"SAS Rogue Heroes" new drama on the BBC

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by AB64, Jul 10, 2021.

  1. adam1981

    adam1981 Member

    I had thought that gent looked like the same person in the two photos, but had also thought that you were saying the half a face in the background of the same photo is Mayne, as i can see a strong resemblance with other photos on Google.
     
  2. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

  3. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Fishwife three episodes in and thoroughly enjoying.
    Not a bad indicator of something WW2-y being well made/written & solid entertainment, the Fishwife.
     
  4. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Having watched all six episodes, which I have honestly enjoyed as entertainment. It is not a documentary nor a history lesson.
    This series SAS Rogue Heroes has caused me to reflect upon past discussions with men who fought in the war and trained me as an apprentice.
    I have read some of the criticisms of this TV series.
    Some are apparently deeply offended due to the timing of the release just before Remembrance Day and the way in which the characters are portrayed.

    Whilst I understand their feelings, the men with whom I worked were adamant that growing my hair long, organising dances with live bands in the works club and playing Rock n Roll was why they fought the war. So that their children could be free to enjoy their lives in their own way.
    Perhaps it's a matter of family backgrounds and where one grew up.

    I often think of Lt Beadle killed in Florence in 1944 and how he might have viewed modern society.
    His (for the time as we think it was) modern futuristic approach would, if nothing else, have been interesting.
    He was very much an artist type with a very humanitarian soul as well as an effective CPO in an Artillery Regiment.

    The fields are masses of yellow, red and milky white dotted with the herds of black goats and scruffy sheep
    that are attended by wizened mountain Arabs.
    We’re supposed to shoot them on site here, as possible Jerry spies but we can’t manage it.
    After all we are Artillery men, who deal in death from long distances and few of us would relish the thought of shooting anyone, except Jerries and that in the heat of battle.
     
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  5. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

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  6. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    In The Moons a Balloon David Niven writes of the social use of Marijuana.
    Bill Beadle in his Press Cuttings Book has a newspaper article mentioning it.
    To us today we are very touchy about discussing it but it was obviously in use as were amphetamines etc.
    particularly by the Nazis.
    When I was little my Dad used to pull out the hemp plants that grew from next doors pigeon feed thrown across our gardens with the droppings as fertilizer. I wonder how he knew what it was.

    We should not really be offended at the thought that with all their stress and constant return to the "heat of battle" mentioned above by Bill Beadle that the Special Forces might have resorted to their use, as well as Rum etc.

    Attached the front and back cover of Bill Beadles Press Cutting Book illustrating popular entertainment "celebrities" and a newspaper cutting.

    Now THAT'S History!
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Nov 7, 2022
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  7. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Obsessed With... - Obsessed With... SAS Rogue Heroes - SAS Rogue Heroes: Episode 4 - BBC Sounds

    Obsessed With... - Obsessed With... SAS Rogue Heroes - SAS Rogue Heroes: Episode 5 - BBC Sounds

    Obsessed With... - Obsessed With... SAS Rogue Heroes - SAS Rogue Heroes: Episode 6 - BBC Sounds
     
  8. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    #65
    The Grenade thing...
    When would Sterling have been in a bar in Paris, I thought he was in Colditz for the duration of the war after his capture in North Africa.
    Either Mr Knight is misquoted or his memory slipped, as he says that the story was not written down.

    Or am I going Bonkers with all the hype.

    Good series, but not sure about Colditz.
    I felt that Peaky Blinders went way past its sell by date.
    Time will tell.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2022
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  9. JCB

    JCB Senior Member

    I really enjoyed the whole series and the music ( my era ! ) .
    Made a change to see a British buddy buddy warts and all portrayal of brave men under a hell of a lot of stress but having a ball at times instead of the usual stiff upper lip John Mills/ Jack Hawkins / Noel Coward stereotype.
    Nice effort to get the oh so typical desert war CMP trucks in and also the Humbers and Bedfords. The LRDG Chevrolet 1533's really looked the part as did the SAS Jeeps. Shame about all the postwar REO 6x6s but 99% of the viewers would not notice.
    I have never heard of the French SAS contingent , if it was true

    Craig
    VictorAnnual_1971.jpeg
     
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  10. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    The very cover that's been in my mind since watching it.
    Cheers for that. Was trying to recall which annual.
    It absolutely must have been in their minds when designing the attacks.

