David Stirling SAS Monument

From Bangor Daily News , November 7, 1990:

Sir David Stirling, founded SAS forces

LONDON - Colonel Sir David STIRLING, who found Britain’s SAS elite special forces in World War II, has died, his biographer said Monday. He was 74.

Stirling died Sunday night in the London Clinic after a long illness said Alan Hoe, a former SAS major and Stirling’s official biographer.

The SAS, or Special Air Service, with its motto “Who Dares Wins,” continued after the war and has kept its reputation for swift, clandestine and effective action. One highly publicised exploit was its assault on the Iranian Embassy in London May 5, 1980, to end a siege by gunmen holding hostages.

Born Archibald David Stirling on November 15, 1915, the son of a Scottish brigadier general, he joined the SCOTS GUARDS at the outbreak of World War II. Six months later he transferred to No. 3 COMMANDO group of the BRIGADE OF GUARDS and went with them to the Middle East.

He persuaded military authorities that “an army within an army” was needed to make swift, secret raids against the enemy. They gave him six officers and 60 enlisted men to try out his theories in the Western Desert.

Stirling became known as the “Phantom Major” among the German troops of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Africa Korps after destroying 250 enemy aircraft and scores of fuel and ammunition dumps in attacks on the enemy rear.

His tactics of operating so far behind German lines that his men could virtually walk into their targets - and then “retreating” even farther into enemy territory against all expectations - helped give him legendary status.

In 1943, Stirling was taken prisoner in Tunisia. He escaped, was recaptured and was transferred to Colditz Castle prison camp where he remained for the rest of the war.

Stirling was not married. No survivors were reported.