SAS Hijacked A Fascist Train To Liberate A Concentration Camp

Today, we uncover a forgotten SAS mission straight out of a war thriller: an elite unit jumps the chain of command and hijacks a 'pirate train', turning it into a weapon against fascist Italy. Their goal? To launch a surprise attack deep behind enemy lines on an Italian concentration camp and free its prisoners. Historian Damien Lewis joins us to reveal the breathtaking tale of WWII’s most cinematic untold raid. Damien is the author of 'SAS: The Great Train Raid' and 'SAS Great Escapes 5'. Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore. We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6 Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 1:23Dan Snow?

  One of the most elite fighting forces ever assembled, the Special Air Service, the SAS. These were not ordinary soldiers. Handpicked, highly trained, mavericks. They were deployed where the risks were greatest and the margins for error were razor thin. And the story at the heart of today's episode, it might be the most extraordinary mission of World War II. We are joined by the bestselling historian, author Damien Lewis, to talk about his book, The Great Train Raid, which uncovers a forgotten wartime mission, the hijacking of a pirate train.

• 2:04Dan Snow?

  Yes, a pirate train, which the SAS would use to launch a surprise raid on an Italian concentration camp. Today, we're going to get into exactly what happened that day and how only the SAS could have pulled it off. Enjoy.

• 2:25Dan Snow?

  Damien, great to have you back on the podcast. How are you doing?

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Brilliant, Dan. Brilliant. So good to be with you again.

• 2:30Dan Snow?

  I mean, I don't know how you keep finding these stories. The SAS, in the wartime SAS, is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? It's just extraordinary what this unit gets up to. What do you think it was about war at this time, and indeed in the 20th century into our own day, that made this unit, well, made it so effective?

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Dan, you know, we founded Special Forces Soldiering in World War II, and these men were charged to do the unthinkable. In fact, they were charged to think the unthinkable in terms of ways to attack the enemy, and then to put that into operation. Because if you can think of an unthinkable way to attack the enemy, by default, the enemy will never have conceded fit. That's the beauty of it. So these were maverick, lateral thinkers, piratical individuals, and that's exactly what they proceeded to do. It's one of the reasons why they were so unpopular, because they were doing things in a completely different way. Now, what does that mean? It means that they, that legacy, that model upon which all Special Forces now are founded. Bear in mind, when the US wanted to make Delta Force,

• 3:34Speaker 02

  which is their nearest equivalent to the SAS, what did they do? They got their two guys and put them through SAS selection in the Brecon Beacons to learn how to do it. Bucky Burris, who's a good friend of mine, is one of the first people to have done it. So they then went back to America and founded Delta Force. This is, so we invented the model that everyone now uses. And how does that cascade down into the present day? Well, I was with some fairly senior figures from Ukraine's Special Forces recently, and what Ukraine is doing in terms of Special Forces operations is absolutely brilliant. They are pushing the envelope to the degree almost that the SAS did in World War II. Look at Operation Spider's Web.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  You know, and I spoke to the guys about it says spiders web, but that's the mission where they sent in drones aboard trucks, thousands of kilometres inside Russia, to then release those drones and attack Russian airfields. It's exactly what Paddy Mayne and David Sterling were doing in the North African desert. The only difference is, they were driving Jeeps through the deserts, thousands of kilometres, to attack these airfields with their Jeep mounted machine guns, and Ukrainians drove trucks full of drones. And that's one of many, many missions the Ukrainians have done, which are just stunning in terms of their innovation and their vision. And when I was talking to this chap, you know, from Ukraine Special Forces, you know, two things he said, I said, how are you managing to do it? And he said,

• 5:02Speaker 02

  well, one, this is an existential battle with fighting for our survival. So that means the, you know, necessity of the is the mother of all invention. But he said, two, don't think we don't look at what happened in World War Two and take examples from that and adapt them for the present day.

• 5:20Dan Snow?

  That's amazing. Fascinating stuff. Let's, let's just, let's go back to World War Two now. You've mentioned David Sterling, you've mentioned Paddy Mayne, many people listen to this podcast will have heard you on previous episodes. Let's just quickly rehearse. The SAS emerges, although you, as you've shown, there's a very kind of murky beginnings and there's different traditions and strains. But roughly speaking, the SAS, as we understand today, emerges in North Africa. There's a couple of visionaries. Just very quickly, give us the genesis and then let's get on some of the, some of the raids that you want to highlight in your latest work.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. So very quickly, Special Air Service, June 1940, Churchill, aftermath of Dunkirk, calls for, you know, thousands of commandos to be raided, new way, way of waging warfare. And cascading down from that in the North African desert in the summer of 1941, David Sterling, Tall Guards Officer, you know, commando trained, puts forward this idea for a raiding force in the North African desert. Really, really, really simple idea. Just beautiful in its simplicity. You know, North Africa, the war's being waged along the coastal strip. That's, that's just where everybody fights because no one believes you can navigate or Survive in the Sahara Desert. So David Sterling says, well, why don't we learn how to navigate and survive in the Sahara Desert?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Then we can go thousands of kilometres behind enemy lines and attack the enemy in a way that they would never conceive of as being possible. That is the genesis of the idea of the SAS. So the sixty two old originals that he recruited included obviously himself. Then there was Jock Lewis, who was one of the visionary founders of SAS Selection. But then also Blair Paddy Main, the Northern Irishman, who was brought in initially as their PT, physical training specialist, because he was an Irish and British and Irish lines rugby international, also the University of Ireland, heavyweight boxing champion, you know, just a stunning sportsman. So obviously he was brought in as the PT officer.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  But interestingly, Main was also made by Sterling, the discipline officer of the SAS. He was the man charged to keep discipline and Paddy Main had a very good idea of how you keep discipline. He said to the guys, listen, you do anything wrong, you come and tell me. There'll be no paperwork, there'll be no stain on your record. All you have to do is stand as many rounds as you can stand with me in the boxing ring at their training base in North Africa, and we will call it quits. But, he said, because he was an Irishman, with that brilliant Irish sense of him, he said, but look, if you can come up with an excuse that makes me laugh, I might let you off. I'll just give you a quick example. So this guy goes out drinking, comes back, he's late and he goes before Paddy Main and Paddy Main says, you know, what's your excuses?

