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Why do ‘wicked’ witches wear pointed hats? The real history explained
There have been many examples of pointed hats in history, but it remains unclear how any of them became a must-wear for the witches
We’re off to see… the Wicked Witch of the West, as she returns to the silver screen in Wicked: For Good, the second part of the fantasy epic based on the popular stage musical. But where would Elphaba be without her trademark look, including the iconic black, pointed and wide-brimmed hat? Along with a cat, broomstick and black robes, the pointed hat is a required feature of any depiction of the typical ‘evil witch’, and has been for centuries. How it became the headgear of choice, however, remains the subject of numerous theories – as there is no single hat to point the way to the archetypal witch. The myth of the alewives Before getting to the major theories, there is one that can be debunked. The internet is well-populated with the claim that the image of the witch began with alewives, medieval women who brewed ale in their homes and sold it locally. Dominating the brewing industry for a time, these women could achieve a degree of financial independence. In an era where any woman who baulked social norms was suspicious, this autonomy would have been enough to single them out, putting them at risk of being accused of witchcraft. In addition, the fact that they stood over bubbling cauldrons while brewing and wearing pointed hats to be easily spotted at markets, it is clear why some have argued that alewives were the inspiration for the image of the witch. Except, there is just zero historical evidence to back this up. The highly symbolic history of the pointed witch hat Instead, theories have taken in pointy hats from throughout history, some with highly symbolic meaning. The Phrygian cap of antiquity, for instance, came to represent liberty and freedom in the American and French Revolutions of the 18th century, while the ancient Romans presented freed slaves with a special pointed felt cap, called a pileus. In medieval Europe, the hennin came into fashion: an extremely tall cone with flowing material hanging out of the top. Yet while it certainly has a resemblance to the witch’s hat, it was the preserve of noblewomen rather than the typically poor and disenfranchised targets that most often provoked accusations of witchcraft. Persecution and prejudice Other pointed hats became symbols of persecution, which could be a more promising place to look. The Fourth Lateran Council, a meeting of church leaders convoked by the pope in 1215, decreed that all Jews had to distinguish themselves by wearing distinctive clothing. In some regions, this included a tall, conical hat called the pileum cornutum. That one was usually yellow or white, though. Quiz | Would you have been accused of witchcraft? A more likely origin can be found in the persecution of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement founded in the mid-17th century. Better known as the Quakers, they rejected the established doctrines of the church, refused to conform with many social norms, and they believed in equality for all. Two upshots of this were that the Quakers would not take off their hats in the accepted display of respect and they permitted women to preach, which caused consternation in England and colonial America. Quaker women became a source of ridicule and condemnation, and their hats – which got pointier over time – came to be associated with the evils of society. Watch now | What is a witch? Don't miss episode 1 in our Academy on the history of witchcraft While none of these theories are conclusive, a pattern does emerge of pointy hats being worn by minority groups. So, as the witch hunts took hold in Europe, it is possible to see a rationale to equip the typical image of a witch with a hat that has a history of identifying someone as a troublesome ‘other’. By the 18th century, the witches seen in woodcuts firmly established the pointed hat as part of the uniform. In the 1720 book, The History of Witches and Wizards, for instance, a behatted witch can be seen flying on a broomstick – alongside a demon, no less – enshrining the conical pointed hat in the spooky, fantastical tradition.
The REAL history behind Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and more
If you thought Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power or The Hobbit was pure fairytale, you would be way off. HistoryExtra's James Osborne explains more
From the epic battles of Beowulf to the myths of Old Norse sagas and the real-world struggles of the Anglo-Saxons, Tolkien’s legendary world was deeply rooted in the past. But how exactly did these influences weave their way into The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit? In this video, we explore the sources that helped Tolkien forge his fantasy masterpiece, uncovering the warriors, monsters, and lost kingdoms that made Middle-Earth feel so real. View Green Video on the source website
Was Robin Hood ACTUALLY real? The history explained
Dive into the myth and historical speculation surrounding Robin Hood, a legendary outlaw famed for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, as HistoryExtra's David Musgrove presents the real details from history that might have inspired the Sherwood Forest hero
Was Robin Hood one man – or many? In this video, Dr David Musgrove shares some of the medieval rebels who may have inspired England’s greatest outlaw, and discover how history has turned him into a folk hero. Drawing on expertise from Dr Sean McGlynn, Musgrove examines figures such as King Richard the Lionheart and King John to anchor the Robin Hood legend in real history. But the earliest stories don’t depict Robin Hood as particularly kind – in fact, he’s often violent. And his iconic green outfit? A mere invention. From chopping off heads to fighting the French – dig into the real history behind the Robin Hood that has so often featured in Hollywood blockbusters. View Green Video on the source website
The REAL history behind 'All Creatures Great and Small'
Discover the vet who inspired a legacy that is still enjoyed today by fans of PBS America and Channel 5's All Creatures Great and Small
HistoryExtra's Lauren Good explores the life and career of James 'Alf' Wight, and what led him to write about his experiences as a veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales. From his early years to his struggles with mental illness, this video shines a light on the man who wrote a series of books that would capture the public imagination and go on to sell in their millions. View Green Video on the source website
The Forsytes, a new drama adaptation of John Galsworthy's novels, has landed on British screens, giving viewers a sumptuous look at late Victorian London – a world of dazzling excess and great divide. Historical consultant Dr Victoria Bateman introduces the real historical detail behind the action
