The SAS in Occupied France: 1 SAS Operations, June to October 1944

By Gavin Mortimer

The author of Stirling’s Men recounts the WWII exploits of Britain’s legendary special forces unit in thefirst volume of this authoritative history.

The British Army’s Special Air Service was formed during World War II as a commando unit for operations behind enemy lines. Their exploits in France inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans and left a trail of destruction and disorder in their wake. In 1944, they trained the French Maquis into an effective fighting force, delayed German reinforcements at Normandy, and sewed confusion for the German withdrawal.

In this volume, historian Gavin Mortimer focuses on 1 SAS, describing operations Titanic, Houndsworth, Bulbasket, Gain, Haggard and Kipling in graphic detail. Using previously unpublished interviews with SAS veterans and members of the Maquis as well as rare photographs, Mortimer allows readers to walk in the footsteps of SAS heroes and see where they lived, fought and died.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526769633

Gavin Mortimer

Gavin Mortimer is a writer, historian and television consultant whose groundbreaking book Stirling's Men remains the definitive history of the wartime SAS. Drawing on interviews with more than 60 veterans, most of whom had never spoken publicly, the book was the first comprehensive account of the SAS Brigade. He has also written histories of the SBS, Merrill's Marauders and the LRDG, again drawing heavily on veteran interviews. He has published a variety of titles with Osprey including The Long Range Desert Group in World War II and The SAS in World War II.

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Introduction

The first day of March 1944 was an auspicious occasion for the Special Air Service Regiment. In the somewhat incongruous surroundings of St Paul’s School in central London, 21 Army Group convened at their headquarters to ‘consider SAS and SOE [Special Operations Executive] roles’ in the upcoming invasion of France.

The problem facing 21 Army Group was that few, if any, senior officers understood the raison d’être of the SAS. Since their formation in North Africa in the summer of 1941, what had started as a small unit of six officers and sixty men known as L Detachment had undergone a radical transformation. The first mission, a parachute operation in November 1941 to coincide with the start of Operation Crusader, had ended in disaster, and of the fifty-four men who had jumped into Libya to attack a string of Axis airfields, only twenty-one had evaded death or capture.

Consequently, the unit’s founder, David Stirling, had changed tactics. Parachute operations were abandoned and the SAS attacked enemy targets on foot, having been transported close to their objectives in the back of lorries driven by the Long Range Desert Group. In the first half of 1942 the SAS had destroyed 143 aircraft, and then in July they had become truly self-sufficient with the acquisition of a fleet of American Willy Bantam jeeps.

In recognition of their continued success, Stirling was promoted to lieutenant colonel in September 1942 and L Detachment was enlarged to a regiment, comprising twenty-nine officers and 572 other ranks in four squadrons. Four months later Stirling was captured, depriving the SAS of its charismatic, visionary and well-connected leader at the moment the powers-that-be began to look beyond the North African campaign.

Senior staff officers, who either didn’t understand the SAS or didn’t approve of its renegade image, exploited Stirling’s absence to rein in the regiment. The two French squadrons were shipped to Britain for further training and recruitment, one of the British squadrons became a separate entity, the Special Boat Squadron, and the fourth, under the command of Major Paddy Mayne, was reconstituted as the Special Raiding Squadron and sent to the Mediterranean to deploy as commando troops in the invasion of Sicily and Italy.

Included in this photo, taken in Sicily in 1943, are Sid Payne (back row, second left), Duncan Ridler (front row, second left), Harry Poat (front row, fourth left) and Derrick Harrison (second from right).

In the meantime, in Algeria, David Stirling’s elder brother Bill, like his sibling a former Guards and Commando officer, raised 2SAS and strove to adhere to the principles laid down by David when he had first envisaged the SAS. These were, as he explained shortly after the war: ‘A unit based on the principle of the fullest exploitation of surprise and of making the minimum demands on manpower and equipment. I sought to prove that, if an aerodrome or transport park was the objective of an operation, then the destruction of 50 aircraft or units of transport was more easily accomplished by a sub-unit of five men than by a force of 200 men.’

