Special Air Service

For the raids on France and Western Europe the SAS became a brigade in the Allied Airborne Corps under command of Lieutenant General Boy Browning.  The force was now comprised of two British SAS regiments, two French and a Belgian regiment.

The SAS were initially dropped onto the France coastline on the eve of D-Day tasked with mounting diversionary raids in support of a deception plan that was designed to fool the Nazis into moving forces away from the intended location of the main allied landings at Normandy. These raids were followed by squadron groups with their jeeps and armour to establish basses in German occupied territory.  From there the SAS could launch more raids on German infrastructure with the co-operation/intelligence of the French Resistance.

In the area of Dijon Operation Houndsworth ran from 6 - 21 June 1944, the German occupying troops were under constant attack and the main railway line was hit 22 times, 70 vehicles were destroyed, 220 enemy personnel, killed or wounded.  Other operations weren't so successful Operation Bullbasket in the area of PUATEA started off successfully however the base area was eventually betrayed by Collaborators the Germans killed several men and captured 33 who were subsequently executed. Towards the end of the European war Brigadier Mad Mike Calvert, himself a distinguished war veteran commanded the SAS Brigade. After the hostilities ended the SAS were used to search for suspected war criminals and bring them to justice, in all the SAS contributed to greatly to the war effort.  Not just by destroying large numbers of enemy planes etc, but by tying down enemy troops in diversionary raids, guard duties and security duties. The brigade suffered over 300 casualties from the 2000 men involved.