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Well, it's like this, sir. He says, I was coming back well in time, stopped for a cigarette to light cigarette, had to turn around because it was blowing a hooly in the desert, as often does. So I turned around to light the cigarette, forgot to turn back around again, walked for two hours in the wrong direction because you know, Paddy, all the desert looks the same. That's why I'm late. And because he made Paddy Main laugh, he was let off. So yeah, that's a brief nutshell of the kind of founding ethos of the SAS. It was egalitarian. It was, it was, it was quality above rank, your background, your education, your career before the war, none of that mattered. All that mattered was whether you were willing to take the fight to the Nazi enemy in these.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Borderline suicidal missions across the North African desert and that you could think completely outside of the box and find means to attack the enemy that the enemy never even conceived of.

• 8:55Dan Snow?

  I would be very happy to have a disciplinary attached to my permanent record rather than go toe to toe with Paddy Main in the boxing ring. I'd be like, stick it, I can take the career, you know, the career hit. Okay, so we've got North Africa, many striking successes took against airfields. When it comes to invading Southern Europe, the Italian campaign in 1943, how are the SAS, how's it envisaged that the SAS will work?

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Yes, a great question. So by now, we're talking summer 1943, Dean Sterling, founder of the SAS has been captured. So he's in captivity. Paddy Main has been forced to take over command. Why do I say forced? Because it's something he never sought, it was thrust upon him and many of you believe that he would be an utter failure, that he would not be able to survive in the corridors of power. Actually, he proved them all wrong because before the war, Paddy Main was also a trained solicitor. So he had a brilliant legal brain in his head, didn't suffer fools gladly, but he knew how to operate on that level. And because they are deeply unpopular, you know, the mavericks, they were accused of

• 10:03Speaker 02

  being, you know, in official reports, raiders of the thug variety. That's how they were referred to. So because they are unpopular, they're used in, one SAS are used in a way which is absolutely completely incompatible with, with how they should be used. And what happened was they were sent in to act, serve at the tip of the spear, to storm the cliff tops in Sicily and take the big shore guns that would blow the Allied invasion fleet out of the water. That's the kind of commander role, not, not, not deep behind the lines sabotage operations, which is what the SAS were formed for. However, at the same time.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  David Sterling's brother, Bill Sterling, in my view, even more of a visionary than David Sterling, actually, had trained and recruited and formed two SAS, the second SAS regiment in Algeria, in the North African desert. And those guys were ready to go in. And Bill Sterling, brilliant, brilliant mind, he said, this is what we're going to do. We're going to drop 300 two to four man patrols, deep behind enemy lines, laden down with explosives, and they are going to paralyze the German rail, road and communication networks. Because that number of men will be able to completely freeze up their system, and

• 11:20Speaker 02

  it will have a massive impact upon winning the war. Unfortunately, really, really deeply unfortunately, again, because many in command didn't understand the SAS or appreciate how they should be used, he was only permitted to send one or two of those patrols into theatre. So what happened instead was that two SAS were sent into Taranto in September 1943, the key Italian port, to act in exactly the same role as Paddy Main's. One SAS enacted storm troopers to lead the assault and bring the Allies ashore.

• 11:56Dan Snow?

  Which, as you say, not a job they could do, but it doesn't play to their strengths.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. It's, this is not a task for which all of that brilliant SAS selection and training and lateral thinking is necessary. You know, this is, this is a storm trooper task, it's a Pathfinder task, it's not a typical special forces tasking, though not at all.

• 12:16Dan Snow?

  But Damien, you, I didn't know about this, you very excitingly have identified a raid that you feel does show the SAS working in, at their, at their best in their role, really as sort of demolition experts almost, and paralyzing enemy logistics. We should, we should remember, of course, the old dictum that enthusiasts talk about tactics, experts talk about logistics. So paralyzing enemy logistics is vital, that's stuff, that's oil, that's weapons, that's supplies, it's boots and food moving around, getting to the battlefront. And you've identified a raid that takes place actually in northern Italy later in 1943. Tell me about that, tell me about Speedwell.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Operation Speedwell was one of the few missions that Bill Sterling, you know, got greenlit and it was along the vision that he he had for the whole of Italy. I mean, Speedwell was supposed to be proof of concept. It was supposed to be, you know, Bill Sterling's chance to prove that these kind of operations were. Eight men were sent in under the command of a absolutely wonderful, brilliant,

• 13:23Speaker 02

  a man who was loved by his men, adored by his men. So Lieutenant Hugh Pinkney, fantastic individual. Just give you one quick anecdote because this is Hugh Pinkney through and through. So the training in North Africa in Algeria and a load of Guards officers are recruited into into the SS and a pack of Guards officers, they arrive and, you know, the sense of the dress code of the SS was pretty damn fluid. You could pretty much wear what you wanted, what you felt comfortable in.

