David Stirling
A well-connected salesman and political strategist, Stirling used every trick in the book to keep the SAS alive
The British army establishment, that most conservative body of individuals, viewed the SAS as an upstart folly with no useful role to play.
David Stirling, the Giant Sloth himself, understood that there were two ways to overcome such resistance. One was to achieve impressive results. The other was to play a clever political game.
When the SAS was still in training, an RAF group captain told Stirling to his face that his organisation’s chances of success were practically nil. Irritated and amused, Stirling bet him £10 that his men could penetrate the British airfield at Heliopolis and place stickers on aircraft in place of bombs.
The group captain accepted the bet – and lost.
Marching through the desert, the SAS men avoided the airfield sentries and planted stickers on the aircraft before slipping away. Stirling received £10 but, more importantly, his organisation received a valuable dress rehearsal and a measure of respect.
Yet this success was quickly followed by operational failure. The SAS’s first actual raid – Operation Squatter – was an unmitigated disaster.
Dozens of men were parachuted into the desert in November 1941, in weather so stormy and treacherous that no targets were reached, and barely more than one third of the men who jumped escaped death or capture.
In the aftermath, it was agreed that, for the time being at least, the SAS would not parachute onto targets. Instead, the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), a motorised desert unit, would act as a taxi service, carrying the men by truck to and from operations.
This solved one problem, but there were still plenty of influential figures keen to see the organisation disbanded. So, without the knowledge of headquarters, Stirling quietly moved his surviving members to Jalo, a remote desert oasis recently captured by a friendly brigadier where they were able to regroup away from prying eyes.
In its early days, the SAS was kept alive by Stirling’s political nous, his connections, and a measure of sheer chutzpah.

Jim Smith, for example, was a mechanic who joined along with a colleague in somewhat murky circumstances. When a military policeman arrived to arrest them for desertion from their previous unit, Stirling refused to hand them over. ‘Deserters are better than volunteers!’ he said. ‘These men stay with me!’
Stirling was keener still to welcome upper-class acquaintances into the unit. This was often attributed simply to snobbery – but there was some method in his elitism. These acquaintances could be politically useful. For example, he allowed Randolph Churchill, the Prime Minister’s overweight and overbearing son, to join.
According to another member, Randolph enjoyed himself so much on his first operation “that he literally yelped with pleasure and excitement, like a dog following a hot scent”.
After the raid, Randolph behaved just as Stirling had hoped, writing his father a ten-page letter praising the SAS. As a result, Winston Churchill, the most powerful man in Britain, became one of the organisation’s most ardent supporters.
Under Stirling’s leadership, the fortunes of the SAS improved dramatically. By the end of Operation Crusader in late December 1941, the unit had been responsible for almost a third of the enemy’s total aircraft losses.
In a short time, the SAS had established itself as a formidable fighting force, a fact that was not lost on its leader.
Some months later, Stirling was driving behind enemy lines, when he noticed a truck trying to accelerate away. He chased and, soon, both vehicles ground to a sandy halt. Two dishevelled men climbed out of the truck and walked over. Stirling asked who they were. “SAS,” said one of them in a heavy accent – and Stirling was delighted. He had caught enemy soldiers pretending to be members of the very unit he had created!
Yet the men were not bluffing. They really were members of the SAS – The 1 SA Survey Company – whose job had long been to map the desert. They had simply been getting on with their work when, to their surprise, Stirling’s station wagon had suddenly come after them.
The Special Air Service, it seemed, was not the only SAS in the desert. It was not even the first SAS in the desert. However impressive its growing reputation, here was a timely warning to its members – not least Stirling – against hubris.