Personality Profile:
David Stirling
"The Boy Stirling is mad. Quite,
quite mad. However in war there is often a place for mad
people."
Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery
David Stirling was born into a well-to-
do family in Keir, in Stirlingshire in Nov 1915. He was
educated at Ampleworth and Cambridge and was fond of shooting,
stalking and mountain climbing. The idea of office routine
and fixed hours appalled him. When war was declared in 1939,
he joined the Scots Guards. It was not long before he became
bored with routine duties and applied to join Captain Robert
Laycock who raised No.8 Commando from within the Guards.
David Stirling was selected. At the end of 1940 this force
was tasked to capture the island of Rhodes to prevent the
German Air Force from setting up base there. "Layforce"
with a complement of some two thousand men was born.
In February 1941, Layforce disembarked
at Suez. At this stage of the war, the British Army in the
Middle East under Wavell was doing well. Then, Erwin Rommel
and his Afrika Korps stepped in and the fortunes of the
British Army spiralled downwards. Elsewhere, the German
Army began its victorious conquests of Yugoslavia, Greece
and Crete. In July, General Auchinleck took over as Commander-in-Chief
(C-in-C) of the Middle-east.
Meanwhile, Layforce found that its role
in the Middle-east campaign was being questioned. Headquarters
then decided that Layforce was to be disbanded. Stirling
was furious upon hearing this news and refused to accept
that there was no place for special operations in the desert
campaign. He argued that Layforce was too immobile and that
commando troops should be dropped by parachute, as demonstrated
by the German paratroopers in Crete, and not landed by sea.
He theorised that a small group of men parachuted behind
enemy lines could hide in the desert by day and carry out
night raids on unguarded airfields. The commandos would
place their bombs on the aircraft, fade away into the night
and find their way back to their own lines.
Stirling proposed to Auchinleck that a
force of 60 men be raised and that he be allowed to carry
out a raid before a major Allied offensive. General Auchinleck
was pleased; here was a plan that would allow him to take
a chance that did not involve whole divisions. It appealed
to his cautious nature. Stirling's requests were granted;
he could recruit his men, set up a training camp and launch
a raid on German airfields the night before a major offensive
in November. Henceforth, Stirling would attain the rank
of captain and his force would be known as 'L' Detachment
of the Special Air Service (SAS) Brigade.
General Auchinleck's major offensive was
scheduled to open on 18 November 1941. An SAS attack on
five enemy airfields was scheduled for the night before.
The planned raid ended in failure as only 18 out of 62 men
were fit enough for the operation. The rest were injured,
incapacitated or captured during the airdrop. Stirling refused
to be demoralised and at Jalo, the SAS linked up with the
Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). The latter was an elite
group whose task was to provide intelligence reports on
German supply lines and movements by using small wireless
trucks. In the 16 months of their existence, this group
built up an enviable reputation for brilliance, efficiency
and adventure. In late December the SAS swung into action
just before the Allied attack on Benghazi. At Tamit, Sirte
and Agedabia, the SAS conducted successful raids by destroying
more than 61 enemy planes and 30 vehicles within a week,
and without suffering a single casualty. Stirling's theories
had at last been vindicated. Meanwhile, Rommel was withdrawing
his troops from Gazala to Agedabia. The SAS was asked to
knock out his aircraft and reduce his badly needed air cover.
On this mission another 27 aircraft were destroyed at Tamit.
Stirling felt that his unit could strike harder than ever
at enemy bases since the Axis forces had been driven out
of Libya and Benghazi was almost in Allied hands. He proposed
to Auchinleck to carry out a raid by the SAS to destroy
the enemy's ships, petrol dumps and tankers which were being
re-routed to the port of Boureat. This raid was another
success and the harbour at Boureat was rendered unusable
for weeks. Rommel's petrol supplies were severely impeded
by the loss of his giant petrol carriers.
By Feb 1942, however, Churchill was agitated
by the Allies' lack of aggressive action and ordered Auchinleck
to relieve Malta or be relieved of his command. The reason
for this was London's perceived importance of Malta, which
was besieged by the Axis powers. Thus in April, London ordered
the cautious Auchinleck to attack. A precious convoy of
18 ships was to be sent, from the East and the West, out
to Malta. Stirling was briefed on the Malta convoy and was
asked what the SAS could do to reduce enemy attacks on the
convoy from the air. Within 24 hours, Stirling reverted
to his high command with a plan. This involved the raiding
of eight airfields at Benghazi, Derna, Barca and in Crete.
