SAS Ghost Patrol

The Ultra-Secret Unit That Posed as Nazi Stormtroopers

Damien Lewis

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781504055574
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

An "amazing" account of Britain's most audacious act of subterfuge in WWII: an undercover raid of Rommel's stronghold in Tobruk ( The Daily Mirror ). On a scorching September day in 1942, the Special Air Service (SAS), a special forces unit of the British Army, pulled off one of the most daring, top-secret ruses of the Second World War. The plan (sanctioned by Churchill): cover a grueling two thousand miles of the Sahara desert to attack German general Erwin Rommel's seemingly impregnable port fortress in North Africa from the rear to break free and arm more than thirty thousand Allied POWs. Led by Capt. Herbert Buck and posing as Afrika Korps soldiers complete with German uniforms and weaponry, the crew broke into the enemy stronghold Trojan Horse–style as part of the coordinated attack on Tobruk. "Intensively researched... powerfully written, " and culled from the private diaries of the do-or-die maverick heroes, this extraordinary story of the sneak attack on the notorious Desert Fox is more thrilling than any fiction. A bold, outrageous, and rule-shattering mission impossible, SAS Ghost Patrol is "one of the great untold stories of WWII" (Bear Grylls).

Chapter 1

The heat rose in shimmering waves off the sun-blasted desert terrain. A lone figure stumbled through the harsh, boulder-strewn landscape. It seemed impossible that anything could survive here, yet somehow this man had, although to the watchers—alert and tracing his every step through their rifle sights—he was clearly on his last legs.

It was just after dawn on 21 February 1942, and already the air was thick with heat from the rising sun. The war in North Africa was not going well for the Allies. Reeling from a succession of defeats at the hands of Erwin Rommel, the commander of the Afrika Korps, British forces had learned a grudging respect—if not fear—for their adversary.

Indeed, in recent months Rommel and his Afrika Korps had earned an almost mythical status. Their reputation for invincibility went before them, their lightning armoured thrusts striking repeatedly at the flanks of the British and Commonwealth troops, forcing a series of desperate retreats across miles of unforgiving desert, mountain and scrub.

Over the weeks of bitter fighting Rommel had acquired a nickname among the British: the Desert Fox. Wily, quick-thinking and smart, who knew what ruse the German general might attempt next? Which made it all the more worrying that a mysterious figure—seemingly a lone Afrika Korps soldier—was making his way towards Allied lines.

What could he be intending, the watchers wondered? Was this some new and cunning deception by Rommel, one designed to confound the British front-line commanders? Was this something altogether more innocent: an enemy soldier lost in the desert—parched, exhausted and hopelessly disorientated? Or was he perhaps a deserter, somehow intent on delivering to them a choice piece of intelligence?

The first sign of the incoming figure had been a dust cloud on the horizon far to the west of the British positions, as a vehicle traversed the main coastal highway running east towards the Allied stronghold of Tobruk. It had advanced thus far, but then the cloud had dissipated. In due course a stick-thin figure had emerged, mirage-like, from the early-morning haze, trudging along the lonely road that snaked through the rocky hills making up this war-blasted no-man’s-land.

Moment by moment the figure drew closer. Finally, a group of British soldiers broke cover, scuttling forward, weapons held at the ready. The enemy soldier was dressed as an officer and maybe this boded well. Perhaps he had made the perilous journey across the lines carrying a crucial piece of intelligence, one that he wished to hand over to Allied commanders, although what his motives might be no one could yet imagine.

Under close guard the stranger was brought into the checkpoint that straddled the road. He was laid in the shade and given some water, which revived him somewhat. As little by little the captive began to recover his composure, several things became obvious to his captors. First, the Afrika Korps officer looked incredibly young to the British soldiers, who themselves were mostly in their late teens or early twenties. Second, there was something distinguished—almost haughty-looking—about his demeanour, with his thick shock of coal-black hair and the calm, level gaze in his dark eyes. He certainly didn’t have the subdued air of a captive. Third, and most shocking, when this man of mystery managed to utter his first words he did so in fluent English and with a decidedly upper-crust accent. Whoever this soldier might be, he sounded more like an Oxford don or a BBC broadcaster than any Afrika Korps officer.

Once he’d regained strength enough to relate the basics of his—utterly incredible—story, a force was sent out to fetch the vehicle in which he had been travelling. If he was telling the truth, it contained nine of his fellows who could verify his extraordinary tale. As for the man himself, he was placed in a jeep and rushed to Allied forward headquarters in Tobruk. If he was to be believed, the captive promised a potential bonanza in terms of intelligence.

Upon arrival at Tobruk the prisoner repeated his riveting story. He was given a stiff drink to fortify himself for the journey that lay ahead and put on a vehicle for the long drive to British Middle East headquarters in Cairo, from where the entire North Africa campaign was being orchestrated. Seemingly he didn’t just have some choice intelligence to impart to Allied high command; he also had a plan, one born of his unique background, innate intellect, cunning and eccentricity, and informed by his life-or-death experiences over the past few days.

As he was whisked the 500 miles east along the Mediterranean coast towards Cairo, the captive reflected upon the singular nature of the war being fought in North Africa and how it had led him to conceive of his great idea. There was no other theatre of warfare like it.

Egypt, Libya and Tunisia—the battleground over which the Allies and Axis were waging war—were largely alike geographically: huge desert basins and arid mountain ranges with only a thin strip of fertile land running along the Mediterranean coast, where the towns, villages, farms and ports were concentrated. With over 90 per cent of the land being desert or semi-desert, and inhospitable in the extreme, fighting was restricted to this narrow coastal strip and concentrated around the one navigable highway. Inland lay the Sahara—an expanse of fearful wilderness the size of India, consisting of flat sandy plains (serir), rocky plateaus (hammada), deep dry watercourses (wadis), treacherous salt marshes (shott) and massive deathly dune seas (erg).

In the depths of the desert it never rained, and temperatures soared to 55 degrees Celsius in the shade. No army—Allied nor Axis—strayed far into the scorched wastes that lay to the south of the coastal strip. The terrain was barren, flyblown, ridden with exotic diseases, featureless, waterless and hostile to human habitation as nowhere else on earth.

But the ‘captive’ knew of one or two small bands of fighters who were starting to venture into this wasteland. They were making the des...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Map1
• Map2
• Map3
• Author’s Note
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author
• Copyright