In North Africa the SAS had proved highly effective in raiding enemy airfields in small sub-units but in Sicily and Italy they were wasted as amphibious troops, a role that could easily have been undertaken by other, less highly trained, soldiers.

Now, in the spring of 1944, it appeared to Bill Stirling and Paddy Mayne that the ‘high-ups’ in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) were as ignorant of the SAS as Middle East HQ had been. The SAS, now a brigade, were put under the command of Lieutenant General Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning, commander of 1 Airborne Corps, who immediately antagonised them with an instruction to dispense with the sand-coloured beret and wear the Airborne maroon. Paddy Mayne ignored the order and continued to wear the beret designed by David Stirling, an act of defiance emulated by many of the Originals.

David Stirling, younger brother of Bill, founded the SAS in 1941.

The officer in charge of the SAS was Brigadier Roderick William McLeod, a curious choice given his military background. Commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1925, McLeod served on the North-West Frontier of India in the early 1930s and, as he himself admitted, up until he joined the airborne forces in 1943 his army career had consisted mainly of ‘hunting, polo, pigsticking … followed by staff college’.

In an article written for Mars and Minerva, the regimental journal of the SAS, some years after the war, McLeod admitted his ‘shock’ on learning he was no longer Deputy Commander of the 1st Parachute Brigade but Brigadier of the SAS, whom he described ‘colourful and curiously dressed ruffians’. McLeod’s only first-hand experience with the SAS had been in Italy at the end of 1943 when he’d encountered Bill Stirling’s 2SAS. Of Paddy Mayne and 1SAS he knew little, but he was soon brought up to speed about their idiosyncrasies. ‘I began to find that my previous experience had not prepared me for the problems of command over such unorthodox units,’ reflected McLeod. ‘Mayne and the 1st SAS were straightforward. They said yes to everything they were asked to do (or not to do), they never bellyached, they were always cheerful and welcoming, and they regarded my HQ as an unnecessary evil who should be humoured providing it did not interfere with what the Regiment thought should be done.’

Paddy Mayne (centre) orchestrates an SAS scrum during a break from training in Scotland in April 1944.

McLeod learned that what the SAS wanted, the SAS usually got, particularly regarding equipment. ‘With two years of the Desert and Italy behind then, and being accustomed to looking after themselves … the G.S. [Get Stuffed] attitude of Q[uartermaster], Staffs and Ordnance depots in England came as a shock,’ he recalled. ‘I hasten to say that the shock did not in any way deter the Regiment from obtaining equipment by the most unorthodox methods and then expecting my A/Q [Assistant Quartermaster] to pacify the authorities concerned.’

Confrontations over equipment were minor, however, compared to the furore that erupted when 21 Army Group issued the SAS their operational order on 4 April. It had been decided that the primary task of the SAS in the invasion of France would be ‘attacks on suitable types of objectives in the concentration areas of hostile mobile strategic reserves behind the length of the French Channel coast’. In essence, the SAS were being told to parachute into ‘an area inland from the coast to a depth of 40 miles’ as and when German Panzer reserves were observed moving towards the beachhead. Lightly armed, the SAS’s only advantage would be if they had the element of surprise on their side, but the chances of parachuting into enemy territory without being seen were very slim.

In the word of 1SAS’s intelligence officer Mike Sadler, what was being asked of the SAS was ‘suicidal’.

The problem boiled down to the inability of 21 Army Group to grasp that the SAS’s name was misleading. They were not parachute troops in the traditional sense; they were trained parachutists, true, but they were also adept at reaching their target by vehicle, ship or submarine.

Bill Stirling, in particular, was incandescent. Considering the order as a betrayal of the regiment’s – and therefore his brother’s – founding principle of operating in small parties well behind the main battle area, Stirling struggled to fight his corner dispassionately.

