tried to escape. He couldn't believe, because this was about 100 miles away from the British, from the Eighth Army, which was the other side of the Garbiers Gap. And so he thought we must be German spies or something.

Well, I'm not surprised. How long did it take you to walk across that huge stretch of desert? I think it was three nights and four days, roughly speaking. But we mostly walked at night, partly because it's cooler at night and you conserve the water better, and partly because there was less chance of some chance of unknown people spotting us. And you'd memorized the map effectively, had you?

How did you know where to go? Well, I knew the lay of the land sort of thing. There was salt along a lot of Welsh, no, not Welsh, sorry, a lot of salt lakes extending westward from Garthes, all the way out to Tazor, which is 100 miles away. And there was the salt lakes on the one side, and there were hills on the other side. And I knew that if we followed along the edge of the salt lakes, Morris,

we would eventually, if we did survive, we would eventually get to Tuzor. So I didn't call for much navigating. I just called for following what you knew. And you had a few dates, but no other food at all? No, just a few dates and some water. One day you can live for a long time on dates. Wow. That is extraordinary.

And David Stirling was captured. When you got back to the Brits, did you rejoin? Yeah, no. They sent me back to the Eighth Army headquarters and then to the headquarters of General Freiburg and the New Zealand Division, which was leading the march on Agaves. And I was sent to see him because having been through the country, I knew it.

And I had a couple of days there with him at his caravan. We talked quite a bit about the going and what I knew, which was not all that much. And he was extremely interested in his son, who I think at that time had been sent to the LRDG. I didn't know him. I had met the general. So that was an interesting moment.

And that was the end of my North Africa, because the war ended just shortly after that, and by the time I'd been sent back to Cairo, and then I was sent on a parachute course in Palestine because I wasn't really regarded as a proper SAS man, not having done their training and parachuting and all the rest of it. So David, in the meantime, well, we could hear them. They had actually, the Germans had bottled up the party in the Wadi

because we didn't know they were coming. And we should have done, but we didn't. But had we known, there's nothing we should have done but we didn't but had we known there was nothing we could have done because there was no you couldn't get the vehicles out of there and they had an armored car although I couldn't see that

but I could hear it going on down down the valley he was captured although I think he escaped I think he escaped in the early days. We were always told that the best chance of escaping was as soon as possible after he was captured. And he certainly did escape, but was recaptured. And then by stages, I think he was in a prison camp in Italy

and then eventually ended up in Colditz. This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes.

Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. And then there was a pause at that stage, getting ready for the invasion into Italy. And by then, I was sent back to the UK to prepare for the next thing. But the trouble is, I never kept any records and I mean we weren't supposed to keep records and some people did I think but they had some useful information

but I had no records of any kind so I've never been able to do anything other than to remember things. Well you've got a very good memory. What did you do back in the UK in preparation for the invasion of Europe?

Well, I went up to Scotland to help with the setting up of a base there and then doing recruiting to get more people in. They wanted to enlarge the SAS by that stage. And there was a big recruiting business. So we were getting new people in, recruiting people, and training up in Scotland. And, you know, that was mainly what we were doing.

And then I became an IO., an intelligence officer of sorts, because I was never trained. I wasn't a properly trained soldier, really. And so I transferred. I was doing more of that than training in the end and planning for what was going to happen in North Africa. So that was my job. And at some stage then, I think it was later,

I think it was after I got back from France, I was sent off to America for a lecture tour. But what about Operation Overlord and beyond? How involved were you in that? Well, at the time of D-Day, I was busy. I was a dispatching officer at that time. I was sending off the little parties, you know, briefing them and taking them to airfields to drop.

And so I was supposed to wait at the airfield till the aircraft got back and debrief the crew about what had happened. But I was found it was possible to get on the aircraft and go and get your own view on what happened. So as a sort of in the second pilot seat because the Stirling didn't have a second pilot, they didn't carry a second pilot so I could usually manage to go out with a dropping party. So I did that and then I got the debriefs and reported what happened. And so you were dropping them.

They were parachuting into France and carrying out missions there. Yes. And then subsequently, Paddy Mayne, who was by that time commanding the SAS, he was a man who wanted to be there doing something, and he wanted me to go with him. So we parachuted into central France sometime after D-Day. This was because we had been servicing the people who were there already. And we parachuted into the Morvan area.

