Special forces have become the most feared elements of the world’s armies in the second half of the twentieth century. Their role has acquired a particular importance with the rise of international terrorism, which confronts governments with the need to forestall acts of sabotage and hostage-taking or to intervene swiftly and decisively while such activities are in progress. Special forces also play a key role in operations behind enemy lines, particularly, as in the Gulf War of 1990 — 1, in the hunt for hidden weapon systems and in missions designed to paralyse enemy command centres. Small in size, such units, when composed of select personnel trained to the highest standards of efficiency, achieve results out of all proportion to their size.
The pioneer of the special forces idea was David Stirling, who recognized that, at a time when Britain’s armed forces were heavily outnumbered by those of Germany, the balance could be partly redressed by deploying quality against quantity. The value of his idea was proved in action, and his Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) has become the model for all other special units in every country. It retains its reputation as the most effective of all of them.
Colonel Sir David Stirling, who has died aged 74, was the creator of the Special Air Service, which subsequently became an elite regiment of the British Army and won the admiration of many foreign countries which tried to imitate it.
Stirling won a DSO in 1942 and was appointed OBE in 1946. Maj-Gen Robert Laycock, head of Combined Operations, said he was one of the most under-decorated soldiers of the Second World War. This was probably because there was no senior officer or other eyewitness of his exploits to recommend him for just reward.
In 1941 Stirling was nicknamed the ‘Phantom Major’ by the Germans for his remarkable exploits far behind their lines in the Western Desert. In the 15 months before he was captured, he and his desert raiders destroyed aircraft, mined roads, derailed trains, fired petrol dumps, blew up ammunition depots, hijacked lorries and killed many times their own number. Rommel admitted that Stirling’s men caused more damage than any other British unit of equal strength.
In 1942 the SAS was given the status of a full regiment. Montgomery said of its creator: ‘The boy Stirling is quite mad. However, in war there is a place for mad people.’ Nevertheless Montgomery refused to allow Stirling to pick recruits at will from his army.
Stirling himself designed the Regiment’s cap badge, bearing the words ‘Who Dares Wins’. The motto summed up his philosophy.
The Egyptian appearance of the SAS wings was due to the fact that they were modelled on a fresco in Shepheards Hotel, Cairo, where there was a symbolical ibis with outstretched wings. The ibis was removed and a parachute substituted. The ‘winged dagger’ badge was meant to resemble Excalibur — the sword of freedom.
Archibald David Stirling was born on November 15 1915, the son of Brig-Gen Archibald Stirling of Keir and his wife, Margaret, fourth daughter of the 13th Lord Lovat. David’s brother, William Stirling, commanded the 2nd SAS Regiment.
Young David was educated at Ampleforth and Trinity College, Cambridge, but he was sent down after a year and began to study painting. On the outbreak of the Second World War he was in the Rocky Mountains practising climbing with the ultimate object of attempting Everest.
He served with the Scots Guards (the family regiment) for the first six months of the war, and then transferred to No. 3 Commando and went to the Middle East as a member of Bob Laycock’s ‘Layforce’, which planned to capture Rhodes. When ‘Layforce’ was disbanded, Stirling and a few of his Commando friends decided to teach themselves parachuting with a view to landing behind German lines in the desert and destroying aircraft on the ground.
They ‘acquired’ parachutes and the use of a dangerously unsuitable old Valentia [bomber] aircraft. Inevitably Stirling was injured, but, in June 1941, while still on crutches, he managed to gatecrash GHQ, Middle East, and gain the approval of the C-in-C, Gen Auchinleck, to enrol 66 of his colleagues for his new enterprise.
In the early days the SAS was known as ‘L Detachment’ of the Special Air Service Brigade, although the latter did not exist. Training was extremely arduous. On one occasion two parachutists were killed owing to faulty static-line clips. Stirling identified the fault, made new clips and tested them himself at dawn the next day.
‘Were you scared?’ he was asked later. ‘Terrified,’ he replied, ‘but what else could I do?’
The first venture by parachute, on November 17 1941, was a total disaster, because of a sudden sandstorm with winds of 90 mph. Of the 66 who set out, only 22 survived.
Undeterred, Stirling continued with his plans, now using trucks and the expertise of the Long Range Desert Group to navigate in the desert. His revised plan for the unit’s employment was to travel deep into the desert by truck or jeep, walk several miles to the target airfield, arrive by night, and plant specially timed bombs to explode when all the dispersed German aircraft had been visited.
