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People and Events That Shaped D-Day: The Special Operations Executive (SOE)

In a war of secrecy, spies, and destruction, Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) was on the leading edge. Formed in July of 1940, under Minister of Economic Warfare, Hugh Dalton, the SOE’s mission was to conduct espionage, sabotage, intelligence gathering, and support resistance organizations in an effort to defeat the Axis powers.

The SOE operated across occupied Europe and into Southeast Asia. The Executive employed over 13,000 people, 3,200 of them being women. Winston Churchill had been the catalyst for the inception of the SOE. After the organization was created, Churchill told Hugh Dalton, “And now go and set Europe ablaze.” Dalton used the Irish Republican Army that fought in the Irish War of Independence, as the framework for setting up the SOE.

All parties were not in support of the SOE, MI6, in particular, had an issue with it, claiming it was “amateur, dangerous, and bogus.” MI6 feared the SOE would interfere with its intelligence gathering missions due to the SOE’s inherent destructive nature. RAF Bomber Command didn’t appreciate the SOE either, due to the fact that they had to dedicate their aircraft to SOE missions. But, the SOE had the only supporter that mattered — Winston Churchill. The SOE wasn’t going anywhere.

A Spiderweb of Activity

In order to train this network of fighters, training centers, marked by Arabic numerals, were set up in country houses all over England. Commandos that would be going into the field, operating behind enemy lines, received specialized weapons and hand-to-hand combat training in Arisaig, Scotland. If candidates passed the “Commando” course, they would receive parachute training with STS 51 and STS 51A in conjunction with the No.1 Parachute Training School RAF. Following parachute training, agents attended schools, learning about security and tradecraft. Finally, depending on the specific missions that the agents would participate in, they would receive further training in demolition and morse code communication.

The radio played a key role in every aspect of SOE operations. Airborne drops were guided in by radios, except for certain missions where they flew in blind, behind enemy lines. Regular communication and mission updates were dispatched by the BBC through radio transmissions from Britain. Specific coded instructions were sent out to each individual Resistance unit. Needless to say, it was a requirement for each resistance unit to have a radio operator.

Within France, there were many different Resistance groups. The beliefs, political views, and agendas of these groups did not always align. Britain knew that in order to make the Resistance a formidable and successful fighting force, they needed organization, materials, and tactical assistance. This is where the SOE came in.

French resistance fighters American paratroopers
French resistance fighters and American paratroopers during the Battle of Normandy. (U.S. Army Signal Corps)

From 1941 to 1944 the SOE assisted in sabotage, warfare instruction, coordination of attacks against the enemy, and the collection of intelligence. This dangerous job description didn’t come without serious risk with many agents losing their lives during the war.

On May 5, 1941, the first Special Operations Executive agent parachuted into Nazi-occupied France. Over the next three years, until August 1944, over 400 SOE agents would be dropped into France. Female agents were very much in the fray as well, with the first female agent, Andree Borrel, jumping into France in 1942. She was later captured and executed in 1944.

In 1942, the SOE created the Prosper network. Directed by SOE officials in London, its purpose was to convince the German high command that an invasion was forthcoming in 1943. The Prosper network was a complex system, encompassing the majority of the Resistance groups in France. The network specialized in coordinating train derailments and the assassination of high-ranking Nazi officers.

German intelligence eventually infiltrated the Prosper network resulting in the death of many SOE agents and Resistance volunteers. Making the situation worse, many SOE agents continued to be sent to the Prosper network after it had fallen into the Nazi’s hands thus causing more loss of life. Hitler had issued the Commando Order, which stated that any non-uniformed soldier would be considered a spy, resulting in the torture and subsequent execution of any SOE agents captured.

 

The Defining Moment for the Special Operations Executive

Leading up to D-Day, the SOE and the Resistance continued to gather intelligence and sabotage rail lines and trains. Railway workers also went on strike and worked at a deliberately slow pace to slow down the spread of the Germans’ railroad system.

About a month before D-Day, BBC dispatched a radio communication to the SOE agents and the Resistance, telling them that an invasion was coming. Another message followed on June 1, confirming an invasion was imminent. The night before D-Day, a final message was dispatched, telling the SOE agents and French Resistance to take “maximum effort” in carrying out sabotage and interrupting German forces.

In support of Operation Overlord and the D-Day invasion, Special Operations Executive implemented Operation Jedburgh. The operation consisted of three-man teams dropping into occupied France on the night of D-Day and the days following. They linked up with the French Resistance and disseminated plans for coordinated sabotage against the Nazi army. These “Jedburgh Teams,” as they came to be known, were comprised of two officers and one radio operator. Members of these teams were American, British, and French. They wore their military uniforms, in the hope of being treated as prisoners of war, instead of spies, in the event of capture. And unlike the covert SOE missions which had been the standard for years prior, this operation was to consist of overt attacks against the enemy.

D-Day: The Special Operations Executive (SOE)
SOE’s Jedburgh Team Aubrey seen just before boarding the plane that would fly them to Normandy. (ww2images.blogspot.com via National Archives and Records Administration)

There was grave risk and uncertainty in this operation. Earlier in 1944, 33 SAS soldiers from the SAS Brigade had jumped into France, to destroy the railway connecting Paris to the southwestern portion of France. The mission was a disaster; the 33 SAS operatives were captured and executed by the SS.

