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 Page A

what was, by wartime standards, a banquet. There was as much food as the men of L Detachment could eat, and a bottle of beer each. It was even served by RAF officers. This “dinner fit for a king” was intended as a tribute to the departing parachutists, but some detected a melancholy aspect to the elaborate send-off: “We were treated like men going to the gallows.” A small flicker of premonitory anxiety, like the rising wind off the desert, wafted through the RAF mess tent at Bagush airfield as the men ate their meal, and with good reason: Operation Squatter ought never to have taken place.
    The weather forecast was atrocious. Winds of at least thirty knots were predicted, twice the maximum speed for safe parachuting, with heavy rain. Whirling sand could create serious navigation problems for the pilots, while the gusting wind would probably blow the parachutists, and the canisters containing their equipment, far off course. Visibility on this moonless night would be limited anyway, but in the midst of a desert storm regrouping on the ground would be a severe challenge. Brigadier Galloway of the general staff advised calling off the operation, but the final decision was left to Stirling. He consulted his officers. There was no question of postponement, since Auchinleck’s main Eighth Army offensive would be taking place the following day, whatever the weather: the parachute drop would either have to go ahead or be canceled. The men had signed up because they were frustrated by the endless delays that had plagued Layforce; the effect on morale of another cancellation could be terminal. Stirling feared that his enemies at Middle East HQ might take the opportunity to disband his detachment altogether. He would later frame the decision as one in which the very future of the unit was at stake, although he cannot have been certain of this at the time. At the back of his mind must have been the knowledge that his own leadership status would suffer badly if he pulled the plug. “I swore when I started SAS that if we undertook to take on a target on a particular night, we’d do it utterly regardless,” he told his biographer. “It seemed to me we had to take the risk.” Jock Lewes and Paddy Mayne agreed; the decision was popular with the men. Stirling’s choice was prompted by conviction, audacity, and hope. It was a brave decision, but the wrong one.
    The day before the operation, Stirling wrote to his mother, with a jauntiness he may not have felt, revealing that he would soon be taking part in “the best possible type of operation [which] will be far more exciting than dangerous.”
    The five sticks of parachutists would be led by Stirling, Lewes, Mayne, McGonigal, and Bonington. Once safely on the ground, each group would split into smaller units of between four and six men, before moving on to attack the five separate airfields. Each plane also carried parachute canisters containing explosives, weapons, spare ammunition, fuses, and extra rations. The men were each equipped with an entrenching tool and a small haversack containing grenades, a revolver, maps, a compass, and rations (these consisted of dates, raisins, cheese, biscuits, sweets, and chocolate). They were dressed in standard desert uniform of khaki shorts and shirt, with rubber boots, helmets, and mechanics’ overalls. The American Pat Riley and young Johnny Cooper would both jump with Jock Lewes; Seekings was under Mayne’s command.
    “The wind is getting up,” one of the pilots remarked gloomily as the men climbed aboard.
    Of the officers, Fraser was absent, left behind on account of a wrist broken in parachute training; he planned to travel with the LRDG and join the others at the rendezvous. Jim Almonds was also forced to remain in camp, since his young son was gravely ill with suspected meningitis and he expected to be recalled to Britain at any moment. “Watched them embark and the planes take off,” Almonds wrote in his diary. “They are a