By the late Victorian era, having emerged from the Industrial Revolution, Britain was the wealthiest country in the world. Cotton, coal and iron and steel had propelled the island nation from poverty to prosperity, while putting Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle – along with Scotland and Wales – on the map. In a situation quite the reverse of today, London had been left lagging behind, with the northern regions the far wealthier side of the divide. But the emergence of the ‘City’ as the financial centre of the world was to change this. Home to the London Stock Exchange and the Bank of England, the (quite literal) Square Mile, whose skyline is dominated by St Paul’s Cathedral, forms the backdrop to The Forsytes – Channel 5’s new period drama. Is The Forsytes a true story? No, The Forsytes is adapted by Debbie Horsfield from John Galsworthy’s classic novel series The Forsyte Saga, published in 1922. But as with many historical dramas there are truths underpinning the fiction. The star-studded six-part series follows the fortunes, personal rivalries, and revelries of a wealthy family of stockbrokers in 1880s London. We get to know Jolyon Forsyte, who is reluctantly set to inherit the family firm but whose wife – Frances (played by Tuppence Middleton) – would have it no other way. Waiting in the wings is his cousin and rival, Soames, who considers himself to be a far more worthy heir and who is as hellbent on ‘possessing’ his love interest Irene (played by Millie Gibson) as much as his stocks and shares. From Lady Carteret (played by Susan Hampshire, who won an Emmy Award for the original 1967 series) and the Forsyte matriarch Ann (played by Francesca Annis) to the dressmaker and former maid Louisa, the characters of The Forsytes span the British class system and give us a glimpse of life in a pivotal but often overlooked period of British history. Here are five important real details in The Forystes that true fans of historical drama won’t want to miss… The Forstyes were typical of the changing fortunes of ‘new money’ families As Britain’s economy grew, it created opportunities for stockbrokers, solicitors and property developers – the professional services that could meet the needs not only of industry at home but also of Britain’s growing overseas empire. From Africa and the Americas to Australia and India, railways needed to be built, land developed, and mines sunk – all of which required funds. British investors therefore refocused their energies away from investing at home to investing abroad. And they had deep pockets to do so. In the late 19th century, the amount of savings in London-based bank accounts exceeded the combined savings in the banks of New York, Paris and Germany. By redeploying these savings overseas, Britain became the world’s biggest lender. Stockbrokers like the Forsytes were able to build their own personal wealth by earning commissions on the investments they undertook on behalf of their clients. This meant that Britain’s upper classes – the traditional landed elites – now faced competition, not only from the industrialists of the north but also from ‘city-types’. While being accepted in the most esteemed social circles was a struggle, it was easier for financiers than it was for industrialists, which meant that careful cultivation of social networks could bring social as well as economic dividends for families like the Forsytes. As one etiquette guide noted, referring to the tradition of women being presented to royals at court: “The wives and daughters of merchants, or of men in business (excepting bankers), are not entitled to presentation.” In other words, those working in finance were special. While stockbroking families like the Forsytes had humble roots, they were on the way up. Men like Soames Forsyte really did ‘own’ their wives – but rights were changing In terms of their bodies, married women were considered the property of their husbands in late Victorian Britain. This meant that women were expected to submit to the sexual desires of their husbands. In fact, only in the 1990s did rape within marriage come to be considered a crime under British law. For most of the 19th century, married women also lacked any form of financial control – legally, husbands controlled not only their wives’ property and other assets, but also any wages she might have earned. Changing the law to give married women control over their own money became a central aim of Victorian feminism, successfully achieved in 1882 in the form of the Married Women’s Property Act. By the close of the 19th century, women owned a quarter of stock market shares and a third of government bonds. While stockbrokers were much more likely to be men than women, their clients were increasingly women. Working mothers were demonised, while ‘tradwives’ were celebrated Despite a central role in the workforce during the Industrial Revolution, not only in cotton factories but also in coal mines, women’s opportunities for work narrowed over the course of the 19th century. They were left them with two main options: working as domestic servants or in the cloth industry, including as dressmakers. Neither was particularly well paid and working hours were notoriously long. In The Forsytes, Louisa – Jolyon’s former love interest (played by Eleanor Tomlinson) – had done both types of work. For young working-class women, paid work was – as it had been for centuries – the norm in Late Victorian Britain. But for married women it was a different story. The tradwife was just as much a trend then as it is today, which meant that women were increasingly expected to give up their job upon marriage to instead become the ‘angels in the house’. Housewives were considered virtuous, while working mothers were demonised as neglecting their children. Read more | From family to factory: women's lives during the Industrial Revolution But while the Forstyes could afford for their womenfolk not to engage in paid work, most families were in a very different position. Studying poverty in turn-of-the-century London, the contemporary social reformer Charles Booth found that the ‘male breadwinner’ model was only practical for (at most) thirty per cent of the population. In the average family, wives – and children – needed to earn money in order to pay the rent and avoid starvation. But given that women’s options were shrinking, many women had to resort to informal types of work in order to make ends meet, such as taking in laundry, housing lodgers, or selling hot buns on the side of the street (including in the Square Mile). Women also performed unpaid labour within family businesses. In the case of the Forsyte women, that included the all-important social networking that lifted the family’s reputation – and with it, brought in new clients. Scrutiny of parentage had significant social impact The question of paternal parentage forms a central theme within The Forstyes. At the time, between four and five per cent of children were born out of wedlock and unmarried mothers faced serious social stigma, as did their children. Given that women had less access to well-paid work than their male peers, supporting a family as a single mother would have been either impossible or exceptionally difficult. Watch now | Did Queen Victoria and John Brown have a SECRET child? As a result, many women found themselves with no option other than to give up