• 13:47Dan Snow?

  And we should say, Damien, that the Guards, for those listening abroad, these are the people that, they're guarding Buckingham Palace. They're all in royal duties, marching about and they're all spit and polish, right?

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. So they turn up and they're rather aghast at the sense of dress of particularly the SS officers. And so they put a rule, a kind of dictum out saying, you know, from now on, officers will dress formally for dinner, you know, in the middle of a training camp in North Africa. And they know that Hugh Pinkney is a real maverick and an absolute champion of his men. And so one of them comes to Hugh Pinkney and says, look, you know,

• 14:24Speaker 02

  you need to understand, you need to wear a tie to dinner. So Hugh Pinkney says to his men, gather at the officers' mess tonight so you get a good view, right? And he proceeds to turn up at the officers' mess, last the dinner, walks in wearing only a tie and nothing else. There's absolute silence in the mess. And then a few seconds later, the first laughter starts. Everyone bursts out laughing and it's kind of like, he pulls it off. He sits through the whole of the dinner naked apart from a tie. But seriously, for a moment, Hugh Pinkney, why he was such an amazing commander. He'd injured his back and recently, just before this, in a parachute operation.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  This is the measure of the man and he'd said to his, you know, himself and the few people he confided in. I can't let Bill Sterling know, or any of those in command, because if they know, they will ground me and I won't be able to deploy into Italy. So he tells one of his men, Horace Stokes, the sergeant on the patrol, the only way I can actually operate and deploy is if you spray this, it's a, it's a painkiller spray onto his back where he's injured it. So Horace Stokes, his sergeant, has got the, the job of keeping him operational by killing the pain, but he's also keeping a secret that his, the commanding officer of the patrol is, is injured.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  So when they fly in on this mission, Operation Speedwell, and they're deploying down 800 kilometres north of Rome, they are a long way from home. And bear in mind, during the briefing, you know, it ends and one of them says, well, okay, yeah, we, we get it. We're going in to blow up enemy trains in tunnels. That's all fine. But how do we get back again? And, and they're telling, well, that's up to you. So they've been dropped 800 kilometres north of Rome with no radio. They've got no way, way of making comms with headquarters and no plan to get them out again. They've just got to find a way or make one. Anyway, the point is, they fly in to deploy at night and Hugh Pinkney, their commander, typically is the first out of the aircraft. And as he jumps, no one would

• 16:29Speaker 02

  imagine that he's as badly injured as he is because he leaps out of the aircraft as if there is everything to play for. And, um, you know, that, that's the start of this mission on which they are extremely successful. You know, Pinkney himself tragically is never found after the jump. The men can't locate him, can't find him, much that they search and call his name. And obviously, Horace Stokes is, is, you know, convinced that he's had an accident upon landing because of injured back. He's, you know, he's, he's died or he's. Completely incapacitated, but they can't, they can't keep searching for him because they, they've been seen during the parachute drop and the enemy already hunting for them.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  So they have to leave him behind and they split into two groups and they set off on their operation and Stokes and his two fellows carry out this amazing sabotage operation deep in a, in a train tunnel and blow up what is a German armoured train. And having blown it up, the Germans obviously confounded by what's happened and in the chaos and confusion, opened fire on themselves and then, then Stokes and his two fellows start their epic escape and evasion. It's, it's a thousand, it's more than a thousand miles to try to get back to Allied lines. That is their mission. Really extraordinary.

• 17:47Dan Snow?

  And they, and they make, they do make it back. I mean, you say it's 800 kilometres north of Rome, but the Allies aren't even in Rome. But I mean, they're right down at the bottom of Italy, right? So they are, and they managed to hike all the way back.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Two of them, um, managed to make it back to Allied lines overland, but somehow incredibly. Horace Stokes, um, as he parachutes down, it's very windy, it's borderline operational conditions. They probably shouldn't have parachuted at all, but typical of the SS, they went anyway. Anyway, a gust of wind blows Stokes onto, onto the roof of a farmstead and he lands on the roof. His parachute gets caught up in the chimney, he's left hanging, um, dangling into space and he cuts his parachute lines and drops and injures his groin in the process. And by the time he's approaching Rome, Stokes realises that he's so ill from his injury that he can't go on. Well, certainly he can't accept this, expect his two fellows

