Further Horizons
With our journey home our part in the African and Italian campaigns ended, and also, to a large degree the slice of unity, which can really only be found in a unit so small as was the SRS.
Our return to England was the closing of one door in our lives and the opening of another. Never again were we to see the shrub-covered stretches of Libyan or Egyptian desert, the green rocky mountains of Palestine, or the parched olive groves of Sicily or Italy. Henceforth we were to live and fight in a country more familiar to us – amid woods and orchards and grassy lanes, and the green, sweet-scented fields of North West Europe. That it was a change for the better, none of us could doubt, but it was with a strange feeling of regret that we grew to look back upon those sunny and carefree days spent on the shores of the Mediterranean.
For at the time the regiment left Italy its achievements had been recognized, and its worth proved. Maybe it did not do much fighting, in the sense of the ordeals the luckless infantryman has to go through day after day, without recognition and without glory, but what it did do was of the utmost importance in the large-scale operations which made up the Sicilian and Italian campaigns. We were never used unless we were needed, so that when we were called for, we always knew that there was much at stake in the way in which we acquitted ourselves.
Every man was happy and proud to be put to the use which had been chosen for him. The courage and stamina of this gallant little unit is not so much measurable by what it achieved, but rather by what it was willing to do. For it needs qualities which are not easily found, to wait patiently maybe for weeks at a time, for the operation which one knows is coming, and which is sure to be of a nature that calls for endurance, fearlessness, and discipline. The fears, trepidations and nervous strain which a gambler experiences, before he can know his fate, when having staked his all, he has to sit back and wait for the wheel to cease its motion, may be compared in many ways to the feeling and emotions that passed through the minds of each of our men during those monotonous, but tense periods between operations.
In any of the four operations we carried out, things could have ended very differently from the way they actually did, and that was the risk we took. The counter-attack we experienced at Termoli, could just as well have occurred on any of our other operations, or before we had been relieved by our main forces. Luck and the grace of God, saw to it that the gun battery at Murro di Porco was ‘defended’ by a bunch of cowardly Italians, with no stomach for fighting; that the Germans with their tanks and artillery did not choose to attack us at Augusta and that Bagnara was not more strongly defended. After the operation was all over, it was easy for us and others to say that it was all a walkover and that we did not do much, but that did not prevent our minds from being a torment of fears and uncertainties before we actually landed. And in addition, we also had to put up with the several operations for which we were made ready, and which (fortunately for us) were cancelled at the last moment.
In fact, the strain and suspense which gnawed at us during our periods of rest were infinitely worse than the actual fighting itself.
Apart from General Dempsey’s personal opinion of us, it was clear that we were heard of and also appreciated in even higher spheres. Perhaps this is shown by the number of awards granted to the unit. These were too numerous among the men for me to attempt to list here, but in my section alone, Tunstall and McNinch were both awarded the MM, although unfortunately the latter was killed before his award came through. As regards the officers, Paddy and Tony received the DSO, Paddy receiving this award for the second time, for the achievements of the unit in Sicily, while Tony’s stubborn stand at Termoli brought him his. In addition, Harry Poat, Phil Gunn and Johnny Wiseman each received the MC.
It seems reasonable to say that when we left Italy the regiment was at the height of its career and had reached a fighting efficiency, military knowledge and standard of discipline which it never quite attained again. Then it was small enough for everyone to be known to everyone else. With only 15 officers and 250 men under his command, Paddy was able to give every activity his personal supervision, and he was quick to remove any faults he discovered in the manner characteristic to him. It was Paddy’s unit and under the orders of no one but him, so that he was encouraged to devote his entire attention to building up out of the men and officers under him, a perfectly co-ordinated body of men so thoroughly trained that they would react correctly to any situation in which they might find themselves.
Paddy’s personal supervision was vital to the unit’s success. For he was a born leader, with original, though none the less strong, ideas on discipline, a wonderful military instinct and an unrivalled personal strength and courage. Officers and men alike worshipped him and would follow him anywhere, so great was their faith in his abilities, while he, in his turn, having the interests of the unit closest to his heart, continually devoted all his attentions to its welfare in every sphere of its activities. Under a leader such as Paddy, though many were the times that we cursed his wilful, unpredictable Irish ways, which gave him at the same time so forceful and yet so loveable a character, no unit could fail to be happy, proud of its abilities and ever willing to give of its best.