their children. Avoiding that typically required holding fathers to account – ensuring that they made a (sometimes secret) financial contribution to their child’s upbringing. Of course, most fathers failed to do so and, even when they did, their children were still at a clear social disadvantage compared with their ‘legitimate’ peers. Big bottoms really were fashionable in late Victorian Britain When it came to fashion, the crinoline – a device to hold voluminous hooped petticoats – was out, and the bustle – padding or wire at the back of a dress – was in. Sitting wasn’t always easy with an exaggerated bottom, especially as bustles became bigger. But as usual, Victorian inventors had a solution for everything, which led to the development of the ‘New Phantom’ bustle (patented in 1884). This device collapsed in on itself as the wearer sat back in her chair and then popped back out as she stood up. By the late 1880s, bustles were getting smaller rather than bigger, to the point that a small and simple pad, stuffed with horsehair, sufficed. In the 1890s, the ‘New Woman’ movement, which prioritised health and practicality, took the fashion world by storm, further simplifying the silhouette in what became known as ‘rational dress’. But without the previous appendages, it was necessary to find some other way to protect a woman’s figure, and so skirts were made with heavier materials, sometimes supplemented with stiff petticoats. While fashion evolved dramatically during Queen Victoria’s reign, the object was still the same: maintaining a woman’s bodily modesty. From regional divides and class tensions to tradwives and eye-popping fashion trends, it was in the Late Victorian period that today’s Britain was starting to emerge. Dr Victoria Bateman is author of Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power and is historical consultant to The Forsytes Series 1 of The Forsytes is available in the UK on Channel 5, and is soon to arrive on PBS Masterpiece in the USA
9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes
The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, has for more than 130 years been a star of stage and screen, played by actors including Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen and serialised in countless books. But how much do you know about this famous crime-buster, who made his first appearance in 1887 in Beeton's Christmas Annual? Here, author Martin Davies shares 11 lesser-known facts about Sherlock Holmes...
1. The first actor to play Sherlock Holmes was American… The first actor to take on the role of Sherlock Holmes in any official capacity was the American William Gillette. His 1899 stage play was adapted from a script by Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Opening six years after the author had attempted to kill off his creation at the Reichenbach Falls, the play was a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic: between 1899 and 1932, Gillette performed the role more than 1,000 times. Gillette is also credited with introducing the curved briar pipe that was to become synonymous with the great detective – possibly because a straight pipe obscured the actor’s face when he delivered his lines. On the podcast | Sherlock Holmes: the real history that inspired the detective stories On first meeting Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Gillette is said to have appeared in character, complete with deerstalker, and after examining Conan Doyle most minutely, to have opined: “Unquestionably an author!” 2. … who introduced a love interest Gillette was also one of the first to annoy the purists by introducing a love interest for Holmes. When he telegraphed Conan Doyle with the question “May I marry him?” the author is said to have replied: “You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him!” It’s impossible to count the number of writers who, since then, have taken Doyle at his word. Read more | Real-life Sherlocks: the detectives of Scotland Yard and their curious cases 3. He defied death Holmes, having survived the Reichenbach Falls, refused to die with his creator. By the time of Conan Doyle’s death on 7 July 1930, Holmes was already a star of stage and screen. His film debut, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, came as early as 1900. Just a few seconds long, the film used stop-motion camerawork to show Holmes attempting to grapple with a burglar who repeatedly disappears, then reappears in a different part of the room. 4. A 1940s duo cemented Holmes and Watson's on screen personas One of the oldest surviving film adaptations of Conan Doyle’s work dates to 1916 (William Gillette again) but it was the English duo of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the 1940s who for many years became identified in the public imagination as the Holmes and Watson. Rathbone and Bruce made 14 Sherlock Holmes films between 1939 and 1946 (and starred in more than 200 dramatisations for American radio), yet only the first two films were set in the Victorian period. The others had a contemporary setting, allowing Sherlock Holmes to pursue Nazi spies and to urge the purchase of war bonds. Bruce’s dim, bumbling Watson tends to infuriate Holmes purists. 5. He inspired hundreds of parodies The Adventures of ChubbLock Homes, an early comic strip, appeared in Comic Cuts magazine as early as 1893, and the urge to parody the great detective has never gone away. In 1901, while William Gillette’s official Holmes play was running in London, audiences at Terry’s Theatre were enjoying performances of the rather more frivolous Sheerluck Jones. The comic strip Sherlocko & Watso was hugely popular in the USA in the early 20th century, and silent film parodies abounded. Later in the century, Peter Cook and John Cleese both played comedy Sherlocks on film (Cleese's character was Arthur Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock’s grandson). Less well remembered, perhaps, is the 1976 TV film The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective, in which a youthful Larry Hagman (before his JR Ewing days) played a deluded motorcycle cop, Sherman Holmes. Read more | Women detectives: meet the Victorian female super sleuths 6. Tobacco, cereal and… mouthwash? Holmes has sold it all Even in his early days, Sherlock Holmes was helping manufacturers to sell their products. In the 1890s, the makers of Beecham’s Pills ran advertisements suggesting that the great detective was a devoted user. And as a smoker, Holmes was popular with the tobacco companies. Early cigarette advertisements using Holmes’ image included brands such as Lambert and Butler’s ‘Varsity’ mixture, Chesterfield, Ogden’s, Gallaher’s and Players. Since then, products as diverse as furniture cream, mouthwash, breakfast cereal and photocopiers have all benefited from association with the great man. 6. He debuted on TV to mixed reviews With the growth of television after the Second World War, the Baker Street detective was quick to adapt to the new medium. Alan Wheatley was the first actor to portray Holmes on British television – his 1951 series was broadcast live. But it seems Wheatley was not a fan of Holmes. When asked about Holmes’ character, he is said to have replied: “In my opinion he just seemed to be an insufferable prig”. 