Jock Lewes - Co-Founder of the SAS

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SAS founder was 'dazzled' by Third Reich and even fell in love with NAZI socialite in run-up to WW2". John Lewes, the soldier's nephew and author of Jock Lewes, Co-founder of the SAS, to be published this week, discovered the letters in his aunt's outhouse. The author’s uncle was a founding member of the SAS and pretty much single-handedly developed its training protocols, which is why his biography is being re-issued a third time. Please note this book is published by Shaggy Dog Publishing Ltd and is not part of Warlord Games’ regular range.

Without his and David Stirling's partnership there would have been no Special Air Service; as Sitrling later chivalrously admitted, 'Jock Lewes could far more genuinely claim to be the founder of the SAS than I'. The hero of the story, Jock Steel, is recruited by MI6 while a team of traitors are monitoring him from within both MI6 and MI5. The novel starts in Oxford in August 1939 and the first three characters we meet are David Wintour (David Winser), Jock Steel (Jock Lewes) and Madeleine McLean (Mirren Barford).As well as being the long overdue biography of this highly gifted and complex individual, Jock Lewes, Co-Founder of the SAS, is a major contribution to the bibliography of British Special Forces. Lewes was a Flying Officer in the RAF Volunteer Reserve (VRT) and is an Honorary Member of the Welsh Guards Association. Lieutenant John Steel Lewes, known as Jock (21 December 1913 – 31 December 1941) was born in Calcutta but grew up in Australia and served as a British officer of the Welsh Guards in World War II. His death was no less dramatic than his life: after successful raids on enemy aerodromes with his invention of Lewes Bombs, he was hunted down by a Messerschmitt 110 fighter. A few years before, the author spoke at the Unveiling of the Jock Lewes Memorial at an army base in Hereford.

One of their first acts was to strap parachutes to their backs and jump out of a plane, despite neither of them having had any training. But in 1941, at the age of 28, Lewes was fatally hit by a 20mm cannon round fired by a Messerschmitt fighter while travelling in a truck shortly. He was 22, dissatisfied with his studies at Oxford and having doubts about his planned military career. The final design used 1 pound (450 g) of plastic explosive, mixed with a 1⁄ 4 pound (110 g) of thermite and a small amount of diesel oil [2] and steel filings. In a later letter, indicating the change in his feelings, he wrote to his parents: 'I swear I will not live to see the day when Britain hauls down the colours of her beliefs before totalitarian aggression.In the novel, like in real life, Steel/Lewes and Madeleine/ Mirren met for the first time at Jock’s sister Elizabeth’s wedding in Oxford. Chinese medicine expert reveals the 'ancient health tips' that will help YOU avoid sickness this winter -.

But, just three years before its creation in 1941, Lewes had a brief stint as a Nazi sympathiser, telling his parents that Germany was 'far from being a totalitarian state' and even attending a ball alongside Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. Jock Lewes was a dashing young Welsh Guards officer who created a new approach to modern warfare in the SAS with less than two year's experience as a soldier.When David Stirling approached Jock to join his unit L’Detachment Special Air Service, he was a little sceptical at first. Fed and equipped by the secret patrols of the Long Range Desert Group, they, sometimes, remained behind enemy lines for two months at a time. In the novel, Jock is recruited by “C” – remember James Bond’s boss – of MI6 to meet Admiral Canaris, chief of Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, and Canaris and Steel meet in Spain for discussions.