• 18:40Speaker 02

  to continue travelling with him because he's holding back too much. So he says to them, you go on without me, um, and leave me. And very reluctantly they do. So Stokes is then left in an Italian farmstead, 200 kilometres north of Rome, knowing he's dying. He knows he's dying, very, very sick. In fact, he had set, this set to semi. So he decides, there's only one option, I must steal a bicycle, cycle to Rome, find my way into the Vatican, persuade them I am who I am. Because he'd heard that the Vatican was running this secret escape line for Allied POWs, which they were.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  And so that's exactly what he does. I mean, I don't know how he did it because, you know, injured with septicemia with a, with a, with a very, very, very painful growing in agony, cycling 200 miles through Italy on a stolen bicycle. And then somehow navigating his way through Rome, getting to the Vatican, persuading his way into the Vatican, then persuading them he was a bona fide. Anyway, they don't know whether to believe him in his entirety, but what they do know is that he's on death's door. And so there's a, there's an escaped partisan who happens to be a surgeon and he operates on Stokes. And he, he castrates him, he takes off one of his testicles because he's so badly injured.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  That saves Stokes's life. Now, you can imagine at that stage, Stokes might have thought, yeah, I've kind of done enough for the war. I'm going to take it. No, what he does, once he's recovered, is he starts to train the Italian partisans, the Italian resistance, using all the skills he has. Then he starts to fight alongside them, do sabotage operations. Finally, he's captured by the enemy and goes before the Gestapo and faces this horrendous torture. And he tells himself one thing. He says, look, if I tell the truth, if they break me and I'm forced to tell the truth, I am dead. Because they knew at this stage that Hitler wasn't very happy about commando and SAS operations.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Didn't really like them very much, thought they were rather not the done thing. And so had authored an order that all captured commandos and parachutists and SAS should be kept alive only for long enough to torture them and then, and then murdered. They've got a good idea this is what's happening. So Stokes sticks to his cover story, no matter what they do to his cover story is, he's just a regular soldier who was a prisoner of war in Italian camp and escaped the camp. That's his cover story and he sticks to it, no matter what they do to him. And so eventually they believe him. And so they put him on a train and they send him north to Germany to a POW camp. And that is just the start of a series of the most incredible stakes by Horace Stokes,

• 21:25Speaker 02

  which end up with him in 1945. Breaking out of the prison of war camp, he's in with two other individuals, stealing a German staff car, writing on the side of the staff car, daubing in paint, escaped Allied prisoners of war, and driving that staff car to the American lines, because the Americans were approaching, and finally getting back to Allied lines.

• 21:46Dan Snow?

  However, many times I've talked to you over the years, you keep finding people who, every time, are like, you can't possibly top this. And here you are, Damian, back on with these extraordinary stories. Damian, we're going to check back in with what's going on in the south of Italy, but first we're going to cut to an ad. Don't go away, everyone. More of Damian coming up after this.

• 22:06Dan Snow?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail. But suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us: mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 22:48Dan Snow?

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• 23:31Dan Snow?

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• 24:51Speaker 03

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• 25:36Speaker 03

  Damien, take me back. It's the autumn, it's the fall of 1943. How are the SAS being used in the amphibious landings in southern Italy?

• 25:44Speaker 02

  So the SAS, or two SAS, are sent ashore at the forefront of the Taranto landings, Operation Slapstick. So they're there to seize this incredibly important Italian port of Taranto, which they do. And all the, you know, all the airborne and other forces come ashore. Then they're acting as pathfinders, pushing routes out from Taranto and going up against the German parachute regiment, which are in defense there. And then, and of course, none, these are not typical SAS operations. And then something happens which is really rather surprising. They're in, they've actually seized Shiatona railway station, just to the west of Toronto.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  That's, they've made that their base. And then out of no man's land comes this individual. And, and he says, uh, I, my name is Zelko and I am an escaped Yugoslav partisan. And they're thinking, okay, uh, wherever you escaped from, why are you here? And he says, well, I've escaped from Pistis concentration camp. And, uh, I've come because they're about to ship all the inmates north to Nazi Germany. Now, several things fall out of that. Of course, at this stage in the war, September 1943, no one in allied command knew what a concentration camp was. We had no idea. So that obviously Oswald Carey Elwes, the commander of the two SAS units on the ground, has no idea what a concentration camp is. So first of all, it's like, is this guy telling the truth?

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Cause these horrors are, you know, inconceivable. And then when they're convinced that he's telling the truth, that he, that they're, well, why have you come? He says, because they're about to ship everybody north, loading them aboard a train to Nazi Germany. And if they get to Nazi Germany, that is a death sentence. And in that concentration camp are obviously Jews. But there are also French Yugoslav and Polish partisans and, and resistance fighters. There are former French foreign legionnaires and there are Italian priests and other intellectuals who've resisted Mussolini's fascist rule. Now, again, this is all true.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  So when Bill Sterling was recruiting into the SAS in Algeria a few months back, he thought there's all these French foreign legionnaires sat around with nothing to do. Cause of course the French foreign legionnaires, you know, in theory in North Africa, were now part of the Vichy regime, the regime of Vichy France, which wasn't fighting anymore. So Bill Sterling says, of what as many French foreign legionnaires recruited to the SAS as possible. So he finds this chap called Raymond Kurord, Lieutenant Raymond Kurord, who is the most incredible figure, uh, almost I've ever come across in terms of operations.

• 28:25Dan Snow?

