THE DAY THE SAS PULLED
THE requisitioned villa in Italy’s Apennine mountains that housed the headquarters of the German 14th Army had been turned into a fortress. Not only was it defended by 500 German troops with hundreds more in reserve, it boasted a fleet of armoured cars and tanks supplemented by scores of MG42 “Spandau” machine guns, nicknamed “Hitler’s buzz saw”’ due to their murderous rate of fire.
To make matters worse, the target lay a day’s march across terrain crawling with the enemy. Even if an attacking force succeeded in slipping through there would be no easy scoot back to friendly territory.
On paper it was a mission impossible but the letters SAS also stood for speed, aggression, surprise. It is what this storied regiment did best and as Major Roy Farran, DSO MC – the man determined to take the target – was wont to point out, nothing was ever impossible.
Injured in 1941, Farran was deemed unfit for frontline duties let alone a behind-the-lines mission that would rank as one of the most audacious and daring of the Second World War. After years of intense fighting the ranks of the SAS were severely depleted and Farran – highly experienced and revered by his men – was under orders to remain at headquarters in Italy. He knew he would face a court martial or worse if he parachuted with his men.
But there was no way Farran was going to give this mission a miss. Farran knew that if he failed to jump his men might think him “windy”, which would hardly inspire them to pull off this do-ordie mission.
The stakes could not be higher. If the raiders succeeded they would hasten the fall of the Gothic Line. Their mission might turn the fortunes of the war in Italy – Churchill’s much-vaunted “soft underbelly of Europe” – saving countless Allied lives. If they failed few would return alive.
Nothing like it had ever been tried by the SAS before. Accustomed to fast, shoot ’n’ scoot attacks hitting lightly defended targets – airfields, fuel and ammo dumps, road convoys utterly different.
As their lone DC3 Dakota swooped low through a cleft in the mountains, below them lay northern Italy’s Apennine Mountains, terrain upon which the Allied advance had ground to a bloody stalemate. Armed to the teeth, Farran’s 40 SAS men were dropping in to break that deadlock. As they approached their target at least – this was some of the war-bitten adventurers began to doubt whether they would make it through.
The air defences that lined the Gothic Line comprised thousands of bunkers, machine-gun nests and artillery posts. Searchlights pierced the night sky and tracked any aircraft in their murderous glare.
Their mission was to lay waste to the two fortress-like villas housing the HQ, targeting the senior Ger-