SAS (Special Air Service) & LRDG (Long Range Desert Group).

D

Davepick

Well-known member
I'm currently watching this.
It's 4 x I hour episodes.
It's fantastic, although the 1st episode was different from what ensues.
You can find it if you Google Rogue Warriors SAS Rogue Warriors.
It's fascinating and quite brutal, but really worth a watch.
Made me think of my Dad in part. Although he was just an RASC driver he was always near the front line
Driving Bailey Bridges which spanned awkward crossing points.
This, so far, is really worth watching.
2 more episodes to go.
Don't be put off by the 1st episode.
 
I came into contact with some members of 21st SAS when returning from Idris, Libya in the early sixties.
We had flown into Idris in a Valiant can't remember exact cause of leaving it there but believe a crew from Malta were going to practice bombing on the ranges there,
However we returned on a Blackburn Beverley along with a an Austin champ (jeep type vehicle) along with five members of the 21st who had been on exercise, a couple of who looked worse for wear, one limping on crutches and another with arm in sling.
Commincation with them for the entire flight back to the UK was non existant they kept themselves to themselves, we didn't expect them to converse with the likes of RAF persnonnel but even other members of several army groups, engineers and RASC failled to make conversation with them.
Our captain thought that the 21st a Territorial regiment was made up of university types, but then one of our pilots was ex uni and he couldn;t make any headway with them.
Perhaps it was a case of walls have ears, the SAS were always a tad secretive.
 
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Whitstabletangerine said:
I came into contact with some members of 21st SAS when returning from Idris, Libya in the early sixties.
We had flown into Idris in a Valiant can't remember exact cause of leaving it there but believe a crew from Malta were going to practice bombing on the ranges there,
However we returned on a Blackburn Beverley along with a an Austin champ (jeep type vehicle) along with five members of the 21st who had been on exercise, a couple of who looked worse for wear, one limping on crutches and another with arm in sling.
Commincation with them for the entire flight back to the UK was non existant they kept themselves to themselves, we didn't expect them to converse with the likes of RAF persnonnel but even other members of several army groups, engineers and RASC failled to make conversation with them.
Our captain thought that the 21st a Territorial regiment was made up of university types, but then one of our pilots was ex uni and he couldn;t make any headway with them.
Perhaps it was a case of walls have ears, the SAS were always a tad secretive.
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Whits, we had an Austin Champ in our Troop (Reccy). Never drove it, it was the Troop Commanders.
Unfortunately, the very same day that I had my accident, the A Champ, with our CO as passenger, went over a small cliff edge.
The CO was killed and the driver finished up in the same hospital as I was in.
 
O/T. Bob it's a Hyundai Bayon. I have yet to see another on the road and we've had it for a year now.
Remembered it as soon as I sat in the stand.
Aging is bad for the memory.
 
There was an old unassuming guy used to go in the Corn Dolly in Bradford. Always kept himself to himself but would talk to me, as he knew my step father, and one or two others. He had contracted terminal Cancer and on his final appearance at the pub after the remembrance service in Bradford he told me why he had kept quiet all these years. Sporting his full set of medals , he disclosed that he had been in the SBS in Burma during WW2. a very brave man.
 
Back in the mid 1980s I was walking with a group in the Brecon Beacons - Pen Y Fan and Corn Du - which took in the famous Fan Dance. Our group leader was ex SBS (seconded to the SAS for a time) and he took great pleasure in pointing out house bricks scattered randomly on the ground with numbers painted on them.

The Fan Dance is an early stage in the special forces selection process to ascertain whether candidates have the necessary aptitude. The bricks were loaded into their rucksacks and the ones we saw had been dumped by soldiers who’d decided they probably didn’t want to be in the SAS after all.
 
Mexboroseasider said:
Back in the mid 1980s I was walking with a group in the Brecon Beacons - Pen Y Fan and Corn Du - which took in the famous Fan Dance. Our group leader was ex SBS (seconded to the SAS for a time) and he took great pleasure in pointing out house bricks scattered randomly on the ground with numbers painted on them.

The Fan Dance is an early stage in the special forces selection process to ascertain whether candidates have the necessary aptitude. The bricks were loaded into their rucksacks and the ones we saw had been dumped by soldiers who’d decided they probably didn’t want to be in the SAS after all.
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Many years ago, whilst at Uni and running the Mountaineering Club, we often went up the Brecons. One walk, there was an Army Landy with some Major sat on it smoking a pipe at the roadside. Up the path to the top, we kept bumping into these blokes in full kit with rifles, running individually, sweating profusely, and yet quite able to have a normal conversation. Always wondered.

The Brecons and Pen Y Fan in particular became my go to place when I lived darn sarf and life was getting on top of me. Regularly used to bump into the Paras doing their annual fitness test, always called me sir, which amused me. You could hear all this swearing through the mist, these figures would appears hello, sir, and then disappear off again with the swearing restarting.
 
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