SAS in World War II (9781472808776) by Mortimer Gavin

Author:Mortimer, Gavin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472808776
Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc
Published: 2011-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

D-DAY FOR 1SAS

On 28 May, 21 Army Group issued the amended order for the SAS Brigade in the impending Operation Overlord; Bill Stirling hadn’t fallen on his sword in vain. Instead of the suicidal mission laid down by SHAEF in its original order of March, the SAS Brigade would carry out 43 missions in France involving the two British regiments, two French regiments and the squadron of Belgian troopers. With the exception of one operation – Titanic (involving a six-man party dropping into Normandy a few hours ahead of the main invasion fleet to spread confusion with dummy parachutes) – all missions would occur deep behind enemy lines with the objective of harassing German forces heading north and attacking their lines of communication.

The honour of leading 1SAS into France went to A and B Squadrons. A Squadron’s operation was codenamed Houndsworth and entailed dropping into the Massif du Morvan, west of Dijon, to cut railway lines between Lyon and Paris, arm and train the numerous local groups of Maquis, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Operation Bulbasket involved a party of men under the command of Captain John Tonkin parachuting into the Vienne region of France, between Poitiers and Chateauroux, and attacking the Germans whenever possible. Specific orders were flexible with squadron commanders told to use their judgement in the selection of targets.

At the end of May a small trickle of SAS soldiers left their base in Darvel and travelled south to Fairford aerodrome in Gloucestershire, among them lieutenants Ian Stewart, Norman ‘Puddle’ Poole and Ian Wellsted. When they arrived at Fairford they were told of their mission: Poole would be leading Operation Titanic and Stewart and Wellsted would be the advance reconnaissance party for Houndsworth. ‘From then our days were spent in studying maps and aerial photographs,’ recalled Wellsted, ‘[and] in learning ways to avoid being tracked by trained police dogs and other methods of eluding the enemy.’1

On 3 June, Poole, Stewart and Wellsted, along with two officers from B Squadron – John Tonkin and Richard Crisp – were driven to London for a final briefing in the presence of Special Operations Executive (SOE). They provided the SAS officers with the ‘griff’ on the ground, information about the strength of the German presence in their operational area and the quality, reliability and political affiliations of the Maquis groups with whom they would come into contact. Escorting the SAS officers was the regiment’s intelligence officer Mike Sadler. ‘I accompanied a lot of officers on these briefings and it was always an interesting insight into human behaviour to see how the men reacted on the eve of the operation’ he reflected.2

After their briefing from the SOE, Wellsted and the others were treated to lunch at an upmarket restaurant in Regent Street, and in the evening they took in a cabaret. The next day they were driven to Hassells Hall, near Sandy, Bedfordshire, only to learn shortly after their arrival that the invasion of France had been postponed from 4 June to the following day because of poor weather in the Channel.

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