, Aristocrat, gambler, innovator and special forces legend, the life of
David Stirling should need no retelling. His formation of the Special
Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to a new form of warfare and
Stirling is remembered as the father of special forces soldiering. But
was he really a military genius or in fact a shameless self-publicist
who manipulated people, and the truth, for this own ends? In this
gripping and controversial biography Gavin Mortimer analyses Stirling's
complex character: the childhood speech impediment that shaped his
formative years, the pressure from his overbearing mother, his fraught
relationship with his brother, Bill, and the jealousy and inferiority he
felt in the presence of his SAS second-in-command, the cold-blooded
killer Paddy Mayne.
Stirling lived until old age, receiving a knighthood and plaudits from
military forces around the world before his death in 1990. Yet as
Mortimer dazzlingly shows, while Stirling was instrumental in selling
the SAS to Churchill and senior officers, it was Mayne who really
carried the regiment in the early days. Stirling was at best an
incompetent soldier and at worst a foolhardy one, who jeopardised his
men's live with careless talk and hare-brained missions.
Drawing on interviews with SAS veterans who fought with Stirling and men
who worked with him on his post-war projects, and examining recently
declassified governments files about Stirling's involvement in Aden,
Libya and GB75, Mortimer's riveting biography is incisive, bold, honest
and written with his customary narrative panache. Impeccably researched
and with the courage to challenge the mythical SAS 'brand', Mortimer
brings to bear his unparalleled expertise as WW2's premier special
forces historian to dig beneath the legend and reveal the real David
Stirling, a man who dared and deceived.,
