The Last Gentleman of the SAS by John Randall

Author:John Randall
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780578347
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing

9

The Bunch of Misfits

On Monday, 13 March, John Randall heard that, once the wireless course was over, he was going to join Jakie Astor’s unit in Scotland. He wrote to various people telling them that the leave he had hoped for was cancelled. In many ways, he was looking forward to Scotland, if only because he would have an opportunity to link up with Ricky Beard and the FANY girls at Dunbar. He carried out a night op on the Wednesday and played Cardinal Puff, a drinking game that requires a great deal of stamina, with Didier, the French officer. They played it with even more gusto the next night in the FANY Mess, with Randall and ‘Scottie’ McDevitt in fine form.

Friday, the 17th, was the day for the ‘off’. Randall’s team said farewell to the girls, and trained to Reading where there was the usual wartime hanging about, with luggage, greatcoats, the totally useless gas masks, whistles, steam and endless cups of tea. Tom Reddaway came in for some criticism as he was transportation officer and should have sorted the mess out. After dinner, Randall saw the colonel and John Morgan, who was now second-in-command, and the move to Jakie Astor was confirmed.

Bright and early the next morning, he and McDevitt dumped their luggage at Euston station and went to Kensington to see Kay de Villiers. They walked in Regent’s Park on a gloriously sunny day and had dinner at the Berkeley. She saw him off at the station, and he was lucky enough to get a sleeper, so the long haul to Scotland passed in comfort. At 9.30 a.m. on Sunday, 19 March, he arrived at Kilmarnock. The town had a long history and was the home of Johnnie Walker whisky. The station with its tall clock tower is still there.

The SRS left Italy three weeks after John Randall left Tunisia. Johnny Cooper had gone on ahead to set up camp at Darvel, a small town nine miles to the east of Kilmarnock. Abandoned spinning mills there would be the regiment’s home while they trained and recruited; the officers would be based in a manor house on the edge of the town. Darvel was sometimes referred to as ‘the lang toon’, essentially a ribbon development with a single main street. It was the centre of a lace-making area during the war and was part of the estate of the Earls of Loudon since the early 19th century.

At Kilmarnock station, Jakie Astor, sporting a maroon airborne beret, complete with wings, was waiting for Randall. Most accounts of this period contend that F Squadron of Phantom joined the SAS for signalling work in April, but clearly the major, at least, was already there in March. The radio communication system was complicated. The base signals unit of the SAS (SRS was dropped and the former title reinstated now) was at Moor Park, Kilbirnie, where the regiment had its tactical headquarters. Here, twelve BBC HP transmitters fed into five outstations with Jedburgh sets that could reach units in the field.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.