7. One actor played Holmes twice… and his brother Peter Cushing appeared as Holmes on the BBC in the 1960s. He had already played the detective in the 1959 Hammer film The Hound of the Baskervilles, alongside Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville. Lee was to play Holmes himself in a 1962 film; then, nearly 30 years later, he took up the pipe again, playing an ageing Sherlock in two TV films known together as Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years. Throw in an appearance as Mycroft Holmes in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and Sir Christopher almost bagged the complete set. Alas, he never appeared on screen as Doctor Watson. 8. The most prolific Holmes For many people, the definitive portrayal of Sherlock Holmes was by Jeremy Brett, for Granada Television, in the 1980s and 1990s. Brett appeared in 41 episodes, including five feature-length productions. However, even that impressive achievement doesn’t make Brett the most prolific Holmes. That title must go to the British actor Clive Merrison, who played the detective on BBC Radio between 1989 and 1998, and who completed the full canon – dramatisations of all 60 of Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories and novels. 9. Holmes, The Avengers and Britain's most famous secret agent are forever linked on screen And so to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, in which Andrew Scott rose to prominence playing Moriarty. Scott has also appeared in the new James Bond film, Spectre, joining an illustrious club of actors who have performed alongside Britain’s most famous spy and Britain’s most famous detective. But only Sir Roger Moore has played both leading roles on film. Sadly his one appearance as Holmes – in the 1976 TV-film Sherlock Holmes in New York – is not, perhaps, his most memorable work. Sean Connery never played Holmes, but he did play the ultra-astute friar William of Baskerville in The Name of the Rose, so you might say that he came close. The actor playing Dr Watson to Roger Moore’s Holmes was Patrick Macnee, most famous as John Steed in The Avengers. Macnee played Watson again, 15 years later, alongside Christopher Lee’s Holmes. Then, in 1993, he donned the deerstalker himself in The Hound of London, thus becoming that very rare thing – an actor who has starred in films as both Holmes and Watson. But all these efforts to breathe new life into Sherlock Holmes might well have been greeted with bemusement by Holmes’ creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote in a letter in 1892: “Holmes is as inhuman as Babbage’s Calculating Machine.” Martin Davies is the author of Mrs Hudson and the Spirits’ Curse (Canelo, 2015)
Is Oppenheimer a true story? Meet the real Robert Oppenheimer, ‘father of the atomic bomb’
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer tells the story of the creation of the atomic bomb, a weapon so powerful that it redefined the world order. And at the centre of its development was of the first nuclear weapon, and the paradoxes and moral questions that dogged him for the rest of his life
Few famous scientists have left quite as complex a legacy as J Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb' who reflected, in aftermath watching the raw power of the first ever nuclear test in 1945, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer's moral quandaries and personal demons nestled alongside his scientific brilliance, and all are explored in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which tells the story of the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. Starring Cillian Murphy ( perhaps known to history fans for his role in Peaky Blinders) in the title role, the film follows Oppenheimer’s journey from acclaimed theoretical physicist to director of the top-secret Los Alamos laboratory, where he led team of brilliant minds in a race to unlock the destructive power of the atom. The star cast also includes Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss, and Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves. But is any of what we see in the film true? Read on for a full breakdown of the real history in Oppenheimer. Is Oppenheimer a true story? Yes, Oppenheimer is based on true events. The film tells the story of J Robert Oppenheimer, a real-life American physicist who played a central role in the Manhattan Project, the United States’ secret programme to develop the first atomic bomb, which began in 1942. Kitty Oppenheimer, Lewis Strauss, Jean Tatlock, General Leslie Groves – they were all real historical figures who shaped Oppenheimer's life and work. So too were the questions around his political leanings, and the intense scrutiny he endured during the post-war era. Briefed with weaponising atomic energy, the 38-year-old Oppenheimer was chosen by General Leslie Groves to head up the project’s secret research laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and oversaw the development of the world’s first atomic weapons between 1943-45. Prior to taking up the post, he had carried out research into the quantity of radioactive material that would be required to make an atomic weapon, and how destructive it might be. Such insight proved indispensable to the project’s ultimate success. “Everyone we interviewed about his years in Los Alamos always mentioned that the atomic bomb would never have been produced in two and a half years if they had chosen anyone other than Oppenheimer. It turned out that he was a brilliant administrator, and was very persuasive at getting all these large-ego minded scientists to work together.” That was Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, speaking to us on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast about the physicist’s life and unique value to the project. Oppenheimer was anti-fascist in his political leanings, explains Bird, and this was his major motivation for building what he called “the gadget”. He knew from the physics that such a weapon was possible; it was simply a large engineering problem. He feared that the German physicists with whom he had studied in the 1920s were just as capable of building this weapon, and believed that they would gift it to Adolf Hitler and Germany would win the war. “He was very fearful that they were way too far behind,” says Bird. “And this gave him the motivation to work hard and to inspire other physicists and scientists at Los Alamos to build the gadget.” An important part of his brilliance, says Bird, is that he was a polymath. “He loved quantum physics, but he also loved the deserts of New Mexico. He first went to New Mexico when he was an 18-year-old, and he fell in love with horseback riding and the very spartan cowboy existence out there.” Oppenheimer also loved French poetry and the novels of Ernest Hemingway, and he also acquired an interest in Hindu mysticism and read the Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita. “He taught himself Sanskrit so he could read it in the original,” says Bird. It was this multifaceted brilliance that was part of his appeal, says Bird. He