Among all of the success stories of the Jedburgh Operation, one Jedburgh Team’s contributions went above and beyond. Tommy Macpherson, a Scottish British Army officer, and his two other team members successfully halted the movements of the 2nd SS Panzer Division. Tommy and his team managed to siphon the axle oil out of railway cars, on which the 2nd Panzer Division was to be transported. They replaced the oil with abrasive grease, causing the axles to lock up. The team’s contributions were specifically recognized by General Eisenhower’s staff.

The Jedburgh Operation would result in 100 SOE operatives jumping into France, complimented with 6,000 tons of military supplies. General Eisenhower’s staff at the Supreme Headquarters credited the Jedburgh Teams, saying they had “succeeded in imposing more or less serious delays on all the divisions moved to Normandy.”

 

Back Into the Shadows

Success and victory came with a heavy price. Approximately one out of three of the 42 SOE females and one out of four of the male agents would lose their lives, totaling over 400 dead. Thousands of French Resistance fighters and supporters were killed by the Nazis for assisting the SOE.

The SOE officially shut down in January of 1946. Some members of the Executive entered into a civilian career and others entered into conventional military service. But 280 of the agents would transfer into MI6’s Special Operations Branch. MI6 believed they could learn a lot from the SOE’s training curriculum and research.

In 2014, France requested for the United Kindom’s D-Day veterans to come forward in order to be awarded the Légion d’Honneur. They specifically requested members of the Special Operations Executive and other secret organizations to make themselves known. Many did not come forward. These operatives have kept their secrets since the war ended and it appears that many will continue to stay tight-lipped for the rest of their lives.

Malayan Emergency: The Birth of the Modern Special Air Service

Malaya — 1948.

The United Kingdom and the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) are vying for the post-colonial soul of the country.

From the start, it wasn’t going to be easy for the British military.

Malaya, you see, was in that awkward situation so common wherever Europeans decided to plant a flag: One border, two ethnicities.

Malayans and Chinese, in equal numbers, called the Southeast Asian country home.  So far, it had worked.  But now the British were scooting, and the proposed Federation didn’t appeal to the Chinese half of the family.

And what do they decide to do?  Launch an insurgency to grab power.

Malay Peninsula Malayan Emergency
The Malay Peninsula. The divided geography and long borders added to the government’s woes. (Wikimedia Commons)

Counterinsurgency operations (COIN) — always a hurdle for conventional armies and mindsets — in a jungle with lengthy borders brew a nightmarish ale.

For 12 years (1948-1960) the government forces and the MCP fought it out.

And it wasn’t till 1960 that the Malayan Emergency ended. (A war in all but name, it was branded an “emergency” because London insurance companies wouldn’t cover economic losses otherwise.)

The Communist Terrorists (CTs), as the British called them, operated from within the virgin jungle. Like ethereal creatures, they’d spawn from their hideouts to attack British rubber plantations and tin mines and terrorize the local workers and their families, then vanishing from whence they came.

Chinese squatters, a Japanese addition reminiscent of WWII, fed, sheltered, and joined them. Throughout the conflict, CT numbers ranged from 5,000 to 8,000.

At this point, one may wonder why this is important?  Isn’t the same old play of a postcolonial independence struggle, just in another theatre?

You’re right.  Partly.

The Malayan Emergency is important to the student of military strategy and special operations for two reasons: First, because the British showed that a COIN campaign could succeed — spoiler alert, the government forces won — that a hearts-and-minds strategy is sometimes preferable to big numbers (remember, this was right before the Vietnam War, and the U.S. military was watching).  And second, because it set the stage for the return of the Special Air Service (SAS).

The initial British approach to the Malayan Emergency was to throw large numbers of men.  It didn’t work.  By the time the cumbersome conventional units arrived at the scene of an attack, the CTs had already vanished in the jungle.

A fresh approach was needed.

Headquarters instructed Brigadier “Mad Mike” Mike Calvert, the last CO of the SAS during WWII, to tour the battlefield and gauge the situation.  He recommended a two-pronged strategy: erect protected camps to safeguard the locals from the CTs’ influence and terror, and raise unconventional units that could hunt the CTs in their jungle havens and fight them on their terms.

Protected communities, called “New Villages,” began to mushroom all around.  And the locals (both Malays and Chinese) were given further incentives to resist Communism’s charm for “equality” by being given a stake in the colony’s economy.

As for Calvert’s second recommendation, first came the Ferret Force.

And soon thereafter, the SAS.

 

In this series, we’ll see how these units developed, operated, and succeeded in stemming the Communist tide; and how the harsh jungle environment created Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) that aspiring SAS troopers still learn.

 

This article was originally published in March 2020 by SOFREP. It has been edited for republication. Stay tuned for part II.

The day the British SAS defied their government to rescue their own: Part One

19 September 2005

Basra, Iraq

The British soldiers couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Before them, on a TV screen, sat two of their own, faces bloody from beatings, being paraded on Iraqi TV. The announcer read in Arabic that they were being charged with the murder of an Iraqi policeman, were held in Basra, the very city where they were stationed, and would go on trial.