The bombs were fused by special time-pencils, invented by his colleague, J. S. Lewes, an Australian and former Oxford rowing blue who, with R. B. Mayne (later to win four DSOs), helped to create the unit’s think-tank. Stirling had a genius for recruiting suitable people and, among others, John Verney, Fitzroy Maclean, Randolph Churchill and Roy Farran joined him.
The vital achievement of the SAS was that it destroyed on the ground the latest German aircraft, such as Messerschmitt 109Fs (armed with cannon) which in the sky totally outclassed the ageing Hurricanes and Gloster Gauntlets of the scanty Desert Air Force. One of its most spectacular exploits was the raid on Sidi Haneish airfield, when 18 jeeps, each carrying four Vickers K machine-guns, drove straight down the central runway, destroying Junkers, Heinkels, Messerschmitts and Stukas. They completed their work by driving around the perimeter, destroying no fewer than 40 aircraft.
Soon the SAS was raiding far and wide, taking pressure off Malta by destroying the airfields from which German bombers took off; it also raided Crete several times. In 1943, while his regiment was operating in the restricted area of northern Tunisia, Stirling was captured as 500 Germans surrounded the cave in which he was sleeping. He soon escaped, but he was recaptured.
After being flown to Italy he escaped four more times, but each time his height — 6ft 5in — gave him away. Eventually the Germans interned him in Colditz [the prison camp for escapees].
By the time of his final capture, the SAS — which was prepared to reach its targets by parachute, canoe, jeep, submarine or on foot over vast distances — had destroyed 350 German aircraft and numerous hangars, supply dumps, bridges, roads, and vehicles. It had inflicted many casualties and also drawn off many Germans to try to guard their airfields.
While Stirling was a prisoner of war, the regiment and its sub-unit, the Special Boat Squadron, were also ranging from Italy and the Adriatic to the islands in the Aegean and surrounding seas. They played a leading part in disrupting German communications in France.
On his release Stirling went to live in Rhodesia and Kenya, where he founded the Capricorn Africa Society with the objective of promoting racial equality, tolerance and understanding. He was the society’s president for 12 years and made more friends among the black than the white community.
In 1959, when he returned to England, he became involved with the syndication of television programmes, and won the franchise for operating Hong Kong’s television service. This became Television International Enterprises, of which he was chairman.
Stirling was always careful not to interfere in any way with the SAS which, having been disbanded, was reconstituted to fight in the Malayan Emergency [1948 — 60]. His military expertise, however, and wish to be concerned with projects beneficial to Britain drew him into advising units countering terrorism and subversion in countries where Britain had interests.
In 1967 Stirling and his friends created the Watchguard Organization, which, based in Guernsey, employed ex-SAS soldiers to provide bodyguards for Middle Eastern rulers and others. Occasionally, as in Kenya and Dhofar, he was overruled by Whitehall which sent the SAS, with its larger resources, instead.
By 1972 Stirling thought there were too many groups providing similar services, and for reasons of profit rather than patriotism, and he resigned from Watchguard. By this time the highly reputable Control Risks International was operating to frustrate kidnappers, prevent hijacks, and negotiate releases.
During the 1970s there were occasional antagonistic probings by the Press as to how far Stirling was involved with mercenary or secret organizations. There were attempts to link his name with Gen. Sir Walter Walker’s vigilante organization for civil defence and to imply that he might harbour hostile intentions towards the government. This was pure slander, as both Walker and Stirling had often made it clear that they were working for the British government of whatever political party, and not against it.
In 1979 Stirling won substantial damages and costs in settlement of a High Court libel action against the magazine Time Out, which had published an article implying that Stirling’s capture in North Africa in 1943 showed that he was a coward. Since Stirling was a man of legendary bravery, it was difficult to see why such an absurd accusation could have been made.
Extremely courteous, soft-spoken and self-effacing, David Stirling was worshipped by the men of the unit he had created and many more outside it. For a man of his size, he could move extremely swiftly and silently; in his younger days he had been able to stalk a stag and kill it with a knife.
He regarded killing the enemy as an unfortunate necessity. His most memorable characteristics were his creative vision, his cultured outlook, leadership, patience and iron determination — he was always adamant that the SAS soldier must be governed by self-discipline and never appear to be a heroic figure.
David Stirling had a wide and varied circle of friends, took a lively interest in all games of chance, and was a considerable bon vivant.
He was knighted in the New Year Honours list of 1990. He never married.
6 November 1990