differed from other theoretical physicists as he was able to explain concepts in “plain English” and was also a charismatic speaker, though Bird notes that he could also be shy and reticent. He was “very complicated”, says Bird. “He could be sweet and patient with his students, and then in the presence of authority figures, he could suddenly become brusque and even rude. And, of course, this was part of his downfall later.” Watch now: Is Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer guilty of perpetuating a historical myth? View Green Video on the source website Kitty Oppenheimer: who was Robert Oppenheimer married to? J Robert Oppenheimer was married to Kitty Oppenheimer (formerly Kitty Puening). A German American biologist and botanist, Puening studied mathematics, biology, and chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh in the late 1920s, and in the early 1930s became a member of the Communist Party of the America (CPA). Prior to meeting Oppenheimer in 1939, Kitty had been married three times, and was married to her third husband, Richard Stewart Harrison, when her relationship with the physicist began. Kitty became pregnant with their first child in the autumn of 1940, and soon afterwards she obtained a divorce from Harrison, which left Robert and Kitty free to marry in November 1940. A keen horsewoman and lover of the outdoors, Kitty joined Oppenheimer to live in the desert town in Los Alamos, where she worked as a biologist on the health group of the Manhattan Project, conducting blood tests to assess the danger of radiation, before she became pregnant again. During this period, she also suffered with depression and alcohol issues, in part due to the isolation of the military facility. She survived Oppenheimer by four years, dying of an embolism in 1972. What was Oppenheimer’s relationship with Jean Tatlock? Oppenheimer also had an enduring relationship with Jean Tatlock, a woman whom he met in the early 1930s. She was a psychiatrist and also a member of the Communist Part of America, and is often credited with introducing Oppenheimer to radical politics. Some historians have suggested that Oppenheimer and Tatlock were romantically involved following Oppenheimer’s marriage to Kitty in 1940; though their relationship had broken off in 1939, Oppenheimer continued to visit Tatlock in San Francisco until 1943. Tatlock suffered from clinical depression and died by suicide in 1944. Was Oppenheimer a communist? There is no direct evidence that Robert Oppenheimer was a communist, but many people close to the physicist were either members of the party – including Kitty, Jean, and his brother Frank Oppenheimer – or had links to its activity. “Any attempt to label Robert Oppenheimer a party member is a futile exercise,” wrote Kai Bird and the late Martin Sherwin in their 2005 biography, “as the FBI learned to its frustration over many years.” Though Sherwin and Bird concluded that Oppenheimer didn’t join the party himself, he did contribute to Communist Party activities, including an effort to desegregate a public swimming pool in California, and a fund to buy an ambulance to ship it to the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. These associations would “haunt him with the American political authorities and the FBI”, explains Bird. “He fell under FBI surveillance as early as 1940. And by 1954, his FBI file had grown to be about 8,000 pages.” Did Oppenheimer really say, “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”? The line is often associated with Oppenheimer, who quoted “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, after the successful detonation of the Trinity nuclear weapon in July 1945. He did say it, but not right away. Immediately afterwards, explains Bird, the physicist turned to his brother Frank and simply said: “It worked.” It wasn’t until a few days later, when he was interviewed by the New York Times, that Oppenheimer quoted the Hindu scripture. “He had a very theatrical sense to him,” says Bird. “He knew how to get up on the stage and perform.” Oppenheimer himself later spoke of the moment in a 1965 NBC documentary: “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture.” The Trinity bomb was successfully tested on 16 July, producing the estimated equivalent of 20,000 tonnes of TNT. German-born Rudolf Peierls recalled that the brilliant blinding flash “told us… we had done our job”. Yet by that time, the war with Nazi Germany was over and so Japan instead became the target. Some Los Alamos staff expressed concern that, as Japan had no bomb project, why should the operation go ahead? Though Oppenheimer grappled with the huge moral weight of deploying such a weapon, he was influenced by Danish physicist Niels Bohr who, upon a visit to the project in 1943 had asked Oppenheimer: “Robert, can you tell me, is it big enough?” – meaning, will it be significant enough to change the nature of warfare? Did Oppenheimer regret the atomic bomb? Though conflicted, Oppenheimer’s position in August 1945 was that the bomb would ignite with such explosive power that it could persuade all of humanity that the world should never again fight total warfare like the Second World War. There is evidence that the decision undoubtedly weighed heavy on Oppenheimer. Bird interviewed Anne Wilson Marks, Oppenheimer’s secretary. She recalled that one day, in the intervening three weeks between the Trinity test and the use of the bomb on Japan, Oppenheimer was muttering under his breath as they walked to work: “Those poor little people, those poor little people.” “Anne stopped him and said, ‘Robert, what are you talking about?’ And he said, ‘Well, the Trinity test shows that the gadget has worked, and now it's going to be used on a large target in Japan, meaning a city. And there are going to be innocents, thousands of innocents killed. Those poor little people.’” This shows, explains Bird, that he was painfully aware of the tragic implications of the gadget. And yet, as Bird and Martin Sherwin considered Anne Wilson Marks’s testimony when writing American Prometheus, “Marty pointed out that, chronologically, that [conversation with Anne Wilson Marks] is the same week that [Oppenheimer] was briefing some of the bombardiers who were going to be on the aeroplane that was going to drop the bomb. And he instructed them exactly at what altitude they should detonate the weapon to have the maximum destructive power, and [said] that it should be dropped on the centre of the city for to have the most destructive implications.” At 2.45am on 6 August 1945, the crew of the Enola Gay aircraft dropped a bomb named Little Boy on Hiroshima, a 4.8-tonne device that detonated with the power of 15,000 tonnes of TNT. Authorities estimated the number of deaths by December 1945 to be around 140,000 (since then, deaths from radiation-related diseases have added to the toll). Japan surrendered on 14 August 1945, five days after a second bomb devastated Nagasaki. Read more | Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War? What happened to Oppenheimer after the atomic bomb? After the detonation of the two atomic bombs in August 1945, Oppenheimer never worked on weapons