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Special Units · Sicily, 1943
The Special Raiding Squadron in Sicily
The renamed 1st SAS under Paddy Mayne climbed the cliffs at Capo Murro di Porco in the first hours of the invasion, silenced the coastal batteries covering the beaches south of Syracuse, and two days later stormed the port of Augusta in daylight from the sea.
- British Army · Special Air Service
- Capo Murro di Porco, Augusta
- 10–13 July 1943
From desert raiders to a commando squadron
The Special Air Service began in the Western Desert in 1941 as David Stirling’s small force of raiders who drove or parachuted behind Axis lines to destroy aircraft on their airfields. When Stirling was captured in Tunisia in January 1943, the 1st SAS Regiment was reorganized. Its desert veterans were split into two units: the Special Boat Squadron under Lord Jellicoe, for raids in the Aegean, and the Special Raiding Squadron under Stirling’s most formidable officer, Paddy Mayne, for assault landings in Europe (National Army Museum).
Robert Blair Mayne was a 28-year-old from Newtownards in County Down, a law graduate of Queen’s University Belfast, an Ireland rugby international who had toured South Africa with the British Lions in 1938, and a heavyweight boxer. In the desert he was credited with destroying more enemy aircraft on the ground than almost anyone in the SAS. Over the spring of 1943 he trained the squadron, about 280 men, for a new kind of work: landing from the sea in assault craft, climbing cliffs and taking coastal guns by night.
Capo Murro di Porco, 10 July
The squadron’s first target was the headland of Capo Murro di Porco, the “Cape of the Pig’s Snout,” at the southern tip of the Maddalena peninsula below Syracuse. Italian coastal batteries there could fire on the beaches where the British 5th Division was to land at Cassibile, and on the ships offshore. The squadron sailed in HMS Ulster Monarch, a converted Irish Sea ferry serving as an infantry landing ship, and went down into its assault craft at about 02:00 on 10 July in the swell left by the gale (Combat Archives).
On the run in, one of the boats, carrying the section of Lt. Derrick Harrison, stopped to pull men of the 1st Airlanding Brigade out of the sea, survivors of gliders released too early that night. The troops came ashore between about 03:15 and 03:30 beneath cliffs 15 to 20 meters high, climbed them and attacked the battery known as Lamba Doria, three 152 mm coastal guns a few hundred meters from the cliff edge. By 04:30 the battery was taken, and by about 05:30 its guns had been wrecked with explosives (operation-ladbroke.com; Combat Archives).
The squadron then turned inland and along the coast against the other batteries on the peninsula, including a battery of 102 mm antiaircraft guns known as AS 493. The batteries were manned by Italian coastal gunners, many of them older reservists; some fought hard, and many surrendered once the raiders were inside the wire. By nightfall, Mayne’s citation states, it had taken some 450 prisoners and killed or wounded 200 to 300 Italians; other accounts give more than 500 prisoners. In about 36 hours the squadron captured or destroyed 18 guns of various calibers. Its own losses at Capo Murro di Porco were one man killed, Bombardier Geoffrey Caton, and six wounded (Combat Archives; operation-ladbroke.com). Syracuse fell to the 5th Division that evening.
Augusta in daylight, 12 July
Two days later Montgomery wanted the port of Augusta, 18 kilometers north of Syracuse, before the Germans could organize its defense. Augusta was the principal Italian naval base in eastern Sicily. Much of its fortress garrison had blown up its own guns and stores and abandoned its positions in the first two days, a collapse that later became a scandal in Italy, but German troops of Group Schmalz, which had stopped the British advance at Priolo, were in the area. On the afternoon of 12 July the squadron sailed again in Ulster Monarch and, escorted by three destroyers and a cruiser, went in by daylight from six assault landing craft onto the eastern side of the town. It was an unusual and dangerous operation for raiders trained to work at night. The squadron landed under fire, fought into the town, lost two more men killed, Cpl. John Bentley and Pte. George Shaw, and about eight wounded, and held on until the British 17th Infantry Brigade secured Augusta early on 13 July (Combat Archives).
In its first three days in Europe the Special Raiding Squadron lost three men killed and about fourteen wounded. Mayne received a Bar to his Distinguished Service Order for the two operations; the award was announced on 21 October 1943, and the citation praised his “courage, determination and superb leadership.” He went on to earn two further bars to the DSO, the French Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre (Combat Archives; National Army Museum).
The squadron should not be confused with the separate 2nd SAS Regiment, raised in North Africa under David Stirling’s brother William. Small parachute teams of the 2nd SAS were dropped into northeastern Sicily in mid-July to cut communications, an operation code-named Chestnut that achieved little. The Special Raiding Squadron fought from the sea, as assault infantry, and its record in Sicily is the one that made its reputation.
Italy and after
The squadron went on to land at Bagnara on the toe of Italy on 4 September 1943 and at Termoli on the Adriatic coast in October, where it fought alongside No. 3 Commando and No. 40 Royal Marine Commando to hold the town against a German counterattack and lost men to a single shell that struck a truck as they were mounting up. Early in 1944 it returned to Britain, was renamed 1st SAS again and fought behind the lines in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Mayne survived the war, returned to the law in Northern Ireland and died in a car accident in Newtownards in December 1955.
The insignia, rendered
Illustration Original insignia-style artwork made for the Lake Norman Brief, loosely inspired by the SAS winged dagger. It is not the regiment’s official badge.
Timeline
- David Stirling is captured in Tunisia; the 1st SAS is reorganized.
- The Special Raiding Squadron is formed under Paddy Mayne.
- The squadron goes down into its assault craft from HMS Ulster Monarch.
- The troops land beneath the cliffs of Capo Murro di Porco; one boat stops to rescue glider men from the sea.
- The Lamba Doria battery is taken; its guns are wrecked by about 05:30.
- Further batteries are taken; about 450 prisoners by nightfall on the 10th, by Mayne’s citation.
- Daylight landing at Augusta.
- The 17th Infantry Brigade secures Augusta.
- Mayne’s Bar to the DSO is announced.
People of the unit
Read the full story
- Chapter 2: D-Day, 10 July: Seven Divisions on a Hundred-Mile Front
- Chapter 6: The Hard Way North: Eighth Army, Primosole and the Canadians in the Hills
- Chapter 3: Out of the Night Sky: The Airborne Story
- Invasion of Sicily collection
- Special Units: the Glider Pilot Regiment and Operation Ladbroke
- Special Units: No. 3 Commando and the Malati Bridge
- Special Units: the 1st Canadian Infantry Division in Sicily
Sources
- National Army Museum, “Paddy Mayne”.
- Combat Archives, “The Raid on Capo Murro di Porco” (quotes Mayne’s DSO citation and the squadron’s casualty list).
- operation-ladbroke.com, “SAS Special Raiding Squadron: The Cliffs of Cape Murro di Porco”; “Paddy Mayne and the SAS Attack on the Second Battery”.
- Derrick Harrison, These Men Are Dangerous: The Special Air Service at War (Cassell, 1957).
- Albert N. Garland and Howard McGaw Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy (Office of the Chief of Military History, 1965), chapter VI (online).
- Hamish Ross, Paddy Mayne (Sutton, 2003).
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