Jock Lewes: Co-founder of the SAS

Jock Lewes: Co-founder of the SAS PDF

Author: John Lewes

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2000-03-30

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1526788357

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Jock Lewes was a dashing young Welsh Guards officer who created a new approach to modern warfare in the SAS with less than two year's experience as a soldier. By the age of twenty-seven Jock co-founded the SAS with David Stirling. Jock was in reality the trainer and 'brains' behind this now legendary fighting force and this stunning biography describes the extent of his contribution. Jock was brought up in Australia during the Depression and later educated at Oxford. Life was rarely dull and he packed it with action and achievement. His Presidency of the Oxford University Boat Club saw Oxford breaking Cambridge University's succession of thirteen wins. Preparing for a job at the Foreign Office, Jock spent several seasons in Berlin. The record of his passion for two women, one a Nazi, the other a young linguist at Somerville College, Oxford, are part of a teeming richness of writing which he left in letters, journals and poems. His death was no less dramatic than his life: after successful raids on enemy aerodromes with his invention of Lewes Bombs, he was hunted down by a Messerschmitt 110 fighter. A highly important addition to ever popular SAS literature. Jock Lewes was the brain behind the formation of the Special Air Service.

Rogue Heroes

Rogue Heroes PDF

Author: Ben Macintyre

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1101904178

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by the modern master of wartime intrigue—now a limited series on Epix! “Reads like a mashup of The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, with a sprinkling of Ocean’s 11 thrown in for good measure.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “Rogue Heroes is a ripping good read.”—Washington Post (10 Best Books of the Year) Britain’s Special Air Service—or SAS—was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young aristocrat whose aimlessness belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a World War II battlefield map and saw a protracted struggle, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Defying his superiors’ conventional wisdom, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. Bringing his keen eye for detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to the SAS archives to shine a light on a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy.

Joy Street

Joy Street PDF

Author: Barford

Publisher: Little Brown

Published: 1996-01-04

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 9780751514414

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This is a series of letters between 19-year-old Miriam (Mirren) Barford, an Oxford student, and Lieutenant John (Jock) Lewes, who had joined the Welsh Guards at the outbreak of war in 1939. Mirren had met Jock at the wedding of his sister Elizabeth the previous year. Their developing love affair is chronicled in a narrative that reaches a tragic conclusion when Jock is killed in action on 30th December 1941. Jock Lewes was one of the co-founders of the original S.A.S.

Keystone of 22 SAS

Keystone of 22 SAS PDF

Author: Alan Hoe

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2019-03-30

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1526745062

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This British military biography tells the full story of the Lieutenant Colonel who helped turn the 22nd SAS into the world’s leading special forces unit. Despite its successes during World War II, the future of the British Army’s Special Air Service was uncertain for years afterward. In the 1950s, it was resurrected as the 22nd SAS Regiment to take part in the Malayan Emergency, and over time evolved into one of the British military’s most important units. This renaissance was brought about by a small group of highly motivated officers. Of these, Lieutenant Colonel John Woodhouse stood out for his energy, expertise, and courage. Written by an SAS insider, this biography demonstrates how Woodhouse played a pivotal role in transforming the 22nd SAS into an elite fighting force. Woodhouse led the regiment through campaigns in Oman, Borneo, Radfan and South Arabia, as it built its unrivaled reputation. After leaving the Army, Woodhouse became a sought-after counter-terrorist consultant taking an advisory and active role in operations worldwide. While Colonel Sir David Stirling publicly acknowledged Woodhouse as a cofounder of the 22nd SAS, the full story of his role has not been widely recognized. As this fascinating book reveals, without his efforts there would probably be no 22nd SAS today.