  Right. Well, that's a pretty, that's pretty, that's a pretty remarkable bar that he's crossed there. Cause you've come across.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I mean, this, this guy, so he, really brief character sketch. He's got a film star mother who's American, an arms dealer father who's French.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Bought up half in America, half in France. Age of 18, volunteers for the French Foreign Legion. But if you're French, you can't join the French Foreign Legion, in theory, as you know. So he has to get a Belgian passport to then pretend he's Belgian to get into the Foreign Legion. Fights in Norway with the Foreign Legion in 1940, the defence of Norway. Wins the quad a gue. Comes back to France. France falls, deserts the Legion because he doesn't want to join Vichy French forces. Goes to Marseille, the port city. Meets Mary Jane Gold, the beautiful, glittering, incredibly wealthy American socialite in Marseille.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  She's helping run an escape line for Jews out of Europe and funding it. He has got gangster contact, underground gangster contacts by now in Marseille. He says, I'll use my gangster network to help you. They fall in love. She nicknames him Killer Corrod because of his background. They rescue together 2,000 Jews and then the network gets penetrated. And Mary Jane Gold is fine because she's an American neutral country. She can just go back to the States, but Corrod is obviously not. So he has to, he manages this unbelievable escape. Gets back to, gets to the UK, right? Gets to the UK, volunteers for hazardous operations, gets recruited into Special Operations Executive,

• 30:08Speaker 02

  wherein he is characterized as a lone wolf operator. Then gets parachuted back into France by the Special Operations Executive as an assassin. Carries out several assassination operations. Eventually gets hunted down by the Gestapo, escapes again, but by now they know his real name. So at that stage, he's recruited into Bill Sterling's SAS under a false name because he can't serve in SOE anymore. You can't serve as an SOE agent if the enemy know your identity. So Raymond Corrod in North Africa, in the, in Bill Sterling's SAS training camp, has gone around all the French Foreign Legion bases recruiting people. Of course, you're not allowed to leave the French Foreign Legion. It's called desertion, isn't it?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  You face horrendous things if you desert the French Foreign Legion. But they're deserting in their droves because they're, they're hungry for action. And In Ciottona, their base, the two SAS base in southern Italy, where the Yugoslav concentration camp internally turns up, a significant part of Cary Elwes's two SAS force is made up of Coraud and his French Foreign Legionnaires, former French Foreign Legionnaires. It's known as the French Foreign Legion SAS Squadron. That's what they were known as. So Cary Elwes and Coraud, they have reasons to want to intervene. First

• 31:33Speaker 02

  off, this is a real SAS mission. This is 120 kilometres behind enemy lines. That's where the concentration camp is. So it's got SAS stamp all over it. Secondly, Coraud knows that there are former French Foreign Legionnaires in that camp. There's a personal reason to go. Thirdly, Cary Elwes is the son of a champagne merchant and he spent half his life in France. He's a massive Francophone. He's got a reason to go to the camp. So they start to cook up a mission with Zelko, the escaped Yugoslav partisan. And the problem is that, because their mission has been so rushed, Operation Slapstick, they've got like just a handful of jeeps and they've had to, you know, scavenge a 1916 Renault

• 32:16Speaker 02

  school bus and various other things to transport their men around. They do not have the transport to get there. And even if they had the transport to get to the camp, how would they bring hundreds of concentration camp victims back again? Obviously, that's just impossible. So they obviously set upon the idea of stealing or hijacking a train. So from Ciottona railway station, getting the train, steaming it all the way through enemy territory, getting to the camp. Obviously, the camp guards are expecting a train to turn up because they're expecting a train to ship all the concentration camp inmates to Nazi Germany. So you take the camp by complete surprise because that's what they're expecting. And then you load all the concentration camp internees aboard the train and you steam them back again. That

• 33:01Speaker 02

  is the plan. But there's one problem. I didn't know before writing the book how hard it is to drive a steam train. It's really difficult. It's not like an electric push a button, you know, you have to shovel the coal and get the boiler up to, like, to get the steam pressure up.

• 33:16Dan Snow?

  And not too much coal. Too much coal, you've got a big problem as well. It's got to be just the right amount. Yeah.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Right. So this is a real art. And within the ranks of two SAS on the ground, they had no one who could drive a train. So Cary Ellis gets in his jeep and he thinks, aha, the 261 Field Park Company. It's an engineering airborne company nearby. They'll have someone. So he drives over there, meets Colonel Hennecker, no, Major Hennecker, sorry, the commander of the 261 Field Park Company. Says, yes, I need a train driver. Do you have any? And he says, I think we've got two. So they parade the men and the sergeant major says, anyone who can drive a train, take a few steps forward and two individuals do. And Sapper Elkin is volunteered on the spot by Major Hennecker to join Cary Ellis's mission.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  So poor old Sapper Elkin jumps on the jeep, zooms off with Cary Ellis back to Chertanor railway station, having been volunteered for Lord knows what. He doesn't have a clue what mission he's let himself in for. And when the, as the jeep disappears, Hennecker suddenly thinks to himself, what have I done? I've let one of my men disappear into the distance with a man I've never met before. I just liked the cut of his jib, so therefore decided to run with it. But clearly they're off on a piratical mission of an intensely suicidal nature. Elkin's probably never likely to come back. What am I, what am I going to tell his family? So Hennecker thinks, I need to pray. I need to pray for his soul.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  So he goes to find a church and then he realises that it's a Catholic church and he's a Protestant. So he's hovering on the doorway, thinking, can I really go in and pray in a Catholic church? And the padre of the unit sees and says, sir, what's wrong? He says, I need to pray. Can I, you know, it's a Catholic church. And the padre says, they will welcome you just like any church anywhere, sir. They were praying in these churches here before we were in the UK. So Hennecker goes in, says his prayers, feels a bit better and comes out again. And meanwhile, poor old Sapper Elkin is at Chertanor railway station, trying to get the Italian train that they have expropriated up to steam and shipshape to steam to Pistis concentration camp to carry out the mission.