again. Kitty Oppenheimer’s letters to friends tell of how in the days following the bombs, he plunged into a deep depression, and she feared for his life. As journalist Lincoln Barnett wrote in Life magazine in 1949: “Oppenheimer knew that he and his coworkers had acquired a promethian [sic] burden they could never shed.” Once somewhat recovered, Oppenheimer headed to Washington, DC for briefings on the end of the war, and in October 1945 he met with US President Harry Truman. “By this time, Oppenheimer was determined to try to persuade the president and the policy makers that they needed to understand that this is a weapon that cannot be used defensively, and that we shouldn't rely on it,” says Bird. He believed “that we should try to find some way to impose international regulations, and maybe ban it and control the technology”. President Truman didn’t respond favourably to Oppenheimer’s pro-regulation position or the suggestion that the US had blood on its hands. In response to Truman’s belief that the Russians would never be able to match the technology, Oppenheimer strongly felt that “there were no secrets to this weapon,” says Bird. “The physics was known.” Just a few weeks later in November 1945, Oppenheimer delivered a speech in Philadelphia to the American Philosophical Society, in which he said: “We have made a thing, a most terrible weapon, that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world. We have made a thing that, by all standards of the world we grew up in, is an evil thing. By so doing, by our participation in making it possible to make these things, we have raised again the question of whether science is good for man, of whether it is good to learn about the world, to try to understand it, to try to control it, to help gift to the world of men increased insight, increased power.” Read more | How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world Why is Oppenheimer known as the father of the atomic bomb? By the autumn of 1945, the Manhattan Project was public knowledge, and Oppenheimer’s position on the development of the world-changing weapons had caused him to become a household name. He was described by Life magazine as “one of the most famous men in the world, one of the most admired, quoted, photographed, consulted, glorified, well-nigh deified as the fabulous and fascinating archetype of a brand new kind of hero, the hero of science and intellect, originator and living symbol of the new atomic age." What was Oppenheimer’s relationship with Albert Einstein? In 1947, Oppenheimer took up a position as Director at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, where faculty members included one Albert Einstein. The pair later became close colleagues, and were united in their desire to highlight the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. Both were against the development of more destructive weapons such as the hydrogen bomb (H-Bomb). Such a weapon “will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima”, warned a 1955 manifesto by Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell, adding that “the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race.” While Oppenheimer didn’t sign the Einstein-Russell manifesto, as part of the Atomic Energy Commission (an agency founded to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology) he frequently worked with Einstein and other eminent scientists to advocate for peaceful use of nuclear fission for energy production. Who was Lewis Strauss – and how did he cause Oppenheimer’s downfall? Lewis Strauss was appointed to the position of chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1953 and quickly formed a rivalry with Oppenheimer so antagonistic that it would lead Strauss to publicly challenge his character, ultimately ending in Oppenheimer's security clearance being revoked. Strauss and Oppenheimer were “like oil and water”, says Bird. “They had bad chemistry. Strauss, although he only had a high school education, prided himself on his knowledge of science and things atomic. Oppenheimer was rather dismissive of these pretensions, and he made it clear what he thought of Strauss. “Famously, he testified at the Senate in the presence of Lewis Strauss and made fun of something that Strauss had just testified to, disparaging his scientific knowledge. So Strauss acquired a deep sort of animosity for Oppenheimer.” In Strauss’s capacity as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, he had access to Oppenheimer’s FBI file – which had been open since March 1941. “Strauss got it into his head, looking at these files, that perhaps Oppenheimer was a security risk. He orchestrated a complicated series of charges against Oppenheimer, and announced that Oppenheimer either had to go through a security hearing and defend himself, or give up his security clearance altogether.” As it happened, Oppenheimer’s security clearance was set to expire in June 1954. Oppenheimer sought the opinion of his friend Einstein, who advised Oppenheimer to walk away, explains Bird, telling him that he shouldn’t have anything to do with the “witch hunt”. So why did Oppenheimer choose to fight the hearing rather than walk away? Oppenheimer felt that he needed to use his celebrity status as a scientist to inform the public and the politicians in Washington about the dangers of nuclear weapons, explains Bird. “He wanted to use his expertise for the public good and participate in the policy debates. And to do so, he needed a security clearance and otherwise he wouldn't be able to brief the president. “And, truth be known, Oppenheimer by this time had fallen in love with the status that he had, his access to the establishment and to power, to be able to walk the halls of Congress and talk to congressmen and senators and the president. There was something attractive about all this that he didn't want to give up. And in this, he was certainly politically naïve.” In the spring of 1954, Strauss orchestrated a hearing that went on for weeks, exposing many private details about Oppenheimer, his political associations and intimate life – details which were later leaked to the New York Times and other newspapers. When was Oppenheimer’s security clearance revoked? On 12 June 1954, it was recommended that Oppenheimer's security clearance not be reinstated, bringing to an end any influence he could have in government or policy. “The result was a public humiliation of America's greatest working scientist, and Oppenheimer never really recovered from it,” says Bird. “He became a public nonentity for the rest of his life.” “It was a terrible black mark on American history,” says Bird. “And Oppenheimer became essentially the sort of chief celebrity victim of the entire McCarthy era.” Oppenheimer held the position of director at the Institute for Advanced Study until 1966, a year before his death from advanced throat cancer in 1967, at the age of 62. Kai Bird is the co-author, with the late Martin Sherwin, of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005, Alfred A. Knopf). This article includes quotes from Bird, who was speaking with Elinor Evans on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full episode now.