He Who Dared and Died

He Who Dared and Died PDF

Author: Gearoid O'Dowd

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2011-12-01

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1844689999

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Brought up in poverty in the West of Ireland, Chris ODowd ran away to join the Irish Guards aged 18. In no time he tasted bitter action in Norway, but hungry for more he volunteered for the newly formed Commandos. After intensive training he sailed for Egypt, serving with Churchills son Randolph, novelist Evelyn Waugh and, most significantly, David Stirling.When Stirling got the go-ahead to form the SAS, his handpicked team included the young Chris ODowd. After his part in the early SAS behind-the-lines raids on enemy airfields, ODowd was promoted to Lance-Sergeant and awarded the Military Medal.When Colonel David Stirling was captured, the SASs future was in danger (it was always threatened by enemies within the Army) but Ulsterman Major Paddy Mayne managed to keep it alive. ODowds courage and toughness typified the spirit of the SAS and he became a key member of this elite band.The SAS spearheaded the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and then was ordered to the Italian mainland. Tragically Chris ODowd was killed in action along with fourteen others in October 1943.

Joy Street

Joy Street PDF

Author: Mirren Barford

Publisher: Little Brown & Company

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 9780316947671

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Letters trace the growing romantic relationship between an Oxford University student and a lieutenant in the Welsh guards

A British Achilles

A British Achilles PDF

Author: Lorna Almonds

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2006-03-19

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1844158810

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Son of the victor of Jutland, George Jellicoe has enjoyed power and privilege but never shirked his duty. His war exploits are legendary and, as a founder member of Stirling’s SAS and first Commander of the Special Boat Service, he saw action a-plenty. A brigadier at 26 with a DSO and MC he liberated Athens as the Germans withdrew and saved Greece from a Communist revolution. After the war Jellicoe joined the Foreign Office and worked with spies Burgess, Philby and Maclean in Washington and on the Soviet Desk. His political life saw him in the Cabinet of the Heath Government and he is frank with his biographer over the issues and characters of his fellow ministers. Jellicoe’s Achilles heel is his weakness for, and attraction to, women. His resignation over an involvement with a prostitute was a national scandal but he is refreshingly honest and devoid of self-justification. He remained an active member of the Lords pursuing a top level business career. A British Achilles is a superb biography of a major public figure and exemplary wartime soldier.

David Stirling

David Stirling PDF

Author: Gavin Mortimer

Publisher: Constable

Published: 2022-05-26

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 1472134567

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Aristocrat, gambler, innovator and special forces legend, the life of David Stirling should need no retelling. His formation of the Special Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to a new form of warfare and Stirling is remembered as the father of special forces soldiering. But was he really a military genius or in fact a shameless self-publicist who manipulated people, and the truth, for this own ends? In this gripping and controversial biography Gavin Mortimer analyses Stirling's complex character: the childhood speech impediment that shaped his formative years, the pressure from his overbearing mother, his fraught relationship with his brother, Bill, and the jealousy and inferiority he felt in the presence of his SAS second-in-command, the cold-blooded killer Paddy Mayne. Stirling lived until old age, receiving a knighthood and plaudits from military forces around the world before his death in 1990. Yet as Mortimer dazzlingly shows, while Stirling was instrumental in selling the SAS to Churchill and senior officers, it was Mayne who really carried the regiment in the early days. Stirling was at best an incompetent soldier and at worst a foolhardy one, who jeopardised his men's live with careless talk and hare-brained missions. Drawing on interviews with SAS veterans who fought with Stirling and men who worked with him on his post-war projects, and examining recently declassified governments files about Stirling's involvement in Aden, Libya and GB75, Mortimer's riveting biography is incisive, bold, honest and written with his customary narrative panache. Impeccably researched and with the courage to challenge the mythical SAS 'brand', Mortimer brings to bear his unparalleled expertise as WW2's premier special forces historian to dig beneath the legend and reveal the real David Stirling, a man who dared and deceived.

Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters

Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters PDF

Author: S. Maddison

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2000-10-25

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 0333985192

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Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters is a provocative account of the importance of women and cross-gender identification in gay male culture. It offers a range of cultural readings from Tennessee William's classic A Streetcar Named Desire and Forster's 'gay' novel Maurice through Pulp Fiction , queer lifestyle magazines, Roseanne , slash fan fiction and Jarman's Edward II to Almodovar's camp classic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown . Theoretically sophisticated, yet passionate, accessible and opinionated, Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters takes issue with many of the sacred cows of contemporary gay politics, and offers a number of new concepts in lesbian and gay theory.