Annual Booklist 2020 : Lieutenant General Sir Cedric Delves, KBE, DSO
Cedric Delves was commissioned into the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment in 1968, passing SAS Selection in 1973. He spent most of his career at either regimental duty or in command appointments and retired from the Army in 2005.His book, Across an Angry Sea: The SAS in the Falklands War, was a runner-up in the 2018 SAHR Templer Best First Book Prize.
I’ve often pondered whether there is something in our national make-up that predisposes us to ‘working the flanks’, to taking a more circuitous approach to a problem in preference to going at it head-on. And if we are similarly inclined to things bespoke over the somewhat impersonal qualities of mass, when it comes to military endeavour does this account for our apparent affinity for Special Forces (SF)? For, there is something about ‘special’ that seems to appeal – and we tend to be good at it.
I wouldn’t describe what follows as my ‘favourite books’ on the British Army, not as such. But they are in and around the SAS about which I care a lot and know a little. I do this because for all the silly, misleading mythologizing, the hyperbole, I offer that the SAS would appear to reflect something deep in ourselves, and our approach to warfare:
The Phantom Major by Virginia Cowles. As a boy I read this over and over. Actually, there is simply no better account of the founding of the Regiment and the laying of its principles; it was written with the involvement of those who were there at the start. Tough, determined, audacious and brave, with visionaries among them, they were honourable men; I would never describe them as ‘rogues’!
Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean. This is a superb book, beautifully written, covering a huge canvas. It is most definitely one of my all time favourite books, whatever the subject. Fitzroy joined the SAS in the Western Desert at a difficult moment. His description of the period serves to illuminate the challenges associated with scaling up special operations and gearing them directly to the support of conventional forces. But a deployment to Persia shows the wider potential of the SAS. And although his eventual command of a military mission in support of Tito’s partisans was not conducted as a SAS task, his work in Yugoslavia in many respects further points the way.
Airborne Forces by Terence Otway. Lt Col Otway produced this edition of his originally classified, official history of British [WW2] airborne forces (ABF) in cooperation with the Imperial War Museum, to mark ABF’s 50th anniversary. Significantly, it includes the SAS; this pointing to how many at first viewed the Regiment. It may be a dry read, but there is so much in it for the student of these matters. Fitzroy Maclean in his book regrets the loss of David Stirling, who was captured in Tunisia at a critical juncture, shortly before the invasions of Europe, writing, “I wished that David, so quick to grasp the potentialities of the desert for irregular warfare, had been there to help evolve a new ‘continental’ technique”. Otway’s wholly objective record is thought provoking.
SAS: The Jungle Frontier by Peter Dickens. Published in the early 1980s, this book was commissioned by the SAS. They asked the author to write of them ‘warts and all’. The Regiment wanted the public to know who they really were: not ‘thugs’! A detailed account of the Regiment’s part in the Borneo Confrontation, this book provides an unrivalled insight into the making of the modern SAS, of how it refined its approach, not least to countering insurgency with its emphasis on gaining the support and affection of local people. They are all there, perhaps above all John Woodhouse whose legacy includes a codified Selection, in addition to so much else, the very foundations of the modern SAS; and Geordie Lillico, every ounce a gentle man, who saw me through Selection.
The Manner Of Men by Stuart Tootal. This is a gripping read, the story of 9 PARA in Normandy 1944, commanded by Otway (above). It is written by someone who has experienced ‘crack and thump’; he makes sense of complexity and apparent confusion, tying the detail clearly to the whole. Aside from being as good an account of close battle as I have read, this book stands testimony to the fighting qualities of The Parachute Regiment and our Airborne Forces (ABF). I saw them up close in the Falklands. ‘Paras’ are seriously reassuring to be alongside. Certainly in my time, there was a close relationship between ABF and the SAS. It only seems right that they should have a place in this.
That’s it, save for the choice of book that might be written. It possibly has been written, but if not: I would welcome a book that takes us further than the admirable British Military Doctrine series of pamphlets, a more anthropological work that might answer whether or not there is indeed an essentially British way of warfare; and if there really is, what is it, what accounts for it, and how might it evolve?