Tales from the Special Forces Club. Sean Rayment
Company and the Force Research Unit in Northern Ireland, as well as the covert civilian agencies such as MI5, MI6, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorist squad.
For reasons of security, virtually all SF operations are classified, just as they were during the Second World War. But every so often a diamond emerges from the dust and allows one to understand why the special forces are so, well, special.
One such diamond, known as Operation Marlborough, came across my path in 2005, while I was reporting on the war in Iraq. Back in those dark days Baghdad was the most dangerous place on earth. Suicide bombers were routinely murdering hundreds of innocent civilians every week. The country was in anarchy and the West’s ‘war’ was being lost.
Operation Marlborough was a ‘take-down’ – a hit on an al-Qaeda suicide bombing operation involving teams of British SAS snipers embedded with ‘Task Force Black’ – the joint British/US special forces unit operating in Baghdad with the sole aim of defeating al-Qaeda.
The Task Force had received specific intelligence suggesting that al-Qaeda were about to launch a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks across the city. Three bombers were being fitted with devices at an al-Qaeda bomb factory within the city and targets were already being reconnoitred – street markets and schools had been chosen by the bombers.
The intelligence was passed to the SAS, who immediately began planning the ambush. I understand that a 15-man SAS team covertly observed the target house for several days, watching everyone who entered and left. Listening devices were used to monitor the plans being hatched, while a Reaper Unmanned Air Vehicle tracked the suspected terrorists as they moved around the city.
After several days of covert surveillance, the order for the ‘take-down’ was given.
Early one morning, as the sun began to climb over the city, three SAS sniper teams watched and waited. When all three suspects emerged, the SAS opened fire. The three bombers, each wearing a suicide vest impregnated with ball bearings, were killed by a single head shot. A follow-up operation also led to the arrest of several key al-Qaeda bomb-makers.
It was a classic special forces operation which, estimates suggest, may have saved the lives of over 100 civilians.
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The modern SAS soldier is a highly trained, intelligent, excellently equipped, well-paid fighter who would have notched up several years in the ranks before being allowed to undertake the special forces selection. At the outbreak of war 70 years ago, by contrast, the majority of those who served in the special forces had very limited combat experience. Those ‘originals’ had to learn their skills very quickly, and once in the field largely had to survive on their wits. I wanted to find out what motivated thousands of young men and women to risk all in the service of their country, when many could have probably served out the war in a safe, comfortable operations room, many miles from the front line.
My search began at the Special Forces Club in London in early 2011. I had attended various functions at the club over the last few years and one or two of my friends were members.
The club was created in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War in August 1945, just as the various ‘private armies’, or special forces, which had evolved during the previous five years of conflict were disbanded. Within a year the Long Range Desert Group, the Jedburgh Teams, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Chindits, Popski’s Private Army, the Commandos and the original Special Air Service all ceased to exist. The move was partly driven by ‘old school’ generals and the heads of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), who were never entirely comfortable with seemingly autonomous military or quasi-military organisations operating outside the established sphere of command.
Those who had served in these clandestine units were either posted back to their original units or, as in the majority of cases, returned to ‘Civvy Street’, seeking fresh challenges in a changed world. They were warned never to speak of covert operations, and some, especially those who had worked with foreign agents, were made to sign the Official Secrets Act. They were aware that to divulge any of their wartime activities could, in theory, result in imprisonment.
It was against this backdrop that the Special Forces Club was established in 1945 by Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins, KCMG, DSO, MC, the last chief of the Special Operations Executive. The general wanted to create a club where former members of the SOE could meet over lunch or dinner and chat about their wartime experiences, keeping alive the ‘spirit of resistance’, a phrase that became the club’s motto. He wanted to preserve and develop the bonds of comradeship and mutual trust which had been forged between a special group of men and women in the war years.
Together with a small group of former SOE agents, he leased from the Grosvenor Estate a large townhouse in Knightsbridge, central London. Then, as today, the building gave little away, for the club never liked to advertise its existence. Like its members, the club has always preferred anonymity, a desire to remain in the shadows, out of prying eyes. It is quite possible even today that many people living and working in the Knightsbridge area know nothing of the club’s existence. There has never been a name plaque to distinguish it from any other house in the same smart, leafy crescent.
The club was an immediate success and, unlike many other London clubs at the time, its doors were open to women, as many female soldiers and civilians had fought and died while serving in the SOE. Members were also welcomed from the wartime SAS, the Long Range Desert Group, the Jedburgh Teams and a host of organisations who had served behind enemy lines.
Only one covert unit was initially excluded from the club, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which throughout the war years had been regarded as both a rival and an enemy of the SOE. I should add that the prohibition which prevented MI6 membership has since been lifted, and the club is used today by members of Britain’s modern secret establishment – MI5, MI6, the SAS, SBS, the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and the various covert police organisations which have been created to fight organised crime and Islamist terror groups – as a secure meeting place.
Over the decades since the end of the Second World War the club was one of the few places, if not the only place, where former members of the SOE – indeed agents from all the Allied countries – could meet and reminisce about their lives some 70 years ago when they fought a secret war against Nazi Germany in occupied Europe. Within the club’s secure walls, former saboteurs, assassins, radio operators and those who trained agents in the secret arts of espionage and guerrilla warfare could meet and recount tales of derring-do among friends, over a glass of whisky, knowing that their secrets would be safe.
It was during many of these meetings, sometimes at the bar, late in the evening, or over lunch sharing a good bottle of claret, that the stories of what the special forces did during the Second World War began to emerge. Often those stories were never fully documented, which means that no historical record exists, and with the passing of time many of them have been lost for ever. That is why it seemed to be a good idea to interview a selection of those ‘originals’ and collect their stories in a book. Thanks to the club, it was possible to get in touch with some of them.
The Special Forces Club is one of the most friendly and least fussy of all London clubs – I don’t think its members would have it any other way. It isn’t large or grand and consists of a library, a bar, some rooms for meetings and a few bedrooms where members can spend the night at a pretty reasonable rate. The walls of the staircase which leads up to the bar are adorned with portrait photographs of members of the SOE who perished on operations, while most of the rooms have original paintings depicting clandestine meetings of agents in Nazi-occupied Europe.
It was during one of the various events I was attending at the club that I first heard the name of Noreen Riols, who had helped in the training of agents during the war. I eventually made contact with Noreen, one of the few surviving members of the SOE, and some time later we agreed to meet at the club so that I could learn about her secret wartime activities.
And so began a fascinating journey, during which I learnt of the heroics of men like Jimmy Patch, who was called up in 1940 before being sent to fight in the desert as a gunner in the Royal Artillery. To escape