The early history of the SAS, told with lots of references to the soldiers’ own recollections.

It’s hard to imagine now how revolutionary David Stirling’s ideas were in the 1940s. To remove warefare from the structured set-pieces of the First World War and replace them with a more fluid form that emphasised small strike teams causing havoc behind the recognised front lines, and forcing the enemy to respond by taking troops away from the main battles, was revolutionary. It’s hardly surprising that it was fiercely contested within the military – or that it suffered failures ranging from catastrophic to hilarious on the way to its final success.

The characters who emerged were clearly unsuited to structured military life, while at the same time being ideally suited to unstructured raiding. The fact that they managed to cohere as a unit is a massive tribute to David (and Bill) stirling, Paddy Mayne, and the other visionary officers and men in the early cadres.

The most interesting thing for me in this book was how much the war, and the SAS’ perception of it, changed over time: from the desert to the countryside and towns of France and Germany, as the war became more vicious and close-quarter. Macintyre doesn’t shy-away from reporting behaviours that would nowadays, in retrospect, be regarded as war crimes, from both sides: something that’s not been dealt with thoroughly until quite recently in the histories of the Second World War. None of that changes or tarnishes the heroism on show: in many ways it serves to highlight the times when the officers in charge chose to act scrupulously, to consciously differentiate themselves from their enemy.

5/5. Finished Sunday 6 April, 2025.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)