S.A.S. in Tuscany, 1943–1945

Book excerpt: While always dangerous and daring, SAS operations are by no means invariably successful and when they go wrong, they do so very badly. The first of the three operations covered in this book, SPEEDWELL 2, saw six men drop blind into Northern Tuscany on 8 September 1943, by chance the day of the Italian Armistice. But with no radios or air/ground support their courageous three week operation ended in disaster; four were captured and executed and only one got out. The second and third operations, GALIA (winter 44/45) and BLIMEY (April 1945), provided contrasting results. GALIA, 34 men led by Captain Walker-brown, tied up many thousands of enemy troops for nearly two months under extreme winter conditions an extraordinary achievement, thanks in measure to cooperation with an SOE mission led by Major Gordon Lett, the authors father. BLIMEY sadly achieved little and the reasons for the success and failure of these two operations are carefully analyzed.This book adds valuable new information on SAS operations in WWII.