Top brass blackball SAS hero
AS A career Special Forces soldier serving with the SAS, Roger Cole risked his life in the service of his country on countless occasions. Even in retirement, as a professional he stuck to the ‘rules’ after writing a book detailing his part in the secret war that took place in the Gulf state of Oman in the Seventies.
He contacted the Ministry of Defence, and after agreeing some changes, received clearance to publish SAS Operation Storm: Nine Men Against Four Hundred — about how nine British heroes held off 400 rebel troops during the Battle of Mirbat and entered SAS legend.
Cole, 68, wrote the book because he felt one of his comrades — Fiji- born Corporal Talaiasi Labalaba should have been awarded a posthumous VC.
But now Cole has another battle on his hands after being ‘blackballed’ by the MOD, who have now decided that he should not have written the book, which was published — and serialised in the Mail — last year.
In an astonishing and petty U-turn, he has been sent a letter informing him he has been ‘ formally excluded’ from any UK Special Forces Group activities and events for the next five years.
‘This really has upset and hurt me,’ he said last night. ‘I wanted to write the book because there have been other accounts from people who were not actually even there. Mine is an eye-witness account.
‘The book was well received
diary@dailymail.co.uk when it was published and it is my account of a secret operation which saw us survive against the odds.’
But it is thought Cole’s account of who did and didn’t receive medals has inflamed MOD brasshats.
Publishers Hodder & Stoughton said: ‘The events portrayed are largely in the public domain and took place many years ago, so we do not believe there is anything of operational or security concern.’
An MOD statement on the book said: ‘To prevent the disclosure of sensitive information and preserve operational security, a strict policy is applied across all ranks — from the most senior down.
‘This means that the immense contribution of our highly professional Special Forces is necessarily largely unreported.’
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