THE last remaining member of the original World War 2 SAS regiment has died aged 103.
Major Mike Sadler took part in daring wartime raids fighting Rommel in Libya and even parachuted into Nazi-occupied France following D-Day.
YouTube/@BlindVeteransMajor Mike Sadler during the war where he fought in North Africa[/caption]
Gareth Iwan Jones – The TimesMajor Mike Sadler was the last remaining original soldier of the WW2 SAS regiment[/caption]
He was awarded the Military Cross for fighting in France and even had a piece of the Antarctic named after him.
Sadler was recruited by David Stirling, the founder of the British Army’s elite Special Air Service regiment.
Britain was fighting Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, in North Africa as the Nazis tried to take over Egypt and secure the Suez Canal – cutting Britain off from India and Asia.
He had been soldiering for the Long Range Desert Group and had the post of “first navigator” before he was recruited into the SAS.
He initially worked in the unit as a navigator again where he learnt to guide the unit in the featureless North African desert by the stars.
“One of the essential things was not to let doubt creep into your mind,” The Times reported he said of his experience in the SAS.
“You have to be confident because it was awfully easy, especially at night, to start feeling you’re going wrong and you should be further to left or right.
“It was rather easy to give way to that feeling if you weren’t confident. It was a challenge, navigating, but I liked the challenge. I was young and you don’t really think about pressure at 21.”
Sadler was part of the six-man team which attacked Wadi Tamet airfield in Libya and marked the first SAS raid.
They destroyed 24 aircraft and a fuel dump.
In the summer of 1942, he guided a convoy of 18 jeeps across 70 miles of desert at night without headlights or map.
The convoy attacked another airfield destroying 37 planes.
For those two raids he was awarded the Military Medal.
He eventually founded the intelligence unit within the SAS.
In 2018, he was further recognised with France’s highest honour – the Legion d’honneur.
Damien Lewis, a historian who has penned several books on the wartime history of the SAS, said on X: “Very sad news indeed. Another one gone. We remember them – bravest of the brave.”
The SAS was formed in 1941 as an elite strike unit that could operate independently behind enemy lines and attack critical targets.
In the hit BBC Drama SAS Rogue Heroes, Sadler was played by Tom Glynn-Carney.
He was born in London in 1920, before he left to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1937 as a farming student.
In 1939 only days before the outbreak of the war, he joined the Rhodesian infantry before re-enlisting in the artillery.
He had two marriages and is survived by one daughter.
YouTube/@BlindVeteransMajor Sadler (left) in North Africa[/caption]
YouTube/@BlindVeteransHe used his knowledge of the stars to navigate a convoy across the desert to attack an airfield[/caption]
YouTube/@BlindVeteransSadler was rewarded for parachuting into France with country’s highest honour[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