And it is largely for this reason that the spirit which ran through the regiment then – a spirit of unity, and singleness of purpose – did not show itself so strongly once we arrived back in England. For not only was the unit nearly trebled in size, with each of its troops an independent squadron, and almost on the same scale as the whole SRS had formerly been, so that the organization became too large and top-heavy for Paddy to be able to give it so thorough a personal attention as formerly. In addition, we were no longer independent and Paddy was no longer able to run his own show, completely without outside interference. For our enlarged unit, known as the First Special Air Service Regiment, became part of a brigade organization comprising in addition, the 2nd SAS, two French battalions and a Belgian independent company. A vast brigade headquarters was placed in control of us, with but little experience of the work which we were trained to do. Often it would infuriate us with its delays, inefficiencies and ignorance and tie Paddy’s hands completely. Bureaucracy and routine were made to triumph over initiative and originality.
Thus Paddy delegated his command to his squadron commanders and only remained in control of those wider issues which directly involved the whole unit. He could do little else for the regiment was by now too large, and it was no longer possible for him to mould it as he himself most wished it, according to his own fiery and original character.
Our training in our camp at Ayrshire, which started as soon as we had returned from a month’s leave, was of an entirely different nature to that which we had gone through at Azzib. For no more were we trained to work together as a whole, to raid, in our whole strength, stretches of enemy-held coastline. No more were battle-drill, co-ordination and precision the main features of our training.
We were to become again the saboteurs of the desert days, and in small parties, of one officer and five or six men, were to be parachuted behind the enemy lines in France and once there to move like hunted animals from one hiding place to another, keeping one step ahead of the enemy the whole time. We were trained so that we could sally forth by night or day with an intimate and complete knowledge of the area in which we were to operate, to blow up a bridge or a railway line here, to mortar a power station, factory or enemy camp there or, with our fast and heavily armed Jeeps, to lie in wait by the roadside at strategic points and from there to blast approaching enemy convoys with everything we had, until the battle became too hot for us and we had to slip away into the woods as silently and mysteriously as we had come.
Peter Davis, England 1944.
3″ mortar training, Darvel, Scotland, January–June 1944.
Training jump, Prestwick, Scotland, January–June 1944.
The last winter of the war was spent idly for there was nothing for us to do while the line was more or less static. But with the coming of the final spring offensive our services were required again, and in armoured Jeeps bristling with machine guns, we took part in the final run through Germany. Here some of us met again our old friends, the 9th German Parachute Division, who apparently remembered us as well as we had remembered them, from conversations we had with prisoners taken, and which our men, taken prisoner, had with them. VE Day found half of us outside Bremen and the rest within 20 miles of Wilhelmshaven. We were at once withdrawn and sent to Norway to supervise the evacuation of the Germans who had surrendered there.
We returned to our camp at Chelmsford at the end of August 1945, and the regiment was disbanded in October. For those of the officers and men who were not lucky enough to be demobilized at an early date, the anti-climax and disappointments of those last few months of their army life must have been intense. To see disbanded the regiment with which they had served for periods varying from two to five years, and to see its members scattered, and then to have to join some other unit, separated from all the friends with whom they had lived and fought and travelled, was indeed a hard blow to bear.
And what of the officers whose names have so often been mentioned in these pages? How did Fate treat them after they left Italy? Casualties among our old hands were happily few in our subsequent operations, but a great loss was suffered in the deaths of Phil Gunn and Bob Merlot, both much loved figures in the regiment. It seems cruel that such fine men as these, who had gone through so much, should have to die in motor accidents far from the fighting zone. Their loss, and the manner of their going, was deeply felt by all who knew them.
Franco left us soon after we arrived in England to take up another staff appointment elsewhere, and Ronnie Lunt, the padre, transferred to 1st Airborne Division, but otherwise the rest of us remained together to the last, until we were finally separated by the unit being disbanded.