The realization of what was happening caused blood pressures to rise among more than a few of the men, who felt like someone had slapped them in the face. Yet, unknown to them, at another location nearby, emotions were much worse. The beaten men were not just from the British Army, they were from the Special Air Service, or SAS. Moreover, as the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the unit they belonged to watched the screen repeat the showing several times over the coming hour, a sickening feeling grew within him. Corrupt police who had sympathies with the insurgency, more specifically the Mahdi militia, had kidnapped these men. He knew that given past brutalities of the many factions fighting against the British, the likelihood of them being alive beyond more than a few days was narrow at best.

They needed to be rescued. Now.

Realizing his detachment was too small, he notified senior officers and another SAS unit 300 miles to the north to request reinforcements. Not having to ask twice, the men donned  their gear, prepared their H&K submachine guns and C8 carbines, and headed toward a waiting C-130.

The Lieutenant Colonel began making more phone calls to determine the station at which the men were held. As he contemplated a plan, a senior officer piped through the phone. Expecting the order to go ahead, what followed forever changed him.

“Permission not granted. There are more important things than lives of the soldiers.”  It was not a General in Iraq, but the senior general at permanent joint headquarters Northwood, England, which controlled British military operations in Iraq. The Lieutenant Colonel, incredulous at the command, informed to no avail the danger involved at leaving the two men in captivity. The General repeated himself each time, overruling the plea.

The conversation ended, and, at that moment, the SAS commander realized that someone in a position of power at the highest levels of the British Army actually didn’t care about the lives of British soldiers. He also knew it wasn’t just the General; it had to be the Ministry of Defense who had passed down the orders through Northwood. Reluctantly, he picked up the receiver and phoned the commanding officer and his men packed into the C-130, whose engines were running, ready to move into take off position. The C.O. too, could not believe what the Lieutenant Colonel related to him. Afterward, the C.O. turned to his men and told them what happened. They were furious. Political Correctness had struck again.

The Lieutenant Colonel seethed with rage. He wanted to quit right there. He knew many others would resign as well, once they heard what happened. His two people were going be left to the wolves and there wasn’t a damn thing neither he nor anyone else could do about it.

Then he made the decision. He reached over, picked up the phone and called the SAS detachment in the C-130. “Were doing it anyway,” he said. Forget about Political Correctness.

The C-130 moved for takeoff.

Hell was going to rain down him, the Lieutenant Colonel reckoned. Essentially, his career in the Army was over. A court-martial awaited him as well as anyone else who would defy orders. Strangely, those things didn’t concern him. He was too well-trained to let that happen. No, what he was more concerned about was coming up with a plan to rescue his men. He rose and walked back out to rejoin the others. And there it was again, the two captured British SAS sitting there in tee shirts and slacks, looking despondent, someone berating them in Arabic. The Lieutenant Colonel knew they had to be wondering, ‘Does anyone know where we are? Will they come?’

Damn right, they would. Problem was, the Lieutenant Colonel feared, would they be moved before a rescue happened.

First, though, others were determined to try.

Also seeing the two SAS captives were local officials and regular British Army officers. They located the police station in a section called Jamiat, which lay within a walled compound with prefabricated buildings, and sent a small group of officers along with two Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicles to try to win the captives release and resolve the situation peacefully. Coming with them in trucks were about 100 soldiers who were to cordon off the building.

Once the men reached the station, they were aided by a female Muslim lawyer who pleaded on legal grounds for their release. Every effort to gain permission to get through the gates was ignored and a mob grew around them, forcing them to leave. The soldiers departed, as well. Yet, the Warriors were not so lucky. The mob shouted and hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at the two vehicles. One became smothered in flames and had to be abandoned by its crew. One of the men was beaten before being rescued and placed on the remaining Warrior, which sped off. The crows shouted “Allah-u-Ahkbar,” rejoicing in the retreat. The area around the police station seemed like nothing more than a time bomb waiting to be set off.

British warrior
British Warrior IFV On Fire Near The Police Station. The Circle Is That Of A Crewman Ablaze Exiting The Vehicle. He Was Not Seriously Injured.

During the retreat, The C-130 had arrived in Basra and disgorged its cargo. The Lieutenant Colonel informed the reinforcements of the failed rescue attempt. Undaunted and determined not to let it end the same way again, the SAS unit organized itself into ten Warriors along with helicopters to provide overwatch. With the sun setting, the formidable force departed their base and drove down the busy streets toward the station, eyes watching for any sign of an ambush.

Remarkably, the drive itself was uneventful. Even when they turned the corner to head for the station, the mob was absent. Then the Warriors gunned their engines and slammed through the walls. They rolled right through the buildings except for the station itself. Men men rushed out of the Warriors all over the compound, some into the station, others to kill or secure the police and any militants hanging around.

The ear splitting snap of flash-bang grenades sounded in the air. Gunshots rang as foolish militants who raised their guns quickly fell with dozens of rounds in their bodies. Inside the station, the SAS confronted policemen who raised their hands in fear as they were disarmed, handcuffed and made to lay face down on the floor. Then the cell search began, where they found that the worst fear, their comrades being moved, had come true.

(To be continued…)

British Special Forces To Have Bigger Counter-Terror Role in Afghanistan

With the United States set to pull out most of their 14,000 troops in Afghanistan in the next three years, a bigger part of the ongoing counter-terrorism mission will fall to the British Special Forces. The SAS and the SBS are expected to be tasked to take on a bigger part of these operations during the time of the U.S. withdrawal.