The real Paddy Mayne of SAS Rogue Heroes
Paddy Mayne was one of the original members of the SAS, and later its commander, whose exploits are dramatised in BBC’s SAS Rogue Heroes
Season 2 of SAS Rogue Heroes – the rambunctious WW2 drama from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight – swaps Africa for Italy, pitting our ill-disciplined crew of motley misfits against the mighty Il Duce, Benito Mussolini. Heading the charge this time is Jack O’Connell’s Paddy Mayne, the subversive and frequently drunk warrior-poet from Ireland, taking the command of the SAS and its new intake while former anarchist-in-chief David Stirling (played by Connor Swindells) languishes as a prisoner of war. Who was the real Paddy Mayne? Paddy Mayne was a real soldier and perhaps the SAS’s most iconic fighter, but his story is so bound up in tales of violence and excess, that truth and legend have grown near inseparable. Born in 1915 in Newtownards, County Down, to a landowning Presbyterian family, Robert Blair Mayne excelled at sport at school. He went on to study law at Queen’s University and was capped six times for Ireland at rugby. He was also selected to play for the British Lions on their 1938 South African tour. Standing at 6’ 3” and 15.5 stone, Mayne had an intimidating reputation but was, in reality, a man of contradictions: of kindness and cruelty, sensitivity and rage, humour and solemnity. It was not always clear which version would emerge in any given situation – though alcohol often had a major part to play. When did Paddy Mayne join the SAS? Paddy Mayne first attracted wartime attention as a troop commander in No. 11 (Scottish) Commando, being mentioned in dispatches after a fight against the Vichy French on the Litani River. On the podcast | The SAS in WW2: everything you wanted to know He joined the Special Air Service as one of its original members in 1941, and soon made his mark within the unit by leading a triumphant raid on Tamet airfield in December of that year. Planting bombs that put two dozen enemy aircraft out of action and won him the first of his four Distinguished Service Orders. At one point, he climbed onto the wing of an Italian fighter plane and tore its instrument panel away with his bare hands. Paddy Mayne’s reputation in the SAS: how his legend was born Paddy Mayne went on to lead a series of successful desert raids in Africa, helping to build the SAS’s reputation as an ever-present threat to the enemy’s tail, while becoming an inspiration to the tough ex-commandos serving under him. One sergeant spoke of feeling “immune to danger” when led by Mayne. It was said that he chose operations carefully, prioritising the welfare of his men and making them feel part of the decision-making process. Nor was it unusual to see him nursing the wounded. He once held the hand of a dying man whose last words were, “I’m ever so sorry to be such a nuisance, sir.” The overall result of such reassuring authority was a closely bonded, meritocratic, and generally successful desert unit. Yet such recollections only reveal part of Mayne’s character. At the start of the Tamet raid, Mayne led his men to the door of the pilots’ mess, where Italians and Germans were drinking and relaxing. Kicking it open, he said “Good evening” quietly to the startled occupants, before firing his pistol, while others joined in with Tommy guns. At least two dozen men were killed in a matter of seconds; Mayne’s SAS commander, David Stirling, reacted angrily on learning of the incident. It was, Stirling said, closer to an execution than an act of war. On the podcast | Special forces historian Gavin Mortimer casts a critical eye over David Stirling All the same, a version of the story was reported in British newspapers, feeding the public hunger for bloodthirsty accounts. This was how the legend of Paddy Mayne was born – soon to spread among British and Commonwealth troops in the Middle East. D-Day: Land, Air and Sea Member exclusive | Discover the story of 6 June 1944 from the perspectives of the soldiers, sailors and airborne troops who served. Featuring interviews with WW2 experts Saul David, Nick Hewitt and Giles Milton, as well as gripping eyewitness testimonies. Listen to all episodes now How was Paddy Mayne viewed by his men? Mayne’s ruthlessness was not restricted to the enemy. He came to dominate his fellow SAS officers to such an extent that they rarely refused when summoned to drinking sessions in the early hours of the morning – which often turned violent. Mayne once pinned a smaller officer, Johnny Wiseman, to the ground, called for a razor, and forcibly shaved off half of his beard without soap or water. Wiseman, who never learned what he had done to annoy his commander, fully expected to be killed. Another officer who learned to avoid Mayne’s drunken company was Bill Fraser, a courageous but troubled Scot, whom Mayne would regularly taunt for his supposed homosexuality. More of a warrior king than a complete officer, Mayne’s influence on the SAS’s desert war was huge. It reached its high point in July 1942 when he and Stirling came together to lead a raid on Sidi Haneish airfield. Eighteen heavily armed jeeps were driven steadily around the airfield, blasting their machine guns and destroying around forty German aircraft. It was an audacious performance of choreographed precision. Yet, even then, Mayne found a way to stand out from the crowd, jumping from his jeep to plant a single bomb on the engine of the only undamaged aeroplane. Paddy Mayne in Sicily and beyond: commander of the SAS Once the desert war had ended, the main body of the SAS was rebranded as the Special Raiding Squadron (SRS) and went into action in Sicily, with Mayne as its commander – David Stirling now a prisoner of war, having been captured in Africa in 1943. Read more | The battle for Sicily: breaking into Fortress Europe Some 287 SRS men landed at Capo Murro di Porco on the south-east coast of Sicily. The success of the Allied invasion force depended to a large degree on the ability of these men to knock out artillery defences. Fortunately, Mayne’s squadron was able to do the job. During the following year’s invasion of France, SAS members were dropped by parachute behind enemy lines where they worked alongside French resistance fighters to carry out sabotage and prevent German forces from reaching the front line. This was a bloody time for the organisation now that Adolf Hitler had issued his personal edict that all British