Jock Lewes - Co-Founder of the SAS

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I have been struggling to believe or rather retain my belief in German sincerity but only a fanatic faith could withstand the evidence they choose of their own free will to put before us,' he wrote to his parents. 'I have great faith in Britain and I swear I will not live to see the day when Britain hauls down the colours of her beliefs before totalitarian aggression.' Here we have a group of men who were by no means ordinary, yet never expected the ‘superhero’ treatment. They came from all corners of the UK and from every class, working together with an unforced swagger that tells us they have no point to prove, simply a job to do and a strong belief at their core that they can deliver. All this whilst surrounded by the most extraordinary and perilous circumstances. Big Dave' successfully argued the case that Britain needed to send guerilla fighters behind German lines to create chaos.

She said: "It is almost as if they would rather see it treated like a documentary, but it is not a documentary, it is a drama and it is making people aware how crazy and mad the whole scene was in that period. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blair 'Paddy' Mayne is pictured right in Norway in 1945. The SAS wreaked havoc against German and Italian positions SAS Rogue Heroes is a show about how the SAS was formed during WW2 in North Africa. It’s about a bunch of rag tag fellas who took matters into their own hands because they felt that the controlling forces weren’t capable of doing it themselves. Turns out this actually happened and, what's more, Knight had to tone it down. According to the i Paper, Knight rewrote it as a dummy grenade to “make it believable” in the show. Mike Sadler, the 102-year-old last surviving member of the original SAS, told Knight however that it was, actually, a real grenade. Does it count as snookering if the table's blown to bits? …and did he actually break his legs on an early parachute run? Stirling's biggest success came in July 1942, when his SAS squadron raided the Sidi Haneish airfield in German-held Egypt. A total of 37 Axis aircraft were destroyed, with only one Allied soldier killed.

The road to success

When he got the opinion of psychotherapist and PTSD expert Ros Townsend, she concluded: "There is no doubt that a 'perfect storm' of factors, making rich ground for the development of PTS, came together in terms of the character and experiences of Blair Mayne." Given Britain's plight on the battlefield in North Africa at the time, permission was given to Stirling for him to assemble his unit, which was made up of soldiers who had proven themselves to be fearless. But what about the most explosive moments from SAS Rogue Heroes? Are they historically accurate or the stuff of legend? Did Stirling clear a room by throwing a grenade on a snooker table?

SAS Rogue Heroes, the first episode of which airs on Sunday, depicts the real-life events that were revealed at great length by historian Ben Macintyre in his 2016 book of the same name. Playing the mysterious spy Eve, you’ll most likely know Sofia Boutella from her role as Jaylah in Star Trek Beyond, Ahmanet in The Mummy and Gazelle in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Theo Barklem-Biggs as Reg Seekings Everyone speaks so highly of your energy on set - what is the atmosphere that you like to create during filming?After the war, the unit was disbanded, with its ongoing existence not deemed to be necessary. But bosses changed their minds just two years later and the SAS were among those sent to fight in the Korean War. Dudley the man, when he wasn’t hatching plots and lies to tell the Germans, would sometimes wear delicious long gloves and dress up as a woman, and there are photographs of him doing that. He’s a fascinating, very complex character. A boxer, a Northern Ireland rugby star and reportedly an excellent shot, Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne went into the Second World War with many ideal qualities for a soldier, and also had a reputation as a rambunctious personality. Still, SAS Rogue Heroes has been well received by people who know their stuff, such as the historian Antony Beevor, often grumpy about historical accuracy in war films. “Knight has of course taken liberties with the precise record,” he wrote in The Guardian, “but they are mainly additions, fleshing out characters and context, not distortions.” a b "Commonwealth War Graves Commission – casualty details, John Steel Lewes". Commonwealth War Graves Commission . Retrieved 21 February 2008.

For Gavin Mortimer, the competitive streak before Stirling and Mayne is one of the best elements of the series. “I don’t think they really had a scoreboard,” he says, “but there was a competitive element. Stirling was intimidated by Paddy Mayne. Mayne was a qualified solicitor, an international rugby player, and idolised by the men. And there’s Stirling, who in the Thirties had acquired a rep as a quitter and a loafer. She is broken but in one piece': Emily Hand's father vows to throw 'biggest party ever' to mark the ninth birthday the Irish girl spent as a Hamas hostage - as he reveals he was scared to hug her too tightly after her captivity hell

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From the start, the elite unit was made up of as few as 100 men, all of whom had been trained beyond the standards of all other fighting men. SARAH VINE: Royal biographer Omid Scobie may be a leech... but the treachery of Harry was so much worse While Mayne’s portrayal might be contentious, Mortimer thinks that Stirling is accurately depicted in the series. “It captures his arrogant bravado and entitlement,” he says. Other details and characters – such as Sofia Boutella’s French intelligence love interest – are entirely fabricated. With Stirling and Lewes determined to prove that the concept of the SAS could have actual utility, they take to the skies for a parachute run — both largely unequipped and inexperienced. They head to an airstrip fifty miles east of Cairo, caught in the middle of a terrible sandstorm. Despite the protests of an airman on the ground, they take to the skies, shot and scored with the bombast typical of a Knight drama. Then Stirling jumps, his parachute tears, and… yeah. Crunch.

Macintyre, Ben (2016). Rogue Warriors. New York: Crown Publishing Group. pp.25–28. ISBN 978-1-101-90416-9. I don’t think Mayne took Stirling very seriously as a guerrilla fighter. Over time this embittered Stirling. I think he appointed Mayne as a training officer to take him out of action and claim successes of his own, which he didn’t do.”Based on Ben Macintyre’s best-selling book of the same name, SAS Rogue Heroes on the BBC has been a huge hit with audiences and critics alike, with episode one attracting 9.4 million viewers (28-day all screens figure). This makes SAS Rogue Heroes the BBC’s third biggest drama launch of the year so far. The series has been available in full as a box set on BBC iPlayer since launch. This show is an important and essential part of history about real men who fought during an important time. This show is about the bravery and the courage of these men, and the insanity of these men. They fight to keep Paddy’s legacy alive, and are keen to point out that the ‘muscle for hire’ image many people remember him for doesn’t tell the full story. For instance, they reveal he carried a poetry book called Other Men’s Flowers into battle – and SAS: Rogue Heroes does show this side of him, as we see Mayne reciting poetry in prison during the first episode. They also tell the story of how – when his best friend Eoin McGonigal (played by Donal Finn in SAS: Rogue Heroes) was killed in action, Paddy gave up his leave to go and search for Eoin’s grave, putting himself in considerable danger, and wrote a heartfelt letter to Eoin’s mother sending his condolences. Aside from his oft-overlooked but vital contributions as the SAS’ training officer, Lewes would also invent the eponymously named ‘Lewes Bomb’, a combined explosive and incendiary device designed specifically to meet the unique requirements of the SAS. Compact and light at around a pound in weight, and made of a mixture of diesel oil and plastic explosive, it could be easily transported in large numbers by the men of the SAS over long distances, and proved to be very effective at destroying enemy equipment, particularly fuel dumps and most especially aircraft. Although the detonators could be somewhat unreliable (something not really in Lewes’ control), it was nevertheless an undeniably useful weapon, and a crucial component of the infrastructure destruction raids that formed the bread and butter of the early SAS. The content of the letters is so at odds with Lewes's patriotic wartime persona that some military historians have suggested his early behaviour may have been a front and that Lewes may have been a government agent.