With on-going peace talks with the Taliban still going nowhere, the Trump administration wants the majority of U.S. troops pulled out within three years and are planning accordingly. However, during negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, the United States was pushing for an orderly, 5-year withdrawal plan. The Taliban rejected it, insisting that the United States totally withdraw all troops within a year.

The Taliban refuses to engage the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani, insisting that he is just a puppet of the American government. In an ominous-sounding message, Sayed Akbar Agha, a former Taliban leader, who lives in Kabul said in an interview that the Taliban will talk with Ghani, only after an agreement is reached with the U.S.

American officials know well what happens when a foreign power just abruptly leaves. After the Soviet withdrawal, the president was dragged thru the streets and hanged publicly in a gruesome display.

Meanwhile, another 9000 troops from other members of the coalition will be asked to downsize as well in the three-year time window. The U.S. will continue to provide air cover and conduct air strikes as needed against Taliban or Islamic State fighters wherever the need arises.

With the US-led coalition in Syria also planning to downsize in the near future, this will allow, according to the plans, for the British to deploy more SAS and SBS commandos to Afghanistan to oversee counter-terror missions. The British, at their peak, had about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, until the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) was ended by President Obama. British troop strength now numbers about 1000.

Afghans are ready for peace, but a power-sharing regime with the Taliban isn’t something that even the most confident of officials believe will work. The Taliban favor a very strict mode of Islam that is more akin to the 12th century than to modern times. And the women of the country will be the ones who suffer the most. Under the Taliban, women were forbidden to work, other than in the home or attending school. Many people were severely punished just for watching television.

Two groups “Time4RealPeace” and the “Afghan Women For Peace” don’t want to see a quick U.S. withdrawal or a return to the old ways of the Taliban rule. They are staffed by women who are afraid that under a return to Taliban rule, women will be denied basic human rights.

CIA Director Gina Haspel suggested to the Senate Intelligence Committee that a “robust, monitoring regime” would be necessary under any peace accord for it to work. “It’s very important that we maintain pressure on the terrorist groups” in Afghanistan and retain the ability to act against them, Haspel said. And the Taliban are upping the ante, by negotiating from a position of strength.

Last weekend, they used numerous suicide bombers and fighters with heavy weapons to attack a joint Afghan-American base where 22 Afghan government troops were killed. Since the ISAF pullout, the Taliban either controls or contests half of the country. No American casualties were reported.  

Afghan government Special Forces units that have been trained, and advised by coalition nations SOF conducted an attack of their own that killed 27 Taliban and wounded nearly 20 more. The aim was to take back the government border outposts.

An Afghan army spokesman said, “Afghan Special Forces conducted an operation in Imam Sahib district of Kunduz to recapture Afghan Border Force checkpoints that had fallen to the Taliban days earlier. The Afghan Special Forces killed 27 Taliban fighters, wounded 16 and destroyed 2 IEDs.”

In addition to the British, the French also have had Special Operations units in Afghanistan, but due to their still having sizable SOF units on the ground in Syria as well as in the Sahel region of Sub-Sahara Africa, fighting Islamic extremists there, that they won’t have enough personnel to spare in the future.

As always with the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), they will not comment on any news concerning British Special Forces operations.

Photo: MOD

SAS Commandos Wounded in Yemen, Highlight Humanitarian Crisis

Last week, as many of our readers know, two SAS operators were wounded in an IED blast in Yemen. The covert operation was a combined UK/US operation where the SAS along with a U.S. Special Forces A-Team were scouting out potential drop zones in the country.

But what the drop zones were for highlights just how bad the humanitarian crisis has gotten in Yemen. The combined Green Beret/SAS unit was scouting drop zones for the dropping of relief supplies for the starving people.

The combined team flew into Aden from Djibouti aboard a UAE-supplied Chinook helicopter and once on the ground met with UAE commanders before undertaking their mission. To lower the team’s footprint and their presence on the ground, the Special Operations troops dressed in Arabic clothing and drove in unmarked pickup trucks.

The eastern part of Yemen is largely under the control of the Houthi rebels including the port of Hudaydah. Because of this, Saudi Arabia, a US ally in the region has prevented humanitarian vessels from landing supplies there.

The Houthis began as a moderate theological movement that preached tolerance and held a broad-minded view of all the Yemeni peoples. That changed in the mid-1990s when they began publishing the readings of Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese head of Hezbollah, the Iranian-funded radicalized hater of all things American and Israeli.

The men were operating in the vicinity of the town of Marib, about 500 miles north of Aden when one of the pickup trucks they were traveling in was caught in an IED blast, which was triggered when the vehicle in front drove over it.

About a month ago, five engineers from various countries were killed and another Briton injured in an IED attack around Marib. The explosives were both planted by Houthi rebels.

The men were from the 21st SAS, not the famed 22nd SAS from Hereford, which is a Territorial unit. Both men suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. They were flown by medevac helicopters, first to the U.S. base in Djibouti and then back to the UK via Cypress. Both are expected to recover.