    And on those jeep attacks; I'd always sort of wondered what they actually looked like.
    Maybe not so far from the ones on the series really. Made me realise I've never registered the details thereof.
     
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  11. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Though now I think harder. I reckon there was an 80s version of the cover. Bit paler.
    Hmmm.
     
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  12. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

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  13. Cee

    Cee Senior Member Patron

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  14. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    To quote myself from my first posting on this thread:
    the series has at least raised public awareness of the men involved in the same way as "Peaky Blinders" did for Birmingham.
    The "witches promise" has matured into an order for a book which, if I am not careful, will fall into the hands of the "Brigadier" as even she wants to read it.

    Paddy Mayne: Lt Col Blair 'Paddy' Mayne, 1 SAS Regiment by Hamish Ross

    I also considered buying David Stirling by Gavin Mortimer but the reviews by the editor of Mars and Minerva and other military magazines caused me to pause.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2022
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  15. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Should keep me busy for a while. Arrived two days after ordering.
    Just need to find time, as I prefer to read in daylight.
    Otherwise another tearful night.
    Good pics.
     

    Attached Files:

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  16. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    This review of the book used as the basis for the BBC TV ‘SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Authorized Wartime History’ by Ben Macintyre, pub. 2016 (Hardback) was written before I joined the forum and watching the current late 2022 TV series looking at my bookshelves realised I had read the book. I have not updated the body of the review; two sentences appear in brackets.

    Oddly the book on a search does not appear to have been reviewed here. Happy to be corrected.

    An enthralling book about the well-known and famous British SAS, their formation in WW2 as raiding troops to destroy German and Italian aircraft – the inspiration of their first Commanding Officer, David Stirling.

    Due note is made of other nation’s contributions; notably the French, Belgians, Greeks, the odd American and Jews from Palestine – who had been originally recruited into 51 Middle East Commando. (Note, another book, an official history refers to this unit was composed of Jews and Palestinians. He also misses several nationalities, such as the New Zealanders and Rhodesians).

    The somewhat crazy, unconventional way it emerged and developed is fully explained – alongside the part of key officers and NCOs. “In the right place at the right time” for three senior generals to give their go ahead.

    Within the account of training, relaxation and combat is the real story so ably done – the human factor. Why volunteer for such a unit waging war differently? How was death faced and the suddenness of action?

    At times alcohol helped and on one mission in Italy a Scottish bagpiper.

    With success came truly black moments, a lorry destroyed in an Italian street, with one NCO survivor; the liberation of the first concentration camp in Germany: Bergen-Belsen. Some thrived then, a few had to be posted away and other after the war ended could not deal with the demons released.

    There are so odd passages, on pg. 93 Malta was bombed mainly from airfields in Libya (around Benghazi?) and not from Sicily? On pgs. 174-178 the use of a British Nazi soldier, Theodore John William Sturch alias John Richards[1] as a spy and “stool pigeon” in POW camps, it appears even David Stirling talked to him – which is glided over.

    The escape from being POW of Rommel’s pilot and a German doctor, in North Africa, gave the German-Italian command a first-hand report on the SAS. (Alas the pg. number(s) were not noted on a post-it, nor does the pilot appear in the index).

    I have never heard of this and the book’s index has no entries.

    Once the war in Europe ended the conventional army and its elephantine memory back in play the SAS were disbanded – no longer seen as necessary, Reformation as a regular army unit in 1952, in Malaya started a new chapter for the regiment.


    A small mystery appears, regular readers will know I sometimes pursue such items. Preliminary research failed to answer whether this Soviet / Russian soldier, an escaped POW, who fought with the Partisans in Italy (1943-1945) was returned to the USSR after the war’s end.

