Why another book about the Special Air Service? This was my first reaction on seeing Damien Lewis’s latest work. There is no shortage of titles about the best-known of all British special forces (the author, an acknowledged expert on the SAS, has written several), but given readers’ apparent insatiable appetite for the subject, it is no surprise that they keep coming.
Yet, from the outset, this is a history with a difference. Set in the aftermath of D-Day, it concerns SABU-70, a 12-man SAS raiding party. Following an aborted attempt two days previously, the raiders were landed on 16 June 1944 at La Ferté-Alais, south-east of Paris, and went on successfully to attack the railway and munition dumps at Dourdan.
The author also discusses the role of 190 and 620 Squadrons, flying four-engine Short Stirling bombers which, although obsolete as heavy bombers, performed superbly in their new role of dropping special forces and agents behind enemy lines, and undertaking airdrops to resistance groups. The skill of pilots and crews is highlighted, culminating in the audacious extraction of SABU-70 from Étampes aerodrome by a C47 – truly the stuff of Hollywood.
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