The British Foreign Office arranged a small $3 million dollar aid package that was to stabilize a ceasefire in the port city of Hodeida. The hope was to stabilize and pacify Hodeida and then further outlying areas would follow suit.

This operation is a tricky situation where the Special Operations forces are running a strictly humanitarian assistance mission, and while they’re plotting drop zones for food and medical supplies, the fact they are even there runs contrary to the objectives of both the Sunni government and the Saudis who support them.

The civil war that began in 2015 between the government of Yemen and the Houthi rebels is, in essence, a war of proxies and the civilian populace which is caught in the middle. On one side is the Yemeni government, heavily influenced and supported by the Saudis. The Yemenis also have the support of  Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, and Sudan have also contributed support to the Saudi coalition.

On the other side, the Houthi rebels are financed and supported by Iran. The Iranian presence is the reason for the Saudi intervention. Two years ago, the Houthis fired missiles at US Navy warships. The US military retaliated by striking three coastal missile batteries with cruise missiles.

As usual, the U.N. has said that Iranian support is “alleged”, despite having the U.S. display a surface-to-air missile that was seized by the Saudi-led coalition en route to Yemen. The missile had Farsi writing and US spokesmen told the media that there was a logo from an Iranian arms maker in the warhead.

The Iranians are barred from selling or transferring any weapons without the express approval of the UN Security Council. The United States, which has lent logistical and intelligence support to the Saudis are vowing to pull their support over the plight of the civilian populace and the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi.

The humanitarian crisis has reached epic proportions. Over 10,000 civilians have been killed in the fighting which has taken on a “no-quarter-given” type of conflict. Estimates put the number of children who have starved to death at 84,000 with upwards of 22,000,000 people who need assistance. A total of 8.4 million people are on the verge of famine.

The UK is designated by the UN as a “pen-holder” to Yemen – meaning it is in charge of drafting and tabling Security Council resolutions – because of its historical links with the country. Because of their aid package, both the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni forces have agreed to pull out from the port city of Hodeida which it is hoped that now aid in terms of food and medicine can now reach one of the poorest countries on the planet.

The UN is going to hold another multinational meeting in Geneva on February 26 to determine how the next batch of aid is to be distributed. However, the Houthis, who are now losing the war, are targeting and harassing aid workers. The next card to play is the taking of aid workers as hostages, to use as a bargaining chip in future negotiations.

Meanwhile British and American Special Operators continue to put their lives on the line in a humanitarian mission.

Photo: UK Ministry of Defense

SAS Selection in Australia, Lesson in Perseverance

We’ve shared many of our Selection anecdotes here on the pages of SpecialOperations.com  the past two years and it is always refreshing to see someone else’s perspective especially if the person is in one of our allies Special Operations units.

This one account is a really close look at one officer’s Australian SAS experience. It is a lesson for those of our readers who are attempting or soon to attempt one of the service’s Selection courses.

And for those who may not know this, but when the initial SFAS course was designed back in 1988, (then called SFOT), the first commander of the cadre Major James Velky and the XO Captain Mike Dunford had spent time with Australian SAS and the first “team events” were taken straight out of their book. When something works, don’t mess with it…right?

It’s fair to say that service with Special Forces changes a person and that the process of profound change commences on the selection course. Reflecting on the selection course that I underwent more than a decade ago, I can see that it was a pivotal point in my life both personally and professionally.

I entered the Australian Army at age 23 on a scholarship to study medicine after a failed attempt at a career as a professional triathlete. I first became aware of Special Forces a year later through my brother, who had successfully completed selection for the Australian Special Air Service Regiment(SASR). From the moment I got a glimpse at what that unit did and met some of the blokes involved, I was hooked and I had to be a part of it.

As it transpires, it would take me seven more years to be allowed to attempt SASR selection, and I would spend the five years subsequent to that serving with Australian Special Operations, including four tours of Afghanistan. I am not the same person now that I was when I stepped up for selection all those years ago. My service has changed me. I can see now that the process of change for me truly began on the SASR selection course, and the following are the two key lessons that I took away from those three grueling weeks.

Persistence is key

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge sums up eloquently what I’m trying to convey:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

From the outside, there is a perception that Special Forces soldiers are a superhuman species endowed with physical and psychological attributes out of the reach of the average person. While I accept that there are some exceptional, genetically-gifted individuals among SF units worldwide, in my experience, for the most part, SF is made up of average guys and girls with above-average persistence. I know this because I am one of them. I stand 175 cm tall (5-foot-6), weighing 70-odd kilograms (154 pounds) on a heavy day, and I was the smallest officer on my selection course by a decent amount. When I toed the starting line of the course, I had spent a mere 18 months in uniform, having spent the six years of my army career previous to that in medical school, then working as a junior doctor in civilian hospitals to gain experience before my first posting to an army unit.

I  lined up on selection next to 40 officers who all had significantly more experience than me, and yet I was among the five officers who successfully completed the course that year and were considered suitable for ongoing training with the unit. I don’t offer this information for self-promotion, but simply to illustrate that the sole factor that led to my success on selection, as well as my subsequent time with SF, was persistence.