    He appears on pg. 281, Victor Pirogov[2], an escaped Russian POW, who commanded a hundred Russians escaped POW, who fought with several SAS parties dropped into northern Italy.






    [1] See: General Court Martial ,Private:Theodore John Schurch and General Court Martial ,Private:Theodore John Schurch

    [2] He appears in Posts 6 & 7 in: First pow, then partisan He appears twice fighting with the partisans from the Armistice till the end in a book ‘Among the Italian Partisans’ by Malcolm Edward Tudor, pub. 2017; partly available on Google Books: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edit...="victor+pirogov"&pg=PT30&printsec=frontcover Plus, three mentions in the same author’s book ‘SAS in Italy 1943-1945: Raiders in Enemy Territory’, pub. 2018. On Google Books: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edit..."victor+pirogov"&pg=PT272&printsec=frontcover There is a reference to him in: David Eyton-Jones - Wikipedia Google shows a number of Italian and Russian links, which have not been reviewed. Was he forcibly returned to the USSR, after the war ended?
     
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  17. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    No, Malta was bombed exclusively from Sicily.

    This is well described in Air War Publications short article "Wüstennotstaffel - Part Two" which I would highly recommend. 'Rommel's pilot' is doing a lot of work here though, as Rommel did not have an assigned pilot. The POWs were Uffz. Karl Horst and Stabsarzt von Lutteroti, and the incident happened about 90km south of Matruh on 27 July 1942.

    Unit History eArticles - Air War Publications (disclosure, I advised them on the article but have no commercial interest)

    All the best

    Andreas
     
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  18. JimHerriot

    JimHerriot Ready for Anything

    In relation to davidbfpo and Andreas posts at #76 and #77 above.

    Malcolm Pleydell's words from chapters "RAID ON SIDI HANEISH" and "VIEWS OF A GERMAN DOCTOR" form "BORN OF THE DESERT" by Malcolm James, published by Collins, 1945.

    Kind regards, always,

    Jim.

    Views of a German Doctor 1.jpg

    Views of a German Doctor 2.jpg

    Views of a German Doctor 3.jpg

    Views of a German Doctor 4.jpg

    Views of a German Doctor 5.jpg

    Views of a German Doctor 6.jpg

    Views of a German Doctor 7.jpg

    Views of a German Doctor 8.jpg
     
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  19. JimHerriot

    JimHerriot Ready for Anything

    And more views on a German Doctor from one who benefited from his reciporicating the treatment he had received whilst in captivity and company of Malcolm Pleydell and others of the SAS.

    From the obituary of 29th July 2002 for Major Peter Oldfield.

    "Major Peter Oldfield, who has died aged 91, was captured during operations with the 1st SAS Regiment in North Africa in 1942 and interrogated by Field Marshal Rommel; later, while in Italian hands, he saved the lives of 15 PoWs when a hospital in Milan was bombed and partly demolished."

    And;

    "By great good fortune, however, the surgeon looking after him was a friend of a German doctor who had been taken prisoner by the SAS, treated well while in captivity and allowed to return to his own lines.

    He told Oldfield that he was not prepared to permit a wounded man in his care to be shot and smuggled him into a lorry in the middle of the night and sent him to a hospital in Tripoli."

    Kind regards, always,

    Jim.
     
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  20. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Tonight, I purchased the kindle version of Born of the Desert: With the SAS in North Africa by Malcolm James.
    I am playing catch up with you guys, thanks Jim for mentioning the book.
    I am finding it a very interesting and an easy read as the book provides human interest in the same way as my letters by Bill Beadle and David Shepherd. War is not only all bombs, shells and bullets, there is more depth to the story.

    As for the latest Paddy Mayne book I am going to have to give it a rest.
    22 pages in, I have hit a wall. Partly because the text font is too small for my eyes.
    (I have the same problem with the Helion Book "The Battle of the Peaks").
    Partly because so far it has failed to provide the spark needed to encourage me to go on.
    At least with kindle I can read it from my computer screen at night with no problems.

    I have a few ideas for next posts on the forum.
    I will continue to follow this and the parallel thread whilst hoping to find more to contribute.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2022

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