• 35:28Dan Snow?

  Now, Damien, how much knowledge did High Command have of this particular operation? Because it seems like something they might not want to OK.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Dan, all I can say is that at the end of the mission. There was no publicity and not a single medal was given out. So I suspect that nobody knew apart from those involved. But look, you know, that's how they operated in North Africa, all through the desert campaign. The SAS has operated pretty much as they saw fit. I mean, they were sent into the desert with a brief, which was to raid the enemy's supply lines and communications, you know, by whatever means. And actually, at one stage, they did try to hijack a train for a mission in the North African desert. They tried to hijack a train and steam it through enemy lines to get to an ammo dump to blow it up. For various reasons, it didn't happen.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  So it wasn't as if trains were on the radar as a means to wage war. They were what trains were not on the radar to do. And this is an important point. They were not on their radar to execute humanitarian missions. Because this mission achieves no military objective whatsoever. You don't seize critical territory. You don't take out a critical enemy position. You don't even take out any real significant numbers of enemy troops. It's purely a mission carried out on humanitarian grounds. And there's something that I don't, I'll never be able to get to the bottom of it, I'm sure. But in that camp, in the Pistis, Pistis concentration camp was held, basically the Italian royal family.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  So Prince Filippo, I can't pronounce his full name. It goes on and on and on and on. But this is the individual who had, he had become known during the years of the war as the,

• 37:17Speaker 02

  as the kind of underground mayor of Rome. So he had used his massive fortune to fund and organise all the escape lines out of Rome that were being run. And indeed, at one stage, you know, Prince Filippo owned and the family still does a thousand room palace in Rome, which is a massive, massive art collection with the most wonderful artworks you can possibly imagine. At one stage, Hitler had demanded access to it to probably scope it out so they could steal the whole lot. And Prince Filippo had refused him access as a day, you're not coming in. So this individual, who had eventually been amassed by Mussolini's forces, was held in Pistis concentration camp. Carrie Elwes was from a very strong Catholic family.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Bill Sterling and David Sterling were from a very strong Catholic family. They'd all gone to Ampelforth, the strong Catholic boarding school, and had schooled there together. So I'm wondering if there was some kind of behind the scenes connection from the Vatican to, you know, the Catholic figures in charge of the SAS that kind of got this mission up and running as well.

• 38:24Dan Snow?

  I can imagine the theatre commander going absolutely crazy when he, when he found out this was going on. Anyway, let's get back to that platform with our, with our man. Elkins, is it? He's trying to get the train up and running. Does, does, what, what happens next?

• 38:37Speaker 02

  Kurord, the crazy French Foreign Legionnaire with his French Foreign Legion score, and they load up and they're the guard force on the train. There's also Alistair McGregor, Lieutenant Alistair McGregor with eight men of his patrol. He's a, he becomes a standout figure in the SAS throughout the war. A brilliant Scottish warrior. So that's the force on the train. But Cary Elwes has realised that to get the train through to Ciotton, sorry, to Pistici concentration camp, you have to pass through Metaponto Junction, which are they set of points. And if the points aren't thrown in the wrong direction, the train won't go the right way. So he, he split his force into two. There's a train bound

• 39:18Speaker 02

  force. Second part of the mission is he will lead a handful of jeeps and a few dozen men across enemy lines, through enemy territory at night to get to Metapron Junction, to seize it, to set the points the right way. So the train will steam through and get to Pistici, and then to hold the junction for all the time it takes for the train to steam back again, so it can get back to Allied lines. So that there's a two-prong operation underway, and they have to do the whole thing under cover of darkness. Why is that? Because Allied air power owns the skies over Italy. Obviously, any train seen steaming, seen steaming through enemy territory will be presumed by Allied pilots to be an enemy train, and they will

• 40:03Speaker 02

  take it out. So they risk being attacked by their own forces unless they can achieve the mission from sundown to sunrise the next morning. So that's exactly what they proceed to do. And they, they steam the train into enemy territory. And the beauty of this mission is this, Dan.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  You're a German soldier and you're sat in your trench overlooking Allied positions at this time and you see a train steaming through the valley below you. Are you going to think, oh yeah, that train must be carrying a load of SAS? Or are you going to think, well, that train's obviously one of ours because it's steaming through our territory? You're clearly never going to suspect it's anything other than one of your own. So the whole idea of that force aboard the train is that they are hiding in plain sight. They're not sat on the roof with their guns, you know, being overtly martial. They are hiding in plain sight inside the train so that everybody who sees it will presume this is a train carrying German or Italian forces.

• 41:00Dan Snow?

  Well, as you said at the beginning, they're doing the unthinkable. They're doing the unthinkable and they carry on doing that. So what happens next?