I first inquired about SASR selection in early 2002, but was not accepted onto the course until mid-2008. Many would have been disheartened by this and potentially given up on the dream, however, I’m not wired that way. I viewed this as the perfect opportunity to prepare myself physically and psychologically for the course, and set about a seven-year training program towards the objective. I used that time to learn everything I could about the unit and its selection process, then busied myself with activities that I felt would make me better suited for service with SF:

  • Mental aptitude and learning ability were fundamental, and I figured I had that one covered through the process of medical schooling that I already had underway.
  • Fitness was an obvious requirement so I started logging hundreds of kilometers of pack-marching and running, as well as thousands of push-ups and chin-ups.
  • I’d read that languages were an advantage so I signed up for Arabic language night school and thrashed away at that for three years, reaching an intermediate level in the spoken and written language.
  • Scuba diving seemed relevant so I joined a dive club and started logging hours underwater.
  • Rock climbing looked like a useful skill so I started to spend weekends scaling local cliffs.
  • Shooting proficiency was a must so I joined a gun club and began putting thousands of rounds downrange from both handguns and rifles.

The irony was that I never used my Arabic language skills during my military service, never did a single military dive, never had cause to climb rocks in a military capacity, and didn’t fire a single round from my handgun in anger during my service. All those hours of training were not lost, however, for what I was developing was the discipline of persistence. By the time I got to the start line of selection, my mental resolve had been strengthened to the point there was no way I was going to quit. Barring injury or forced removal from the course, I was convinced that I would be there at the completion of the three weeks and it would be up to the unit to decide my suitability. Once the course was underway, I watched as soldiers smarter, fitter, stronger, more experienced, and more naturally-talented than me quit at an astonishing rate. Some 160 candidates very quickly atrophied to half that number, and then to 36 over the three-week course.

Throughout the entire course, I was never the top candidate in any activity, and I failed my initial timed 20-kilometer pack march, being required to re-test on the activity before achieving a pass. Toward the final days of the course, my body was racked with infection and began to fail me, but my mind stayed strong and allowed me to persist.

When all was said and done, I was mentally and physically exhausted and broken, however, simply by persisting, I was lucky enough to find myself among the 15% of starters that year who finished the course and were deemed suitable for ongoing training with SASR. Persistence truly was key.

On the same theme, and to borrow a quote from another legendary figure, author Mark Twain once said: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

During the years I spent in Special Forces, I had the opportunity to observe the selection process for several units on multiple occasions and there was one thing that rang true course-in and course-out, that being the little guy was generally better represented in successful candidates than the

physically-bigger blokes. In analyzing this observation, I’ve come to consider that being average throughout life may indeed be an advantage for the Special Forces selection process.

Let me explain. For a candidate to reach the starting line of a SF selection course, they must have already completed a degree of screening to suggest they meet the minimum criteria to potentially be suitable for service with Special Forces. They all therefore meet a minimum required baseline standard, however, there will be a significant degree of difference in the effort an individual has been required to put in to meet that standard. Naturally, more gifted and stronger candidates will meet the standard more easily and can often breeze through the pre-selection process. As a generalization, these soldiers will have excelled throughout their lives, being sports stars at school and oftentimes coming from the elite elements of regular army units such as recon and sniper platoons.

Those soldiers will often have held a high degree of status in the unit they came from and are likely used to praise and accolades, allowing them to develop a healthy degree of associated ego. Contrast this with the candidate who is not as physically or mentally gifted, and who has had to struggle throughout his life to meet the same standard. This soldier was never the one picked first in gym class, was never the star on their high school sports team, never excelled at school despite their best efforts, and has had to grind their entire life to be anything above average. To achieve the minimum standard required to be considered suitable to attempt Special Forces selection, these soldiers have generally had to dedicate years of their lives bettering themselves. They are not accustomed to praise and are generally quite used to criticism, oftentimes using it as fuel to strengthen their resolve towards a goal. These are the small dogs that, through persistence, have developed an abnormal amount of fight.

Contrast these two classes of candidates as they get underway in a brutal selection process that is very deliberately characterized by the psychological stress of near constant failure to achieve set tasks, varying levels of verbal abuse, and regular suggestion from Directing Staff that the candidate is not up to the standard required for the unit and should consider quitting the course. Throw in the added cumulative stressors of sleep- and food-deprivation, and it has been my observation that the big dogs with less fight quit at higher rates for the simple fact the selection environment is so foreign to them and challenging to their ego. They know they can return to their previous unit and get back to their familiar role with its relatively high social status.

The little dog with lots of fight is used to this environment. It is simply an extension of what they have experienced their whole lives, so they knuckle down and push forward. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule and you unquestionably do see the big dogs with plenty of fight that successfully complete selection and go on to great careers with Special Forces, and these guys are a force to be reckoned with. However, in my experience, it’s the smaller–more unassuming–soldiers who are the ones to back for success.

The only competition is yourself yesterday

To read the entire article, click here:

Photos: Dan Pronk/Newsrep

SAS Hits Back Hard Against ISIS Terrorists in Syria

The SAS got a bit of payback this week it seems. The British special operations unit earlier this week hit an ISIS-controlled village in eastern Syria. And in doing so, they dispatched 20 of ISIS fighters as they ran from the battlefield, scurrying away in vehicles. While the British make it a point not to comment on their Special Forces operations, this action was confirmed by sources on the ground.

