Damien Lewis

It was thrust upon him.

And many of you believe that he would be an utter failure, that he would not be able to survive in the corridors of power.

Actually, he proved them all wrong because before the war, Paddy Mame was also a trained solicitor.

So he had a brilliant legal brain in his head.

Didn't suffer fools gladly, but he knew how to operate on that level.

And because they are deeply unpopular, you know, the Mavericks, they were accused of being, you know, in official reports, raiders of the thug variety.

That's how they were referred to.

So, yeah.

Because they are unpopular, they're used in... One SAS are used in a way which is absolutely, completely incompatible with how they should be used.

So what happened was they were sent in to act, serve at the tip of the spear to storm the cliff tops in Sicily and take the big shore guns that would blow the Allied invasion fleet out of the water.

That's the kind of command where we roll, not deep behind the lines, sabotage operations, which is what the SAS were formed for.

However, at the same time,

David Sterling's brother, Bill Sterling, in my view, even more of a visionary than David Sterling actually, had trained and recruited and formed two SAS, the second SAS regiment in Algeria, near the North African desert.

And those guys were ready to go in.

And Bill Sterling, brilliant, brilliant mind.

He said, this is what we're going to do.

We're going to drop 300 two to four man patrols deep behind enemy lines, laden down with explosives,

and they are going to paralyse the German rail, road and communication networks, because that number of men will be able to completely freeze up their system and it will have a massive impact upon winning the war.

Unfortunately, really, really deeply unfortunately,

Again, because many in command didn't understand the SAS or appreciate how they should be used, he was only permitted to send one or two of those patrols into theatre.