The “original” SAS was mainly Scottish and they were also known as the Black Watch. But these guys were serious badasses in their day. They had balls as big as church bells, and every mission was essentially a suicide mission. Remarkable bravery.
(Daily Mail) The last surviving member of the original SAS has died aged 92. Jimmy Storie was one of 66 men handpicked to embark on a series of daring and deadly missions against the Nazis.
The brave Scots Guards officer joined the first version of the Special Air Service, L Detachment, which operated in North Africa against Field Marshal Rommel. The regiment’s first parachute raid ended in disaster when almost two-thirds of the unit was wiped out after they leapt from a plane during a severe desert storm.
But Jimmy and his colleagues, known as The Originals, soon became the scourge of the German and Italian forces. They raided enemy airfields, bombing and blowing up planes. Recalling one mission in Egypt, he said: “The planes were all parked up on either side of the field.
“We drove our Jeeps in a line and went in with guns blazing. “Each of us singled out an aircraft, brewed it up and then we swung around and went down the other side.” The soldiers managed to destroy 100 enemy aircraft during a two-week period.
Jimmy was chosen for the new unit in 1941 by SAS founder David Stirling and spent the rest of the war engaged in stealth missions against the enemy.
Military top brass were initially sceptical about the value of the unit, so the men broke into an Allied base and left stickers on planes, buildings and property that said “blown up”.
It made the generals realise the damage that could have been caused if the raid had been for real. From then the SAS operated behind enemy lines, attacking airfields and convoys.
The unit was based at Kabrit, Egypt, near the Nile river, and destroyed 400 enemy planes in surprise attacks. After two years, Jimmy was captured by the Germans and was taken to Berlin.
Hitler had ordered that captured SAS troopers should be executed but the Scot convinced his captors he was a pilot, not a member of the special forces. He was instead sent to a prisoner of war camp in Czechoslovakia before being freed by US soldiers at the end of the war and returning home to Scotland.
Jimmy was born in Ayr in December 1919 and after leaving school aged 14 he worked as a tile fixer for four years. After the war he married Morag Hutton and became a warder at Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow, before spending the rest of his working life as a tiler in Aberdeen.
Jimmy’s final task for the regiment was to sign 100 copies of The Originals SAS War Diary last year.
He died at his home in the village of Muchals, Aberdeenshire, on January 8. He is survived by his wife Morag, his children Sandra, Ian, Marion and Brian, five grandchildren and a great granddaughter. (read more)