• 41:06Speaker 02

  So train steams all the way through, you know, they have no, no one suspects or uncovers who they are. They get there, they assault the camp, they kill or capture the guards, they start loading the concentration camp victims aboard the train. One of the first they put aboard the train, they captured the diehard fascist camp commander of Piscici concentration camp, Urcalle Supa, in his, in his wonderful gold braid, braid covered Colonel's uniform. He's one of the first aboard the train and there's, they can fit 180 of the most severely ill and wounded aboard the train.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  And the rest, they say, go into the hills, hide out for as long as it takes for our forces to get here because we're not that far away. So that's what they do. And then before leaving, Raymond Kurall decides there's two jobs left to do. The first is there's a store with a safe and in the safe is all the money that the camp commander used to pay his guards. So they rob the safe of hundreds of thousands of, of Italian lira because they, they, they figure they deserve a party after such an operation. And they go into the officers' mess and they remove 187 bottles of brandy and load those aboard the train as well. And then they proceed. To steam it all the way back to Allied lines.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  And the mission is a complete and utter runaway success as no one could ever imagine. That train gets back to Chernobyl Rainbow Station before sunup. In fact, it's going like the clappers and it's going so fast that Sapper Elkin fails to stop it in time and it crashes into the buffers, but at least they've all got back safe.

• 42:52Dan Snow?

  Yeah, I'll bet. I bet Sapper Elkin was a lot, a lot keener to get home than he was about slowing the train down to a safer arrival speed. He, he must have been extremely pleased. Now, were there any shots fired in this operation? Was there any resistance at all?

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, obviously assaulting the camp, you know, turned into a firefight. But the great thing about the camp assault is that Zelko, the Yugoslav partisan who's alerted from camp in the first place, has got word back into the camp that they're coming. And so it's not just an SAS assault from the outside. By the way, the SAS are heavily outnumbered. I mean, something like 10 to one outnumbered. But, you know, they're attacking at night by complete surprise. So they attacked by complete surprise, but also the camp inmates rise up. And some of them have managed to wrestle weapons off the camp guards. So it's a two-stage operation in terms of the battle to take the, the concentration camp.

• 43:39Dan Snow?

  Damien, I'm going to stop you right there. Don't go, everyone. We're going to take another ad break. More Damien and the SAS coming up after this.

• 43:48Speaker 01

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• 44:31Speaker 01

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• 44:39Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, host of Echoes of History, the podcast that plunges you into the ranks of the Knights Templar across ancient Egypt and behind the barricades of history's great revolutions to explore the worlds recreated in Assassin's Creed. In our new series Chasing Shadows, we're in feudal Japan alongside samurai warlords and shinobi spies. Whether you're gearing up for Assassin's Creed: Shadows or captivated by Japan's rich history, this podcast, brought to you by Ubisoft and History Hit, is a must-listen. Chasing Shadows is out now on the Echoes of History podcast.

• 45:23Dan Snow?

  So Damien, when they got back to friendly lines, they had a train full of people. Who did they discover that they'd managed to rescue?

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Yes, great question. So one of those aboard the train, obviously, was, you know, this incredible Italian prince, Prince Filippo Doria Pamphielandi, who, you know, was known throughout Italy as the kind of underground mayor of Rome, who had organised all these escape lines and funded them, an extremely wealthy guy. He would be appointed by the Allies in due course as the first official mayor of Rome, so a really significant figure. But also, something that's just so brilliant about the whole operation, when they get back to Chittotola Railroad Station, bear in mind, remember I said there's lots of, you know, resistance fighters and partisans in that camp? Any number of them volunteer

• 46:13Speaker 02

  on the spot to join the SAS, because they've seen the way these guys operate and they think, boy, we want some of this. This is, you know, we want to be with these. This is the kind of outfit we want a soldier in. So several of them are recruited on the spot to join the SAS. And some of those individuals soldier with the SAS throughout Italy and into Europe and into Germany itself. And some of them settle in the UK after the war, and their families have been raised in the UK. Absolutely brilliant.

• 46:42Dan Snow?

  And yet, you think that the, you think the fact that High Command did not make any noise about this at all, no one was decorated, mentioned dispatch, and I think you think that suggests that it was all... It was executed, it was conceived and executed really without asking anyone's permission or telling anybody else. That's just remarkable, isn't it?

• 47:00Speaker 02

  It was an inconvenient truth, Dan. I mean, lots of reasons to keep it quiet. The first was, it's a concentration camp. You know, what are the allies doing about the concentration camps? Well, nothing. You know, Italy's now on our side. They've signed the armistice of Casabille, so that, you know, they are now the good guys supposedly. We don't want the good guys having concentration camps. And, you know, we're going to come across more of these things. What are we going to do and get to the next ones? You know, for all those reasons, it just was an inconvenient truth. But it was also an inconvenient truth because the mission was carried out by this unit who pretty much did it just off their

• 47:40Speaker 02

  own back. There's not a single decoration given. The only, the only decoration that there, there's an attempt to give after the raid is not by the, it's not by the SAS, it's via the 261 Field Park Company. They put forward Sapper Elkin rightly

• 48:00Dan Snow?

  Of course they did.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  For a military cross. And I understand he ended up getting a mention in dispatch. So even he wasn't, you know, properly rewarded for his incredible diehard heroism. But as for the rest of them, nothing at all. No publicity, nothing ever said about it, never mentioned in the press and no decorations. I mean, it's inconceivable that you can carry out an operation of that daring and scope and magnitude and heroism and moral courage. They liberated a concentration camp and rescued everybody they could, they could bring back. And yet there's not a single gong given.

• 48:38Dan Snow?

