Free Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben Macintyre

similar to a ballpoint pen, with a spring-loaded striker held down by copper wire; gently squeezing the glass vial at the top of the detonator released acid, which then ate through the wire and released the striker, quickly or slowly depending on the thickness of the wire. The detonator could be primed to go off with a delay of anything between twelve seconds and two hours. This homemade explosive-incendiary bomb would prove to be one of the more remarkable innovations of the war: lightweight, versatile, sticky enough to attach to the wing of a plane, hard to spot in the dark, and hugely destructive—an all-purpose time bomb that could be carried in a backpack and primed in seconds. Jim Almonds described it as “a nice little black pudding.” The “Lewes bomb” would be a permanent addition to the military arsenal, the ideal desert-raiding explosive, and the first customized weapon created by and for the SAS.
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    Auchinleck’s offensive would be the largest armored operation undertaken by the British to date. The aim of the commander in chief was to push Rommel out of Cyrenaica, relieve Tobruk, and retake the coastal airfields in order to provide vital air cover for the convoys to Malta. Code-named Operation Crusader, it would be launched on November 18.
    On November 10, Brigadier Galloway of Middle East Headquarters issued an outline of Operation Squatter, enlarging on the plan laid out by David Stirling in his original memo: on the night of November 17, the night before Auchinleck’s tanks began to roll west, fifty-five men of L Detachment would take off from Bagush airfield in Egypt, fly over enemy territory, and then parachute to the desert twelve miles from the coast. A heavy air raid on the airstrips beforehand would create fires that would enable the pilots to navigate toward the drop zone, which would also be identified by the RAF’s marker flares. On landing, five teams of eleven men would then attack five forward airfields in the vicinity of Timimi and Gazala, with the aim of “destroying as many aircraft as possible.” They would deploy Lewes bombs with staggered timers to ensure that they all detonated at roughly the same time. “The destruction of fighter aircraft is of greater importance than bombers, and German aircraft are of more importance than Italian,” the order advised. There were estimated to be some three hundred planes on the five airfields; each team would carry sixty Lewes bombs. In theory, therefore, they should be able to destroy the lot.
    Having completed the mission, the men would march some fifty miles inland to a point three miles south of the crossroads on the Trig al Abd, an ancient desert trading track running parallel to the coast. There, they would be picked up by a unit of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), a reconnaissance unit, transported to Siwa Oasis, and then flown back to Kabrit by transport plane. The LRDG would keep a watch by day for the returning SAS units, and hang a red hurricane lantern at the rendezvous point visible at night; they would wait for three days; and if at the end of that period the SAS had still not appeared, the LRDG would bury two twelve-gallon water containers and some tinned dates at a prearranged spot, and leave. The men would then be on their own in the desert.
    The contribution planned for L Detachment would be small but important: a low-stakes gamble for potentially high returns. If it worked, it might seriously degrade enemy airpower at a pivotal moment; if it failed, at worst a few dozen men would be lost, a small drop in the great military wave surging westward.
    Lewes was elated at the prospect of action at last. His letters home ring with the chivalric tones of a Crusader: “We wait to prove ourselves….This unit cannot now die, as Layforce died, it is alive and will live gloriously. Soon our name will be honoured and our ranks filled with those who come seeking honour and nobility.”

Two hours before takeoff, the RAF laid on