* This wasn’t the only time Stirling penetrated the defenses of his own military during the North Africa campaign. Once, starved for equipment, Stirling’s men burgled what they needed from some well-equipped New Zealanders who seemed to have ready access to replacements; when challenged as to why they were loading up truckloads of equipment in the middle of the night, the soldiers bluffed their way out of the situation. And when Stirling’s plan to destroy German planes in a surprise attack was criticized by an air force captain, he bet the critic ten pounds he could sneak undetected into the British airfield at Heliopolis, near Cairo, and plant pictures of bombs on all the planes. Although the sentries at Heliopolis had been warned what was planned, David Stirling won his bet and was rewarded with a cordial letter and a check for his winnings. He later rehearsed a naval attack by planting fake bombs on British ships at Suez. See Virginia Cowles, The Phantom Major: The Story of David Stirling and the SAS Regiment (1958; Barnsley, England: Pen and Sword Books, 2010), pp. 35–36, 123; Gavin Mortimer, The SAS in World War II (Oxford: Osprey, 2011), p. 16.