282465 (1095726) Willis Michael SADLER, MC, MM, Royal Artillery, Long Range Desert Group & 1 SAS

davidbfpo · Apr 20, 2024

Yesterday I attended Mike Sadler's private memorial Service @ Hereford Cathedral, attended by his family, the Prince of Wales, the SAS Colonel Commandant General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, a host of ex- and serving members of the regiment. Plus one French Army SF officer in uniform, although others in civvies were present. The French "helper" assisted me in gaining entry.

After WW2 and an expedition to Antarctica he joined SIS (MI6), serving for thirty-six years, it was suggested he had a role in the Soviet era double agent Oleg Gordievsky (who was finally extracted from the USSR in 1985) and a SIS building somewhere is now named after him.

davidbfpo · Dec 31, 2024

A few snippets have landed and will appear soon, apologies lost them till 31/12/2024. See Post 23.

Meantime he gets a mention in a new thread:The capture of David Stirling: the German account

JohnG505 · Dec 31, 2024

davidbfpo · Dec 31, 2024

Provided by a "lurker" who had a family link to him. Mike Sadler, interviewed at the age of 102

Mike Sadler interview, published in the Daily Mirror 29 Oct 2022

The reason for the interview is that tonight (Sunday 30 Oct 2022) begins a new six part TV drama series “SAS Rogue Heroes”. This is based on the 2016 book of the same name by Ben MacIntyre, which led to a three part documentary by Macintyre in 2017. Sadler is now 102 years old, the only man left from the original SAS.
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Q. What did you think of David Stirling as a man?

He was a first-class man, highly intelligent, highly motivated, and in many ways the founder of the SAS. David was the one who perceived the possibilities and was determined to make the SAS a reality. He managed to recruit about 80 chaps who had, he thought, the requirements he needed. He wanted people who could get on with each other – and him – in difficult circumstances. He was more interested in that than their qualifications.

Q What was your impression of Paddy Mayne?

He was an action man, he liked firing weapons. Paddy was a great one for a party and he was inclined to have one pulled out of bed in the middle of the night just to join a party. I found that sort of thing rather maddening, but he was so nice you couldn’t really mind.

Q. What was the attitude of people to death and injury?

The most important thing was having a doctor capable of doing their work in an emergency. We did have some good doctors who could perform an operation right there in the sand.

Q. If you returned from a raid and somebody had been killed, was that discussed?

Oh yes. They said what a good chap he was, and how sad. People on the whole didn’t think about being killed. We all thought someone else would be killed, but not us. I don’t know why it was. I suspect it was self-protection really.

Q. Would you regard what you did as more dangerous than what other members of the military were doing?

Oh no, certainly not. We knew about the tank battles and things like that. They were much worse. We heard about people getting stuck in tanks which had gone on We felt we were lucky to be out in these remote parts where there wasn’t too much risk. Well, of course, there was a great deal of risk, but we didn’t value it too greatly.

Q. Did you regard yourselves as special, as the name Special Air Service indicates?

We felt we were a good lot of chaps together, that’s true, we did feel that. But I don’t know that we felt we were particularly special. Yes, we were pretty unique in one way. We were conscious that we were doing something different from the regular army.

Q. Can you tell us more about the challenges of operating in the desert?

The problems were knowing where you were, and knowing where you could find resources, such as the places where you could find water on a long journey in unknown territory over very bad conditions.

Sometimes you could get a lovely flat area where you could drive along at 50 or 60 miles an hour. At other times you couldn’t go a mile in an hour because of the terrible conditions, boulders and rocks and stones, getting punctures in tyres endlessly, and damage to the vehicles. Overall, I loved the desert, I thought it was perfect. I was very sorry to leave at the end of the desert war. It was like being on the sea in a way. You could go in any direction. There was a great sort of freedom attached to being in the desert. There was so much variety – beautiful smooth surfaces, sand, and impassable great sand dunes hundreds of feet high –slowly moving across the desert with the prevailing wind, the sand dunes moving very, very slowly, perhaps a foot every year, but altering their arrangements quite considerably.

Oh yes, I thought the desert was a wonderful place.

Q. How secret were your operations?

The whole SAS started out its success by being terrifically secret. David didn’t want any publicity at all, and we never had any to start with, not until the raid of the SAS on the Iranian embassy, which took place in the presence of the television cameras.

Q. How did you deal with the heat in the desert?

We had a bit of a water ration, maybe two pints every day, and if you could last half the day without having any of it then it made life a little bit more hopeful. There was a lot of suffering for those who failed to reserve water for later in the day. If you drank it earlier, it made you much more thirsty.

Q. How did you adapt to conditions in the desert?

The desert – depending on the temperature – for much of the day we just wore a pair of shorts and possibly a shirt or something over the top, and headgear. People favoured so-called desert headdress to wrap round their heads, and, indeed, certainly in a sandstorm you could use it to shelter from the sand to some extent.

David Stirling tended to wear just a hat or a cap, or a woolly headdress, he didn’t wear the fancy headdress.

I didn’t use it much because I didn’t like it either, I had lots of hair in those days and I used that. It was better to have the breeze blowing through you than to have something wrapped round you which was hot.

Q. How do you feel about young people watching SAS Rogue Heroes and learning of the amazing things you did?

They make for very good stories, no denying, and they were very exciting at the time in some cases – exciting and frightening at the same time. Everyone had to take chances which gave rise to considerable possibilities of risk and danger, but they were all part of the business really, you had to put up with it.

It was not something people were enjoying at the time very often – well, it was exciting to be shooting off at things, yes, I suppose it was.