And he, I don't really exactly know what happened to him. I was deputed to drive from the Morvan Mountains up through France in a jeep with a new thin jack on the front. Not a small one, admittedly. and to the Forest of Orléans to find out what had happened to one of the SAS units that had been dropped in the Forest of Orléans area and had gone off the air. So I was deputed really to go and find them and find out what had happened and restore their communications. So that's what I did.

Were you driving through German health territory that day? Oh, yes, all the way. Quite a long. Well, not exactly on the main roads, although I had to pass the main road. Well, no, back way especially. I had a little mucky fellow who knew the back roads and the jeep, and we drove on. How did you cope with the constant terror of being captured? Well, it wears you down a bit in the end I must admit

but as long as you're not you don't I don't know I was pretty shattered by the end

of it I must admit but still that was part of the job at the time how old were you

in 1944 I would have been 24 by then so you were That was part of the job at the time. How old were you in 1944? I would have been 24 by then. So you were a grizzled veteran by then? No. Grizzled, yes, I suppose so. And so as the line started to move, as the British and Americans and Canadians allies started to push the Germans back through northern France

into Belgium and Holland, we still are not in operations. I think that is when I went on this lecture tour in America because I didn't have any more active involvement after that. I didn't get into Germany because Paddy got his fourth DSO on that part. But I wasn't with him then. And then the SAS went up to Norway where they appeared to have rather a jolly time. Yeah, let's just quickly remind everyone.

So Blair Main, a.k.a. Paddy Main, was he one of the most decorated soldiers of World War II? Well, he had four DSOs. Four Distinguished Service Soldiers. Yeah, at various different times and through the war. That's extraordinary. Yes, he was actually recommended for a VC, but I think the four DSOs was even rarer than a VC. And then after the war, did you leave the army fairly quickly or did you stay on?

No, I stayed on. Before we were demobbed, I got out early because by that time I was doing Adjutant's job. We were just gathering up to be demobbed down in Chelmsford, and I was doing the adjutant's job, and I got a letter in from the colonial office asking whether there would be any volunteers from the SAS to go on an expedition to the Antarctic. So I took that into Paddy and said, I'm the first volunteer.

And he decided he'd like to come as well. And another chap volunteered. So we got an early DMO and shipped off to the Antarctic. So I meant to say, to go back, the group of SAS guys you were looking for in the Forest of Orléans, I forgot to ask, did you find them or not? They'd all been ambushed and killed. Okay.

He was a famous pre-war cartoonist, Ian Fenwick. He used to have very good little cartoons in Men Only before the war. And during the war, of course, as well, he did. But by the time he got into the SAS, he had a, I think he was a captain then. I'm not quite certain. And he had one of the units that went in after D-Day or about D-Day. And he was in the Forest of Orleal area. And he was operating there.

But he was on his way into a local village. I suppose that he, I don't know, he must have known something about it. And he was ambushed just outside the village and they were all killed. When the war was over, were you just absolutely overjoyed or did part of you think I'll miss the excitement and miss the thrill? Well, there was a period after the actual war part was over, I was sent back as part of the war crimes department to look into what had happened to one of the patrols.

In fact, it turned out that it was a patrol that I had been in an aircraft that had dropped them that had been actually compromised and they fell into the hands of the Gestapo who had organised the dropping so and on our way back from that one we were attacked

by a night fighter so you know, one realized it had all gone wrong. The pilot said that as we crossed the DZ, he had found a lot of turbulence, which was

I think the other aircraft had been doing a ready flight. And as we climbed up out of the thing, an ME-110 attacked us. So that was yet another experience which was a bit alarming at the time. So when the war was over, was it sheer relief

or do you think part of you missed it? Well, by then I was in the Antarctic. That was a different experience. Well, I missed the desert. I missed a bit of the excitement and the chaps, the friends and things that one had made. But because the war went on, I went on from there and did other things. And now, are you the last of the long-range desert group slash SAS, do you think, surviving from the war? I should, well, there's an LRDG chap surviving, certainly because he will be, I just heard a couple of days ago

that he will certainly be at the LRDG reunion, which I'm hoping to go to, which is, I think, on the 7th of next month. No, not sure about that. Yeah, I think it's early next month anyway. And, yeah, that's it. There are two or three other people. I don't think there are any who were in the desert. Yes, I think there is one who was in the desert, Jack Mann.

I'm not sure what happened to him. I saw him a couple of years ago. But he may still be alive. And I think there may be one or two others that I don't know about. Well, it's been a great honour. Thank you very much for talking to me today. Thank you for taking the time. Well, I shall be interested to know what you do with it.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.