The Brits were spoiling for some payback after two of their own were seriously wounded in a mortar attack a few weeks while supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are mainly the Kurdish fighters who have been loyal to the U.S.-led coalition. The two seriously wounded operators are expected to survive.

Earlier this week, the Special Air Service (SAS) mounted a raid against an Islamic State (ISIS) fortified position near the village of al-Shaafa in eastern Syria. According to the scant available information—the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) declines to comment on any inquiries about the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF)—the SAS assault force was comprised of around 30 operators, to include assaulters and snipers. Catching the jihadis completely unawares, the SAS raiding force managed to kill approximately 20 ISIS fighters as they attempted to flee the battlefield in vehicles.

The operation was a retaliatory strike for the serious wounding of two SAS operators by ISIS mortar strikes earlier in January. Although in critical condition, the two British commandos are expected to survive. The SAS operators were supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are predominantly comprised of Kurdish fighters, as they attacked close to the towns of Ash-Sha’Fah and Hajin.

Subject to the relentless pounding of coalition airstrikes and SDF attacks, ISIS’ hold in eastern Syria has shrunk to only a few small enclaves. On Wednesday, January 23, the SDF—supported by coalition special operations forces (SOF)—captured the village of Baghouz, one of the last ISIS strongholds in the area.

“Search operations are continuing in Baghouz to find any ISIS militants who are still hiding,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The SDF will now have to push on into the farmland around Baghouz.”

Around 500 ISIS fighters, however, managed to escape.

Another SAS trooper was in the news recently when a lone operator helped local Kenyan authorities clear a hotel and rescue civilians that had been hurt in a terrorist attack.

Al-Shabab terrorists killed 21 people in the attack on the Hotel DusitD2 complex on January 16 and 17. And the SAS operator is being credited with saving countless lives.

The rest of the article on the Syrian operation can be read here:

Photos: British MOD

Two British SAS Operators Wounded in ISIS Rocket Attack

The fighting in Syria with the U.S. led coalition has claimed more Allied casualties. The British press has reported that two British Special Operations troops were seriously wounded in a missile attack by Islamic State fighters in eastern Syria.

The two British troops who are reported to be members of the British 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), who, like the American and French Special Operations troops, are working with the Kurdish, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and were operating near the Al-Shafah area of eastern Deir Ezzo. Four soldiers were injured, one Kurdish fighter was killed along with the two British troops.

The troops were hit by an anti-tank missile this weekend while trying to clear the southern area of Deir Ezzo of ISIS. One SAS member was supposedly hit in the throat with shrapnel. ISIS fighters have been pushed out of the remaining part of the town but are holding on in the south. The two wounded British troops were medevaced by U.S. aircraft immediately.

With the coalition and SDF pushing the remaining ISIS presence out of Syria with the assistance of heavy artillery bombardment and air strikes from coalition aircraft, the Islamic State fighters are holding just a small swath of territory. There are reports that they’re mixing in with civilians in the area.

An SDF official told the news media, Rudaw, a Kurdish news outlet, “Due to a smart missile attack by ISIS, a fighter of the YPG [Kurdish forces] was killed and another wounded, in addition to two British soldiers.”

The British Ministry of Defence (MOD), as is their custom, refused to acknowledge any reports of British SOF.  “We do not comment on Special Forces,” they released in a terse statement. However, it is a generally accepted truth that British SOF are among the coalition troops working with the SDF.

Back in March, a British soldier, Sgt Matt Tonroe of 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, was killed by an IED while embedded with US forces during an operation in Manbij, Syria.

ISIS took advantage of the chaos in the Syrian Civil War to take large amounts of territory in both Syria and Iraq where they declared its “caliphate” in 2014. They used the city of Raqqa as their de facto capital.

Mustafa Bali, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces took to Twitter where he said: “heavy clashes are taking place currently between our forces and ISIS terrorists due to an attack by ISIS on one of our points in Dier ez zor.”

He added, “everybody should be aware that ISIS is not defeated.”

That last message was no doubt geared toward the United States. Last week, President Trump announced that the U.S. would be withdrawing from Syria as ISIS had been defeated.

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency,” Trump said. This move caused much consternation among both the US’ allies and within the Trump administration.

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, and a top US official in the fight against ISIS, Brett McGurk, resigned soon after. Trump has also been roundly criticized by several former generals for this quick about-face on the Syrian situation. However, some U.S. defense department officials have stated that the withdrawal of the U.S. troops, thought to be around 2000, will be slowed down to take months rather than days and that some troops may remain.

However, the coalition has amped up their airstrikes in Syria, carrying out .469 strikes between December 16 thru December 29, which destroyed nearly 300 fighting positions, more than 150 staging areas, along with multiple supply routes, oil lubricant storage facilities, and equipment.

With their area shrinking to just the southern part of Syria along the Euphrates River and northern Iraq, with airstrikes taking an ever-increasing toll, Middle East experts believe that ISIS will revert to a rural insurgency where it will use the vastness of the desert to carry out guerrilla-style attacks.

Meanwhile, two Americans, two Pakistanis and an Irish man were among the prisoners that the Kurdish SDF captured in Syria.

The Kurds identified the men as Warren Christopher Clark (Abu Mohammad al-Ameriki) and Zaid Abed al-Hamid (Abu Zaid al-Ameriki). Clark is reportedly from the Houston area originally. Clark, according to the New York Times submitted a cover letter and a resume to ISIS seeking a position as a “teacher” with ISIS.

