Paddy Mayne and friend
SAS War Diary 1941—1945
Kidnap Rommel! Daring SAS plot to seize Hitler's best general - or leave him dead
It was one of the most audacious plans of the Second World War.
A crack SAS team was ordered on a death-or-glory mission to kill or capture one of the Nazis’ finest commanders at a French chateau in 1944.
Snatching Field Marshal Erwin Rommel would be an ‘immense’ propaganda coup, the elite British soldiers preparing for the operation were told.
However, the raid was abandoned hours before the four-man unit parachuted in. Rommel was forced to return to Germany after being badly injured when his car was hit by the RAF.
The SAS War Diary 1941-45 includes first-hand reports from the special forces unit's disastrous first operation in November 1941, from which only 22 of the 65 soldiers who took part returned. Pictured, SAS founder Sir David Stirling poses with some of his soldiers in their desert jeeps.
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DailyMail SAS War Diary
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