Paddy won a further two DSOs before the war ended, making a total of four in all. The first of these was given him for the work of his unit in France, but the second was earned by an act of extreme bravery which was so typical of this remarkable man. As one of his squadrons was racing through Germany in the last month of the war, the leading troop came up against unexpectedly strong opposition and was pinned down. The officer commanding it was killed and the situation was beginning to look extremely serious when Paddy came pelting up the road in his Jeep and drove it straight towards the enemy, regardless of their fire, with his guns blazing out their wicked streams of tracer. When he could go no further, he calmly reversed his Jeep and turned round, continuing to fire with his rear gun. Up and down that road he went, with such good success that he relieved the pressure on his forward troop and enabled them to press on once more.
Fairford, June–August 1944
‘C’ Squadron Sergeants: Higham, Mitchell, Robertson, McDiarmed, Ridler, Lilley, Belsham, Storey, Badger, Shaw, Downes, Lowson.
A Section: Gaskin, Unknown, Reynolds, Crouch, Harrison, Squires, Howes, Mitchell, Farrel.
Fairford, England, June–August 1944
C Section: Jones, Unknown, Unknown, Mycock, Pagan, Kennedy, Clarke, Matt, Johnstone, Mitchell.
HQ Section: Storey, Glacken, Sanders, Stalker, Tunstall, P. Davis, Vautier.
Paddy was one of those extraordinary characters who only achieve recognition in time of war. While the war lasted, he was in his element, a real soldier of fortune. Never was he happier than when with his own trusted and tried unit under him, he was able to go out and match his wits against those of the enemy. But when the war ended he found himself suddenly at a loose end. Civilian life held no attraction for him, and yet a man of his qualities was no longer required in the army. So he joined an expedition to the South Pole, and would be there still, if his health had not let him down and compelled him to return home.
And now, this great soldier and born leader, has no men under his command, save perhaps a few clerks, for he spends his days clamped to a desk in a solicitor’s office! It is a strong contrast and undoubtedly an unhappy one for him. With what regret he must look back on those wild, carefree days when he roamed the desert expanses of Libya, or drove through the grassy lanes of France, never short of sincere and trusted friends to drink and talk with, never finding time dragging monotonously or without interest.
In the last month of the war Sandy Davidson was killed when his Jeep blew up on a mine, while Lowson was badly wounded in the leg when a hidden enemy machine-gun post opened up on his Jeep, 5 miles within our own lines! But otherwise, except for a few changes, I was able to keep my old hands more or less together and the majority of them were still with me when the war ended.
The excitements, dangers and parties were as frequent during those latter years of the war as before, and yet, many were the times we looked back on those warm and stimulating days in the desert, in Egypt and in Palestine, when we were being built-up and trained out of nothing, when the war was not nearly won and we knew that we had a big job to do which it was imperative that we should do well.
How clearly we remembered the way Paddy used to drive us, chivvy us and guide us, towards his aim of making out of us a first-class fighting unit, working with speed, and precision.
And then when the time came for us to be tried out in Sicily and Italy, when we landed on that rocky coastline and waded through those gutless Italians as though they were not there. The pride we experienced, not so much in ourselves, but in our being members of such an efficient fighting force under so trusted a leader, was one of the finest emotions that can ever stir the heart of a soldier.
Fairford, England, June–August 1944
B Section: Livingstone, Stewart, Tideswell, Iredale, Unknown, Robertson, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, Allan.
D Section: Lowson, Unknown, Smith, Ashurst, Goldie, Unknown, Kirby, Grierson, Bryce.
The memories of those days are with us all. As we sit at our desks in our offices, or work at our trades, under conditions of routine and monotony, we at least have the consolation of being able to feel that once we were men – men working with a will towards a vital common objective, free to make our own decisions and use our initiative, and enjoying the height of physical fitness in an open-air life of activity and exertion.
Looking back on those days it is easy for us to realize that the friends we knew and lost, the McNinches and Tobins, need not be pitied. Honoured they certainly should be, but not pitied, for they died when they were happy, when they were really living in the full sense of the word and glorying in their existence. They were thankful for this chance to leave their workbenches and office stools, and instead to travel around foreign lands in sunny climes, where they could replace their sheltered, monotonous lives with an existence full of activity and variety, and join an ever increasing circle of comrades and friends. For the first time men had tasted ‘life’ and had possibly obtained more happiness and wider horizons in their 25 years than many old people who die peacefully in their beds.
Better to die happily having ‘lived’ a little, than never to have ‘lived’ at all.