  Damien, we all know that you have access to all sorts of sources and archives that we can only dream of. But how did you come across this, this story? It must have been a really difficult one to tease out.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. So I first came across a mention of it in the papers of Colonel Blair Romaine going through his war chest in Northern Ireland. I didn't believe it. Just one paragraph in a report. And I thought, no, that can't be true. Come on. I mean, if that was true, we'd know about it. Surely something like that. So then begins the process of digging and I dug and I dug and I dug. And just one kind of example of how Serendipitously, I mean, almost like fate, this story came about. I was actually writing it. I was thousands of words into writing it. And I just thought, you know, this lacks that real soldier's beat, that real essence and atmosphere of somebody on the ground.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  And I'd been approached about three years ago by a lady called Jo Hussey. And she said, my granddad was in two SAS in the war. He wrote his account of his war years. We don't know if any of it's true. Would you like to read it? So I broke off the writing and I contacted her, I said, can I come and have a look? You know, I'm just, you know, I'm in, having a break. I just, you know, fancy having a read. So I drove up to Bournemouth, where they live, and I met Jo and her mum Diane. So there was this lovely scene in the kitchen with coffee and tea and lemon drizzle cake and big piles of archive and photo albums and this thick manuscript. And I said to Debbie, the daughter, I don't

• 50:15Speaker 02

  even know your father's name. What was he called? She said, his name was George Arnold. But don't worry, you'll, no one's ever heard of him. He's in none of the books. I can't find anything about him published anywhere. I don't even know what in his manuscript is true. And the hairs on the back of my neck went up. I said, I'm 80,000 words into writing the story of your father and his patrol in Italy. I said, I'll be able to tell you everything in that book, which is true or not true, because I've done all the research in the, in the Q archives, in the French archives, but also in the American archives, because your father ends up deploying again into behind the lines in Italy to rescue

• 50:54Speaker 02

  on POW operations. And he does so in conjunction with the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, the American equivalent of the Special Operations Executive, Churchill's Ministry of Revolutionary Warfare. I have all that material. I'll send it all to you tonight. And she said something like, you know, there's even a bit in the book where they hijack a train and go to a concentration camp. And I said, it is entirely true. And, you know, that was, that was an incredibly emotional day. You know, she was pretty much in tears. Because you imagine it, you've lived all your life with this amazing dad, doesn't really talk about the war there. When he does, he's only joking, such the common refrain, won't talk about the serious stuff. And then he passes away and you find he's written a manuscript about his war years, obviously for the family.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  And you read it and you think, I can't believe that. And you research it and there's nothing ever written anywhere else. And then suddenly from out of the blue, this crazy author turns up and says, well, I'm writing his story and I'll send you all the files.

• 51:55Dan Snow?

  Well, Damien Lewis, I would call you lucky, but I've known you long enough to know that these things keep happening to you. So it's not luck. It's what being a brilliant researcher and historian is all about. And we're very grateful for you coming on the podcast, very grateful for you writing these stories. I don't need to ask, but I'm sure you've got more in the pipeline.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  The launch of my new books coming up in like, it's Monday today, Thursday. Okay. She's going to be there with her husband. Okay. Debbie has to be with her husband. Al McGregor, so the commander of the patrol is his son, Hamish is going to be there. They've never met before. Right. And there's going to be half a dozen other family members all turning up for the launch and they're all going to meet each other and be able to exchange stories. Those kind of moments are really special. That's what really makes it, you know, a fantastic experience, you know, putting together these kinds of stories because we can't do it anymore down with World War Two veterans. There are none left from the SAS. We have so very many few left from, you know, any units of from World War Two.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  So now we're reliant upon these kinds of things happening. People, you know, going up into their attics and dragging down the war chest and finding something.

• 53:06Dan Snow?

  Well, with their permission, obviously, but make sure you record that conversation because I'm sure there'll be little things that trigger, trigger memories and trigger anecdotes that could prove very, very exciting indeed. Damien Lewis, you absolute legend. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Tell everyone what the new book is called.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the new book's called SAS Great Escapes 5 and Al McGregor and George Arnold's escape is one of the stories. Operation Speedwell with Pinkney and George Arnold is another of the stories in the book. So yeah, it's just a cracking read of these incredible missions deep behind enemy lines and how they escape after them.

• 53:42Dan Snow?

  Well, thanks so much. And I look forward to talking to you next time, Damien, for more of this kind of stuff.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  Brilliant. Brilliant. So good to be with you again.

• 53:47Dan Snow?

  Well, folks, I think we're going to leave it there for today, but That was completely extraordinary. What a tale of daring do carried out by an elite unit operating at the very edge of what's seen possible, frankly, well over the edge. That forgotten SAS mission that reminds us just how unconventional the war could be. And I think also how much of the story of World War Two still lies hidden in the shadows of history. My thanks to Damian Lewis for bringing this remarkable raid to life. You can learn more about the raid by buying his book, The Great Train Raid, or hear all about other incredible stories of SAS Daring Do in his latest book, SAS Great Escapes V, which came out earlier this month.

• 54:32Dan Snow?

  If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to follow this channel and share it with someone who loves history as well. I'm very grateful if you do that. Thank you very much for listening. Until next time.

• 55:04Speaker 01

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• 55:47Speaker 01

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• 55:55Dan Snow?

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