Joshua Levine charts the formative years of the SAS through the exploits of six extraordinary servicemen. And it did so, after a couple of harrowing missteps, with an assiduous aplomb. Yes, SAS Rogue Heroes is a true story at its core , though there are significant liberties taken with historical events.
Here, historian and SAS expert Joshua Levine explores the real history through the exploits of six men who shaped the unit. Together with a fellow soldier named Smith, Mick Gurmin was dispatched to Cairo with instructions to spread an elaborate yarn around restaurants, bars and tourist hotspots.
For the mission, Gurmin was issued with a uniform liberally sewn with parachute badges, to back up his membership of the 1st Special Air Service SAS Battalion parachute unit, which was completing its training in Transjordan. Both battalion and uniform were inventions of Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke. He had recently arrived in the region, having been summoned by his friend and supporter Sir Archibald Wavell, British commander-in-chief for the Middle East.
In truth, there were none — but Clarke spotted the chance to exploit an existing fear. He schemed a plot to convince enemy intelligence that parachutists, all specialists in vehicle sabotage, had arrived in the region.
In the event, Gurmin and Smith had a fine old time. They visited the pyramids, watched a football match, and went to a cabaret, the cinema and a dance. They walked around Cairo Zoo and travelled north to Port Said. Operation Abeam seems to have been a success: certainly, rumours of a parachute unit began to spread. For Gurmin, the consequences were profound. Just months earlier, before joining up with the Staffordshire Yeomanry, he had been an apprentice engineer in Wolverhampton. Now his impressive performance resulted in another commission.