“Dear Director, I am looking to get a position teaching English to students in the Islamic State,” Clark reportedly wrote. “I believe that a successful teacher can understand a student’s strengths and weaknesses and is able to use that understanding to help students build on their understanding of the English language.”

U.S. coalition spokesman said that the coalition is “aware of open source reports of reportedly American citizens currently in custody believed to be fighting for ISIS.”

Photo: MOD

“Why Do You Put Such A Premium On Rucking In SOF?”

We frequently get a lot of questions here at SpecialOperations.com about the Selection part of the pipeline, what the candidates for the various Special Operations units in the SOF umbrella must pass. Selection, as we say is just the first step but it is a continuous process and never really ends.

Candidates during Selection will be assessed on their ability to pass the qualification courses and give an idea on how well they’ll fit in the various SOF units. It isn’t an exact science, never was, never will be. Some candidates make it thru the entire pipeline only to fail in the units. That is because the level of training the operators must possess is far above what is required in the courses. Those are just to get your foot in the door. You’ll be assessed all thru your career in every new job, regardless of rank or position.

And one of the biggest discriminators as we’ve said here countless times centers around rucking. And I’ll repeat it here just to refresh everyone’s memory. Rucking is the basis of nearly every training scenario that you’ll encounter in Special Operations. In almost every case, an operator will have some rucking built into a mission.

Which is why I was intrigued by one two-part question I received last week. The person wanted to know “Why do you put such a premium on rucking in your SOF training prep articles?” And the second part which was, “do you believe that all of the SOF units place such a premium on such an exercise?”

I answered with a question of my own which I didn’t get a response but I’ll have to assume it was asked by a person who wasn’t an aspiring candidate of SOF but just a reader who was under some misconceptions.

So, I’ll throw this out there again. It doesn’t matter how good of a shot you are, how fast of a runner you are, how many pull-ups you can do etc. if you can’t handle a rucksack with a ton of “light-weight” gear, then you won’t last long in any Special Operations unit.

I believe some people who read the news or watch videos get caught up in the video game type of action they believe SOF only takes part in. It isn’t just fast-roping on top of a building and taking it down in a matter of seconds before being picked up by helicopters to do it all over again.

There are frequently long bounding movements associated even with direct action missions. And the kit that you see on the pictures and videos on social media, is hardly anything to sneeze at. Compound that with the operators who’ve been operating in the mountains of Afghanistan and you normally operating at above 7500 feet and facing steep terrain.

In Special Forces, back in the day, we used to do regular “certification” for SF ODAs before deployments to ensure that teams could accomplish their mission. It would consist of a couple of days jam-packed with basic SF skill tasks that we’d have to do and then each night doing a long-range movement with rucksacks consisting of 12-18 miles, with the final one being over 20.

If a team member couldn’t make the grade, then he was soon moved out. There just isn’t a gray area there, you can do it or you can’t. It is just that simple and ruthless in its intent.

The Selection courses are dealt with exactly the same, but the added stress is the unknown. You’re going to be tasked with rucking along a prescribed route, but the cadre won’t tell you how far it is or what your time is. Which is why no watches are allowed. The added stress of the unknown is a mind game that is designed to make it even more difficult.

As candidates and as members of the unit, we’d occasionally have the guy turn an ankle here or twist a knee there, and we’d offer a hand up and maybe take their weapon for a short stint. But, and this was especially true in the course if it happened time and again, other candidates would stop lending a hand to the same guy. Why? This is a guy that you may eventually serve on an A-Team with. Is this guy going to be able to do the job on a team? Or will you consistently have to carry his as well as your own weight? Again it is ruthless, but that is how the herd gets culled.

The Selection for Delta Force is exactly the same, the candidates are given map sheets and a point far in the distance and aren’t given a time window in which they’re supposed to arrive. To get a great look at how to pass the Delta Selection, read NEWSREP’s own George Hand who wrote a tremendous series of articles on just that. The first one is right here:

As to the second part of the question, yes other services do the exact same thing. As I’ve written in the past, I was there early in the process (3rd class) when Special Forces began Selection. Back then it wasn’t yet called SFAS, but SFOT which the candidates thought stood for “Special Form of Torture.”

And the truth of the matter is, we stole the entire Selection playbook from the SAS. Nearly all of our SF training today was based on the SAS model. Yes, I know, my Brit friends will never let me forget that little tidbit.

And the SAS really puts a high priority on rucking. The Breeland Beacons in Wales to include the infamous Pen Y Fan and the forced long-range rucksack march which the Brits call “Endurance” shows that they too use that as a prime Selection tool. I can’t speak for our potential adversaries in the case of the Russians or the Chinese, but I’d bet the house that they do things much the same way.

In the 7th SFG, we would normally ruck 2X and run 3X a week during a regular PT week. But that would change on occasion depending on the situation. Most times, just like our runs, we’d start off as a group and then about halfway thru it would an individual movement to the finish.

Rucking is of paramount importance, that is why so many SOF guys in their later years have so many back, knee and shoulder issues…it comes with the territory.

So, who’s going rucking today???? DOL

Photo: US Army