On these raids, the SAS destroyed 37 aircraft including
aircraft engines and ammunition dumps. These actions enabled
a convoy of five ships to run the gauntlet and arrive safely
at Malta which survived.
On 21 June, Stirling was surprised at the
news that Tobruk had fallen to Rommel. The loss of Tobruk
was immense; it was the last bastion that stood in the way
of an Axis invasion of Egypt. In Cairo, Stirling was briefed
on the situation. Churchill's order was specific, Egypt
must be held at all costs. Stirling busied himself by assembling
his force, amounting to 100 trained men. In the meantime,
a new vehicle, the jeep had arrived from America. Stirling
recognised its potential for desert raiding. He fitted several
of the vehicles with Vickers K machine guns and made preparations
for operations that would require his absence from base
for several weeks. The idea was simple; the SAS would raid
enemy lines for several weeks without returning to home
base.
However not all the SAS raids were successful;
in a raid on Bengahzi in Sep 1942, Stirling lost a quarter
of his men after his modest plan for the raid was inflated
into a full scale assault. The plan went against everything
that Stirling believed were essential for a successful raid.
He was forced to swell his ranks with newcomers, all of
whom were not SAS trained; the element of surprise could
not be achieved because a large force was being used and,
finally, the use of a pre-arranged time table clamped the
SAS's mobility resulting in the inability to strike as and
when the opportunity presented itself.
With bad news however, good news soon followed.
The SAS had always lived with the fear of disbandment. However,
providence in the form of Churchill's enthusiastic backing
for the regiment intervened. The SAS would become a full
regiment which proved to be a tremendous victory for Stirling
and his men. It meant that the SAS tactics had become an
accepted part of modern warfare and the detachment would
be a permanent institution. It also meant that Stirling
could treble or quadruple the number of men at his disposal.
At the same time he had not given up the
idea that the SAS must play a decisive role in the remaining
weeks of the desert war. Montgomery who had replaced Auchinleck
as the C-in-C, approved Stirling's plan to to prevent Rommel
from using the coastal road at night. He considered Stirling
'mad' enough to carry out a plan that required penetrating
miles behind enemy lines and attacking the coastal road
on a 400-mile front but agreed that it would have a decisive
effect on his offensive. On 13 Dec, eight SAS patrols took
up positions along 220 miles of the enemy's coastal road
after days of intelligence to deliver their assault; blowing
up enemy transports, laying mines and cutting telephone
wires. By early January 1943, the patrols had caused Rommel
serious problems. They had forced him off the highway where
the RAF took a heavy toll on his forces in the daytime.
British intelligence reports showed that the SAS not only
caused their enemy serious concern but had also rattled
a number of Rommel's subordinates. Despite these accomplishments
the SAS suffered heavy casualties.
In an ill-fated operation that same month,
Stirling was captured by a crack German company specially
flown in for the mission of capturing the raiders. He managed
to escape but was recaptured by the Italians. He was sent
to Colditz prison in Germany where he served out the remainder
of the war. By then, the SAS under Stirling's leadership
had achieved a great deal. In the 15 months prior to his
capture, the SAS had destroyed over 250 aircraft, dozens
of supply dumps, hundreds of enemy vehicles and disrupted
road and railway lines.
Stirling had by then became a well-established
legend. He retired after the war and went to Rhodesia to
seek his fortune in industry. In 1945, the SAS was disbanded.
It was not until Churchill was returned to power that the
SAS was revived and with it the famed winged dagger badge
and the motto Who Dares Wins.
Sir David Stirling died in 1990 and was
buried at St Cumins, on the shores of Loch Morar in Scotland.
Just prior to his death, in that same year, the SAS celebrated
its 50th anniversary and Stirling's impact on
special operations was fully appreciated by the Commander
of Delta Force, the famous American special operations unit
when the latter wrote:
We of the Delta Force have built upon your
philosophies, organisation, and operational concepts in
creating this unit. Your principles and ideas are as sound
today as they were in WWII. The common bond among the special
forces of the Western World is that we all trace our roots
back to you and your innovative design.
Bibliography
1. Cowles, Virginia,
The Phantom Major, Collins, London 1968
2. Hoe, Allan, David
Stirling: The Authorised Biography of the Creator of the
SAS, Little Brown, Great Britain 1992
3. Crawford, Steve,
The SAS At Close Quarters, Sidgwick and Jackson, Great
Britain in 1993.