A fellow officer in 2SAS, Major Sandy Scratchley, described the fallout in a letter to a friend in 1944. ‘There has been a hell of a rumpus between SAS and Airborne…no one on the Airborne planning staff has had any experience in our type of work. Bill Stirling’s tactless criticism, which boiled over after his genuine efforts to help had been turned down, ended in his dismissal and we were unemployed. Whether because 21st Army Group got fed up with us, or because they can use us later, I don’t know.’

Tactless though Stirling’s criticism may have been, it made an impression on 21 Army Group, as did submissions by Rory McLeod, who, inexperienced as he was in special forces soldiering, was proving an astute and sympathetic brigadier. According to Scratchley, representations may have been made personally to General Freddie de Guingand, Montgomery’s chief of staff, who had ‘always seen the possibilities of SAS’, attributable perhaps to the fact that he and David Stirling had been friends and were alumni of Ampleforth College.

As this map shows, the SAS brigade operated throughout the northern half of France in 1944.

Bill Stirling led the SAS opposition to what SHAEF initially wanted of the brigade in France.

The outcome was that the initial operational order was cancelled, and instead of the SAS being used tactically, they would be used strategically, parachuted well behind the main battle area to establish bases from which they could attack enemy communications. Additionally, explained Scratchley in his letter, they would be used as ‘a stiffener’ to the Special Operations Executive and, more importantly in the context of the Normandy landings, the Maquis. Throughout western and central France there were hundreds of Maquis groups of varying quality, size and political allegiances, and the SAS were tasked with developing them into a half-decent fighting force.

Nonetheless, despite 21 Army Group’s change of heart, Bill Stirling believed that his relationship with the ‘high-ups’ had been irreconcilably damaged, and he resigned his command in May. ‘We were absolutely in agreement with Bill’s resignation and in fact the senior officers, of whom I was one then, were inclined to resign as well,’ recalled Captain Anthony Greville-Bell, who had joined the regiment in 1942. Stirling asked his officers not to resign but rather offer their full support to his successor, Brian Franks, which they did.

While the brouhaha raged in London, hundreds of kilometres north in Scotland the 2,500 men of the SAS brigade trained furiously. 1SAS was based in Darvel, 2SAS in Prestwick, while the two French regiments – 3 and 4 – were at Auchinleck outside Ayr. ‘It was difficult to persuade these splendid characters that the local salmon river should not be used as a grenade range,’ said McLeod of the French SAS. He also had to smooth ruffled feathers after the French demolished a section of the railway line with plastic explosives in the course of practising their sabotage skills. There was also a company of Belgian SAS, the only contingent who didn’t add to his furrowed brow. ‘They did what they were told, their discipline was admirable and my staff loved them,’ reminisced McLeod.

Brian Franks (left) replaced Bill Stirling as CO of 2SAS and proved a worthy successor.

There was a downside to the rapid expansion of the SAS into a brigade and that was the recruitment of soldiers without adequate physical and temperamental screening. A number had arrived from the Auxiliary Units, also known as the British Resistance Organisation, a force raised in 1940 and trained in guerrilla warfare in the expectation of a German invasion. The Auxiliaries had been finally stood down in 1943 and the men who volunteered for the SAS were enthusiastic but inexperienced and untested in battle. So were many of the new recruits, and yet they would be parachuting into a country occupied by an enemy who had been ordered to offer no quarter to captured ‘enemy sabotage troops’. Hitler had issued his ‘Commando Order’ in 1942 in retaliation for what the Nazi leader erroneously believed was the Allies’ killing of unarmed German prisoners.

Unbeknown to the SAS, several of their soldiers had been victims of Hitler’s criminal instruction the previous year after capture in Italy. The first the regiment knew of the Order was when Lieutenant Jimmy Hughes reached Britain in May 1944, four months after he was badly wounded during a 2SAS raid on an Italian airfield. But for the extent of Hughes’ injury, he would have been shot in the days after his capture, but he was helped to escape by a sympathetic German doctor who was morally opposed to the Commando Order. After an epic trek through Occupied Italy, Hughes finally reached Allied lines and was flown back to the UK. The SAS compiled a detailed report based on his testimony but what became known as the ‘Hughes Case’ was dismissed by 21 Army Group as ‘a mere German interrogation technique’.