Mostly we didn’t remember killing people because, in our case at any rate in the SAS, we were mostly shooting in the dark at things, or putting bombs on targets and hoping not to disturb the people who were going to be the recipients of them.
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A local newspaper contacted his mother after his escape in Tunisia; sorry only part shown: Photo of Mike Sadler's exploits in the desert

Plus: Photo of Mike Sadler awarded Military Cross:

davidbfpo · Jan 5, 2025

Today is the 1st anniversary of Mike Sadler's passing and I spotted this image elsewhere.

JimHerriot · Jan 6, 2025

davidbfpo said: ↑

Today is the 1st anniversary of Mike Sadler's passing and I spotted this image elsewhere.

View attachment 400219
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Artist Kev(in) Wills. It's what he does.

x.com

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

davidbfpo · Jan 31, 2025

Yesterday Uncle Target posted a short YouTube clip on the SAS Rogues Heroes thread. It was one I had missed and forwarded it to an ex-American US Marine friend, who had spoken to Mike a few years ago about his wartime navigation skills. He has just responded:

That is a beautiful clip David. I would challenge any historian to prove my assertion wrong; without Sadler, the SAS would not have enjoyed success.
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For the clip:

In the comments this one caught my attention:

Mike Sadler was absolutely instrumental to the success of the early SAS. He was resposible for inserting the devastating fighting forces that were the SAS raiding parties deep behind enemy lines and more importantly getting them back to safety. His acheivements during the war are far too many to mention but he is up with Paddy Mayne with regard to influence in shaping the SAS. He was also one of the few people able to tame Paddy - an achievement in its own right! There are fewer true legends in warfare than people claim but Mike Salder is one of them!
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JimHerriot · Aug 16, 2025

dbf said: ↑

Last surviving original SAS hero is awarded France's highest honour for bravery | Daily Mail Online

Mike Sadler, 98, was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur yesterday, 74 years after he parachuted into Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War.

He was given the award at a private event in London with representatives of the French embassy and former members of the SAS included on the guest list.

The French defence attaché, Colonel Antoine de Loustal, who presented the red-ribboned medal to one of Britain’s last wartime heroes, said: ‘We shall not forget. We will never forget.’

View attachment 279727
Mike Sadler (left) was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur yesterday, 74 years after he parachuted into Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War

In 1941, Mr Sadler joined the Long Range Desert Group, a reconnaissance unit based in the North African desert.

He was then brought into the arising Special Air Service - introduced by Lieutenant David Stirling to launch night-time raids against Axis airfields in Libya.

Mr Sadler quickly became the unit’s top navigator as he was able to guide raiding groups across almost bare expanses of desert.

Now almost blind, Mr Sadler said: ‘I’m afraid I can’t give a speech because I can’t read any notes as I can no longer see,’ reported the Times.

Mr Sadler fought with the SAS in Italy and France following his time in the desert war, before setting up the SAS intelligence unit.

In August 7, 1944, Mr Sadler was dropped by parachute into the Loire as part of Operation Houndsworth.

The aim was to reach SAS squadrons behind the lines and help destroy fuel depots, encourage local resistance, and prevent Panzer divisions heading north.

By this time Hitler had given instructions for any captured parachutists to be executed.

Germans struck the two-jeep convoy with Mr Sadler returning fire, allowing the other jeep to flee before escaping himself. He was later awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.

Those who formed L Detachment SAS named themselves ‘the Originals’, with Mr Sadler being considered an honorary one.

He was given the role of lieutenant by Stirling but this was reportedly never told to the authorities so Mr Sadler finished the war as a major.

In December 1941, Mr Sadler was part of the first successful SAS raid - on Wadi Tamet airfield - where a team of six men ruined 24 aircraft and a fuel dump.

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In December 1941 Mr Sadler was part of the first successful SAS raid, on Wadi Tamet airfield, where a team of six men ruined 24 aircraft and a fuel dump

This was led by Lieutenant Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, a former Irish international rugby star who would become one of Britain’s most decorated soldiers.

On the night of July 26, 1942, Mr Sadler, without headlights or a map, guided 18 jeeps filled with twin Vickers K machine guns along 70 miles of desert to within 200 feet of Sidi Haneish airfield.

The group then opened fire as they drove between planes, wrecking at least 37 aircraft. But one of the SAS jeep drivers was sadly shot through the head during the attack and buried in the sand.

‘I do remember the people who didn’t survive, and who didn’t have the chance to receive this great honour,’ Mr Sadler said.

He was awarded the Military Medal for the Tamit and Sidi Haneish attacks.

Mr Sadler was also one of the officers to follow Stirling on the last SAS operation during the desert war in January 1943.

This involved trying to cross the Tunisian desert to meet the British-American 1st Army but they were ambushed by a German unit.

Stirling was captured and would spend the rest of the Second World War as a prisoner of war in Colditz.

Mr Sadler managed to escape along with another SAS soldier and an Arabic-speaking Frenchman.

He guided the group on a five-day, 100-mile trek, without a map, or any food provisions, to link up with the 1st Army.

American war correspondent A J Liebling witnessed Mr Sadler as he arrived from the desert, and wrote: ‘The eyes of this fellow were round and sky blue and his hair and whiskers were very fair.

'His beard began well under his chin, giving him the air of an emaciated and slightly dotty Paul Verlaine.’

In 2014, the then French president, François Hollande, ordered that all surviving British soldiers who helped in the liberation of France should be awarded the Légion d’honneur.
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Here you go Di.

Mike Sadler's obituary as published, courtesy of the "old school" 2024 newsletter.

Always remember, never forget,

Jim.

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282465 (1095726) Willis Michael SADLER, MC, MM, Royal Artillery, Long Range Desert Group & 1 SAS

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