by Rusty Firmin
Snake demonstration, Indonesia.
Johnny Mac, Snapper and me, Northern Ireland, mid-1980s.
Me with Mark, mid-1980s.
Me firing a GPMG while in Oman on training exercises, 1980s.
Me in No. 2 dress uniform outside the old officers’ mess, Hereford.
Training Nepalese Special Forces, 1987.
Me with the Nepali doctor before John Howard became ill and had to be evacuated by helicopter.
The Memorial Clock at Hereford: if your name isn’t on here, you’ve ‘beaten the clock’. The inscription is a line of verse by the poet James Elroy Flecker.
Left: Mohammed Hassan Abdulla, formerly John Arthur Russell Firmin – my dad. Picture taken in 1985. Right: My son Matthew, 1992.
My German Shepherd, Sabre.
Me nowadays: older, wiser and still with all my own hair!
ABREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY
ABBREVIATIONS
A & E Accident and Emergency
APC Airport Camp
BAOR British Army on the Rhine
BFT basic fitness test
BRIC brigade and regimental intelligence cadre
CQB close quarter battle
CRW Counter Revolutionary Warfare [Wing]
CT Counter Terrorist [Team]
CTR close target reconnaissance
Det, the 14 Intelligence Company
DS directing staff (a term for instructors)
DZ drop zone
E & E Escape and evasion
FAC forward air control
GPMG general purpose machine gun
HLS helicopter landing site
IA immediate action
IRA Irish Republican Army
MRS medical reporting station
NAAFI Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NCO non-commissioned officer
OP observation post
PIRA Provisional Irish Republican Army
PSI permanent staff instructor
PT physical training
QTO qualified testing officer
R & R rest and recreation
RAF Royal Air Force
RAOC Royal Army Ordnance Corps
RCGP Royal College of General Practitioners
RE Royal Engineers
REME Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers
RHA Royal Horse Artillery
RoSPA Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
RPB Regent’s Park Barracks
RTU return to unit
RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary
RV rendezvous point / to rendezvous
SAS Special Air Service
SBS Special Boat Service
SLR self-loading rifle
SOP Standard Operating Procedure
TA Territorial Army
ZANLA Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army
ZIPRA Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army
Glossary
casevac casualty evacuation
crap-hats soldiers who aren’t serving in airborne units (also known as ‘hats’)
head shed squadron command group
Para Parachute (as in 16 Para Brigade)
pinkies Specially converted long-wheelbase Landrovers used by the SAS as patrol vehicles
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rusty Firmin was adopted as a baby and brought up in Carlisle as the son of an Army NCO and his wife. He had a turbulent childhood and was often in trouble until he joined the Army as a ‘Junior Leader’ aged 15. He served for ten years in the Royal Artillery before volunteering for the SAS and passing selection on his first attempt. As a junior and relatively inexperienced SAS NCO he was surprised to be given command of one of the two assault teams at the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980, and was personally responsible for killing Faisal, the second in command of the terrorist cell, during the dramatic final assault.
After 15 years’ service in the SAS, during which he served all around the world, he left the Army to join the ‘circuit’ of private security contractors. He has recently been signed as technical advisor for a feature film about the SAS, and is the co-author, with Will Pearson, of Go! Go! Go! The Story of the Iranian Embassy Siege.
A fitness fanatic and keen sportsman throughout his life, as a member of the Army football team in the early 1970s he was asked to consider joining Arsenal as a professional footballer. He now lives with his wife in an idyllic village on Dartmoor.
MORE SPECIAL FORCES BOOKS FROM OSPREY
The SAS in World War II
Gavin Mortimer
ISBN: 978 1 4728 0875 2
With a wealth of first-hand accounts and stunning photographs, many from the SAS Regimental Archives, this book captures the danger and excitement of the initial Special Air Service raids against Axis airfields during the Desert War, the battles in Italy and those following the D-Day landings, as well as the dramatic final push into Germany itself and the discovery of such Nazi horrors as Belsen.
An exhaustive account of an elite organization’s formative years, The SAS in World War II is the fruit of Gavin Mortimer’s expertise and his unprecedented access to the SAS Regimental Archives. Incorporating interviews with the surviving veterans, it is the definitive account of the regiment’s glorious achievements in the years from 1941 to 1945. These are the incredible origins of one of the best-trained and most effective Special Forces units in existence, in their own words.
The SBS in World War II
Gavin Mortimer
ISBN: 978 1 4728 1113 4
The Special Boat Squadron (SBS) was Britain’s most exclusive Special Forces unit during World War II. Formed as a separate unit from the SAS in 1943, the SBS was an elite fighting force which never comprised more than 200 soldiers. Led by men such as the famed Victoria Cross recipient Anders Lassen, the SBS launched savage hit-and-run raids on the Germans in the Mediterranean. Highly trained, totally secretive and utterly ruthless, it served in Italy, the Balkans and mainland Greece, but after the war its deeds were airbrushed out of history by an establishment that had never warmed to its piratical exploits.
Through unrivalled access to the SBS archives and interviews with surviving veterans, and incorporating additional new text and photographs in this updated paperback edition, Gavin Mortimer pieces together the SBS’s dramatic exploits, finally granting the unit and its members the recognition they so richly deserve.
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Osprey Publishing.
PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK
1385 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
© 2015 Rusty Firmin and Jack Hughes
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Every attempt has been made by the Publisher to secure the appropriate permissions for material reproduced in this book. If there has been any oversight we will be happy to rectify the situation and written submission should be made to the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Rusty Firmin and Jack Hughes have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Authors of this Work.
ISBN: 978-1-4728-1737-2 (PB)
ISBN: 978-1-4728-2323-6 (ePDF)
ISBN: 978-1-4728-2324-3 (eBook)
Fr
ont cover: Studio shot of SAS veterans, including Rusty at the centre, for a drama programme based on the Iranian Embassy Siege. (Photo by John Rogers/Getty Images)
Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. Between 2014 and 2018 our donations will be spent on their Centenary Woods project in the UK.
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