Within weeks of D-Day, however, a SHAEF memo was passed to the SAS Brigade. Dated 27 June 1944, it ran: ‘Notices posted in all towns in Brittany stating that parachutists will be considered as Franc Tireurs [guerrillas] and shot immediately together with any persons giving them shelter.’

Chapter One

Operation Titanic

It was uncertain on 19 May if Operation Titanic would proceed as planned. SAS Brigade Operation Instruction No. 11 stated that: ‘Pending results of representations to 21 Army Group by Corps Commander it must be assumed that SAS troops’ commitments in cover plan as described to you verbally will stand.’

These ‘commitments’ were Titanic 1: three parties of three men from 2SAS to drop in the Yerville area, eastern Normandy, approximately 100 miles (160km) east of the D-Day beaches; and Titanic IV, comprising two parties of three men from 1SAS to parachute into Marigny, about 30 miles (48km) south of Utah beach, the western extremity of the invasion beachhead. Their diversionary mission was to draw to the south of Normandy those German troops stationed close to where the American 101st would land an hour later.

Titanic 1’s parties were to parachute onto their drop zone (DZ) at H-Hour minus four hours and forty minutes, and those of Titanic IV at H-Hour minus five hours. One minute after the men had jumped, several hundred dummy parachutists would be dropped onto a different but nearby DZ.

A separate memo, dated 16 May, described these dummies – dubbed ‘Ruperts’ – as ‘a model man made of sand-bags, approx one-third the size of a normal man. Parachute to same scale.’ Attached to the dummies were simulators fitted with timing delays that were triggered upon leaving the aircraft. Once they hit French soil the simulators would start exploding. ‘They are made to represent rifle and LMG [light machine gun] fire, and have a duration of approx. five minutes,’ the memo explained.

In addition to the dummies, pintail bombs each containing a Very light cartridge would also be dropped to further add to the illusion that a major airborne assault was under way. These bombs would be released at the same time as the ‘Ruperts’, but would hit the ground before the fake paratroopers. The Very lights would detonate, which, the memo stated, served three purposes:

i. attracts enemy’s attention to the area of the dummy drop;

ii. illuminates the dummies in the air; and

iii. makes it appear that there is a reception party on the ground signalling to the dummy-dropping a/c [aircraft].

On 24 May the results of the representations to 21 Army Group by the corps commander were received: Titanic 1 was cancelled but Titanic IV would go ahead as planned. Two other components of Operation Titanic – II and III – involved the dropping of ‘Ruperts’ over Normandy but did not involve any SAS personnel; II was also subsequently cancelled because of ‘the congestion of air space in the area’.

The officers selected to lead Titanic IV were Lieutenants Norman Poole and Frederick Fowles, the latter, nicknamed ‘Chick’, a 24-year-old former member of the Parachute Regiment. Poole’s nickname was ‘Puddle’ and like Fowles he was a recent arrival in the regiment. He was an instructor at the Airborne Depot Battle School when, in February 1944, Paddy Mayne visited on a recruitment drive. Poole volunteered, as did Ian Wellsted and Les Cairns (see Operation Houndsworth) and the three were among the handful selected by Mayne as possessing the right credentials to join the SAS. The three men arrived at 1SAS’s training base in Darvel, Scotland, and were afforded the luxury of choosing if they wished to join A, B, C or D Squadron; all opted for A, commanded by Major Bill Fraser, along with Mayne, the only surviving officer from the original intake recruited by David Stirling in July 1941.

According to Poole’s family, ‘Puddle’ volunteered for Titanic when the operation was definitely given the go-ahead, which presumably was also the case for Fowles and the four troopers who stepped forward: W. Hurst, Robert ‘Chippy’ Saunders, J. Dawson and Anthony Merryweather. Saunders and Dawson were in A Squadron, and had served with the SAS in the Mediterranean, while the others were new to the regiment and were in B Squadron.

There seems to have been some confusion in the final week of May about the exact composition of Titanic IV. At one point