OFF MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
WHILE Major Roy Farran was rightly awarded a high valour medal it is my view that Captain Lees, pictured, was entirely deserving of an MC. Alternatively, he should be considered for an equivalent posthumous civilian honour, such as the George Cross, which is a “firstlevel civilian medal for bravery, for acts of great heroism and courage in extreme danger”.
With the backing of Mike Lees’ daughter, Christine Bueno, and many of the relatives of those other brave souls who executed this daring mission, I have launched a petition that will be used in an attempt to persuade Parliament to debate the granting of Lees an MC, and to lobby the Honours and Appointments Secretariat to support granting Lees an equivalent civilian honour.
You can show your support by visiting change.org and searching for either my name as the petition founder or that of Captain Mike Lees. man commanders based there. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring himself, a Hitler favourite and his supreme commander in Italy, frequented the HQ. If they could kill Kesselring – thus cutting off the head of the Nazi snake in Italy – so much the better.
Farran instructed the DC3’s aircrew to report that he had “accidentally fallen from the aircraft”. It would not wash once high command learned he was alive but it might buy him some time.
Farran then jumped first. Below him a distinctive figure awaited: Captain Mike “Wild Man” Lees, a veteran of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Churchill’s shadowy “Ministry for Ungentlemanly Warfare”.
In 1940 when Britain had stood alone against Nazi Germany, Churchill had charged SOE to “set the lands of the enemy ablaze”. Since then Captain Lees had executed a string of solo sabotage operations, hence the Wild Man nickname.
Lees had been deployed months before, charged with raising a rag-tag band of Italian partisans. As a result, scores of such fighters thronged the drop zone as Farran and his SAS comrades touched down.
To Farran the multinational band of partisans were “as longhaired and bearded a bunch of ruffians as ever I’d laid eyes on”, including Italians, Russians and even a German deserter. He was to play a vital role in the coming assault, standing at the vanguard yelling orders in German to further confuse the enemy.
As fleets of DC3s dropped weaponry from the skies, preparations began in earnest. With his understanding of irregulars and what spurred them to fight, Farran played to the Italians’ love of show and theatre.
He wanted smart uniforms, berets and distinctive hackles – traditional feathered plumes – dropped in. He wanted the words “Chi osera vincera” – Italian for “Who dares wins” – emblazoned on their uniforms.
BUT to do so he needed to break cover. The high command believed he had been killed and his first radio call to headquarters caused consternation, especially when it was learned that he had tumbled from the aircraft resplendent in fighting kit – and parachute.
But the top brass were impotent in their rage, after all there was no spiriting Farran back again. By the third week of March 1945 the raiders were ready. Famously well connected, Farran had succeeded in securing a final, audacious flourish: David “The Mad Piper” Kirkpatrick had parachuted in, resplendent in kilt and bagpipes.
Kirkpatrick was charged with playing Highland Laddie – the marching tune for all Highland regiments – as the raiders attacked, to stamp an indelible British signature on the raid. If not the Germans would blame partisans for the attack and carry out savage reprisals.
“You’re my secret weapon,” Farran explained to the young piper. But when all was ready – Kirkpatrick included – the bombshell landed: headquarters radioed through an order to stand down.
HOWEVER, Farran and Lees were in no mood to surrender the initiative. They knew that they could never muster such fighting spirit among such irregular forces again. It was now or never. Nelson-like, they decided to turn a blind-eye to the order and attack anyway.
Deep in the night of March 26 the raiders struck. They left the two villas smoking, burning ruins, trapping many senior officers in their beds upstairs. About 60 were killed and the 14th Army headquarters was eviscerated.
But in leading the blistering assault Mike Lees had been gunned down storming a spiral staircase. Shot five times, it was a miracle he survived.
But while Farran went on to be protected from court martial or worse, when the American high command granted him the US Legion of Merit for the attack, Lees would enjoy no such safeguard.
Farran recommended Lees for a Military Cross. It was denied.
Badly wounded and languishing in hospital, Lees was accused of being “troublesome, insubordinate, unreasonable, tactless, irresponsible and high-handed”.
In disobeying orders, Lees and Farran had continued a longlived British tradition in the spirit of Lord Nelson. The 14th Army HQ raid was hailed by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Walker Brown, MBE DSO, a future commander of the SAS, as “one of the most dangerous and effective attacks ever undertaken by this Regiment against the enemy”.
In the circumstances, to deny Lees his just reward was an unconscionable betrayal of a true British war hero. But there is still time to put right this wrong (see panel, left). MAVERICK SPIRIT: Major Roy Farran led the raid
To pre-order SAS Italian Job: The Secret Mission To Storm A Forbidden Nazi Fortress by Damien Lewis (Quercus ,£20), with free UK delivery, call the Express Bookshop on 01872 562 310 with your card details. Alternatively, send a cheque made payable to Express Bookshop to Damien Lewis Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ. Or buy online by visiting expressbookshop.co.uk