Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII (29 page)

Anders Lassen VC, MC and two bars – the last of the
Maid Honour
originals – had died as he had lived, in heroic defence of his fellow raiders and taking the fight to the enemy.

Fittingly, his body was retrieved by Don Francesco Mariani, the priest of Comacchio town, and buried close by where he had fought his final battle, alongside those brother warriors who had fallen with him.

The loss of their commanding officer devastated the survivors of Comacchio. All had seen Lassen as fearless and indestructible and as leading a charmed life. Impossible as it might seem he was now dead. He was buried initially in Comacchio, the town whose liberation had been his objective in the action that was to be his last. His remains were later transferred to the British military cemetery at Argenta. They were laid to rest along with some 600 of those from the many nations who fought and died at Argenta and Comacchio so Europe might be freed from Nazi tyranny. A verse in Danish at the foot of his gravestone translates as:

The mission to take Comacchio had formed part of an elaborate feint, one designed to convince the enemy that the main push by Allied forces in northern Italy would be along the coast. In truth, the real thrust had concentrated some miles to the west of there, in the Argenta Gap, a strip of land lying
between Comacchio’s western shore and the Lombardy marshes. At Argenta, the Allies had secured their much-needed breakthrough, and barely four weeks later the war in Europe was over. Arguably, the sacrifice at Comacchio had not been in vain.

The posthumous Victoria Cross was presented to Lassen’s parents by King George VI at Buckingham Palace, in December 1945. A second VC was awarded for actions during Operation Roast. Royal Marine Commando Tom Hunter VC was killed while charging down and destroying at least three enemy machine-gun positions. Few British military operations have ever been honoured so highly.

*

At the SAS lines in Hereford, there are two statues of the unit’s founding heroes: one is of David Stirling, the other of Anders Lassen, the two men who pioneered what was to become modern Special Forces soldiering. While Lassen served in Jellicoe’s SBS, during the war years it was a part of the SAS Regiment, so the SAS have rightly claimed Lassen as one of their own. Equally, the SBS – now a long-established separate entity from the SAS – also claim the Danish Viking raider as one of their chief forebears.

Many have described Lassen as a real James Bond character: a hard-drinking, hard-hitting womanizer, for whom there were no holds barred when fighting the enemy. Indeed, Ian Fleming’s Bond is believed to be based in part upon Lassen, with a good dose of Gus March-Phillipps, Geoffrey Appleyard and Graham Hayes thrown in. But the efforts of Lassen and his men had far wider ramifications over and above their obvious heroics. For
example, David Sutherland, Lassen’s commanding officer during the Comacchio mission, wrote of him: ‘Anders caused more damage and discomfort to the enemy during five years of war than any other man of his rank and age.’

A number of other senior Allied commanders wrote about how the small band of men that Lassen helped lead had achieved the extraordinary, in helping to turn the tide of the war – in the Aegean raids, in Santorini, in Salonika, and even in Comacchio. For example, Field Marshal Alexander wrote to Sutherland shortly after Comacchio, saying: ‘The reputation you have made for yourselves in your successful operations in the Mediterranean, then the Aegean Islands and the Adriatic coast will never be surpassed.’ High praise indeed.

*

In the aftermath of war a nation hungry for peace saw no role for irregular, piratical raiders: perhaps rightly, the focus of the world turned to building the peace. The SAS were criticized on the following points: ‘not adaptable to all countries’; ‘expense per man is greater than any other formation and is not worthwhile’; ‘any normal battalion could do the same job’.

The SAS was disbanded immediately after the Second World War, or so the official history goes, the military High Command and their political taskmasters wasting little time in getting rid of the mavericks that had made up their number. Yet less than a decade later the British military was forced to drastically revise its position, and the Special Forces units were reformed – largely in response to the ‘Malaya Emergency’, in which the need for irregular forces became clear. Fortunately, the SF ethos had
been kept alive in various guises, and survivors from the original units resurfaced so the elite SAS could be reformed.

In truth, immediately after the war the then ex-Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, became the chairman of a secret association that kept the SAS/SBS alive until it could be formally and officially refounded in 1953. During that underground period, the SAS/SBS/SOE formed a deniable unit based in France but run from London, tasked with hunting down Nazi war criminals, and in particular those responsible for executing former members of British Special Forces on Hitler’s orders. The Nazis they tracked down were not to be brought to justice. They were to be given the same rights as our own had been, and wiped out.

This reflected Churchill’s passion for, and his unshakeable loyalty to, the Special Forces that he founded, a commitment that remained undimmed until the end of his days. No doubt Gus March-Phillipps, Geoffrey Appleyard, Graham Hayes and Anders Lassen would have approved wholeheartedly of keeping a secret SAS active, and of its post-war missions, had they lived to see the war’s end.

Danish Viking. Anders Lassen VC, top right, the fearsome raider-commander, with Stephan Cassuli, lower left, at their secret Turkish ‘pirate base’.

Tools of the trade. A raider, with American M1 Carbine, pistol and lethal, 7-inch-bladed, Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife: ‘It never runs out of bullets.’

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler? A patrol shows off a picture of the Führer; Hitler had ordered that any raider, if captured, face torture and execution.

The
Maid Honour
, a covertly armed Q Ship.

Graham Hayes MC,
Maid Honour
crewman, in typically dashing form.

The crew of
Maid Honour
.

Geoffrey ‘Apple’ Appleyard MC, Free Frenchman Andrew Desgranges and Gus March-Phillipps DSO.