or Allied Commandos found behind the lines, armed or unarmed, must be “slaughtered to the last man”. Travelling with SAS navigator, Mike Sadler, Mayne was one of the first British soldiers to reach Paris after its liberation. Sitting with a group of local people near the Champs-Elysees, Sadler recalled Mayne suddenly producing a hand grenade from his pocket, pulling out the pin and placing it in the centre of the table. As the grenade started to smoke, some of the locals dived under the table while others shrank back. Sadler made a snap decision to stay where he was. “I knew Paddy well enough to think it was only a joke,” he recalled years later. “I certainly hoped he was joking.” Mayne, it turned out, had previously cut the detonator from the fuse. It was, as Sadler had suspected, a more-than-usually dark joke. Although, as he understood, anybody seemed capable of anything in those strange days. Particularly Paddy Mayne. Why was Paddy Mayne denied the Victoria Cross? In April 1945, during Operation Howard in north-western Germany, Mayne went against orders to carry out a near-suicidal mission to wipe out enemy gunners and rescue wounded comrades. He first fired his Bren gun on foot in full view of the enemy, before climbing into a jeep and giving fire orders to a gunner, then finally lifting the wounded onto the jeep and driving them to safety. Read more | Desert raiders: the Long Range Desert Group in the Second World War His Victoria Cross recommendation was anonymously rejected – most likely due to his high-profile reputation for drunkenness and ill-discipline. He received a fourth Distinguished Service Order instead but in David Stirling’s eyes, Mayne had been the victim of a ‘monstrous injustice’. Did Paddy Mayne think of himself as a poet? SAS Rogue Heroes certainly paints Paddy Mayne as a character deeper than a whirling dervish of chaos – instead a warrior with a poet’s soul, and that is certainly true to life. One night in 1942, Paddy Mayne sat drinking in a desert tent with David Stirling, who was revealing something of his past. Before the war, Stirling said, he had lived in Paris and tried to make a living as an artist but had become increasingly frustrated by his shortcomings. This remained the greatest disappointment of his life. Mayne, in return, admitted his own frustrated ambition. All he had ever wanted to do, he said, was to be a writer. It dawned on Stirling that Mayne was a deeply sensitive person sitting on a well of unfulfilled creative energy, driven to all manner of behaviours by an inability to fully express himself. It is little wonder that Mayne was frequently spotted lying in the desert with a novel or a book of verse, or that his idea of undistilled pleasure was to recite poetry in the mess, the more mournful, the better. What happened to Paddy Mayne after the war? One of the war’s more unlikely survivors, Mayne delayed his return to a normal civilian life by travelling to the Antarctic with the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey. Living a wild and dangerous existence, he and his colleagues caught seals, drove teams of dogs and camped out in brutal conditions. He was forced to return home after several months, troubled by a back injury sustained during his time in the SAS. Back in County Down, he returned to legal practice and became secretary of the Law Society of Northern Ireland. But in chronic pain and without the exhilaration and camaraderie of the war to sustain him, he found it difficult to settle back into a peacetime life. How did Paddy Mayne die? Though Paddy Mayne survived the war, he died not long after it – in a car accident in December 1955, aged 40. He drunkenly drove his sports car into a stationary lorry. His funeral was attended by large numbers of mourners. Those who knew him well were shocked by his death. But not surprised. A statue of Mayne now stands in his hometown of Newtownards. SAS Rogues Heroes season 2 is available on BBC iPlayer now. For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, history TV and film to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week
The real SAS Rogue Heroes: the true stories behind the WW2 drama
It’s a story of extravagant lies, homemade bombs and adrenaline-pumped commandos. Joshua Levine charts the formative years of the SAS through the exploits of six extraordinary servicemen
The SAS changed the way that the Allies fought the Second World War. A group of motley misfits whose origins lay in a spy’s propaganda exercise, these bearded ruffians started as joke and yet redefined the art of covert warfare during the Africa campaign. Formed in Cairo in 1941, the Special Air Service – to give the SAS its full appellation – was tasked with attacking enemy airfields. And it did so, after a couple of harrowing missteps, with an assiduous aplomb. Once the war against Erwin Rommel was won, the SAS (as a taskforce called the Special Raiding Squadron – SRS) would spearhead the invasion of Sicily and the liberation of Italy from Benito Mussolini, then once again as the SAS take an active role in the invasion of France, swelling from a few dozen men to several thousand. It’s this early history of the SAS in WW2 that is dramatised in SAS Rogue Heroes, a historical piece from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, two seasons of which are available now on BBC iPlayer. Is SAS Rogue Heroes a true story? Yes, SAS Rogue Heroes is a true story at its core, though there are significant liberties taken with historical events. Don’t let that put you off. Though the show itself prefaces each episode with the words ‘This is not a history lesson’, there is a great truth running though both seasons of SAS Rogue Heroes. Here, historian and SAS expert Joshua Levine explores the real history through the exploits of six men who shaped the unit. On the podcast | The SAS in WW2: everything you wanted to know They include founder members David Stirling, Jock Lewes and Paddy Mayne; season 1 stalwart Mike Sadler and season 2 newcomer John Tonkin; and one man who will never appear in the show, who was SAS before there was an SAS. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/10/357820-0329cb3-e1666954977271.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="SAS Rogue Heroes, l-r: Jock Lewes (Alfie Allen), David Stirling (Connor Swindells) and Paddy Mayne (Jack O'Connell)" title="SAS Rogue Heroes, l-r: Jock Lewes (Alfie Allen), David Stirling (Connor Swindells) and Paddy Mayne (Jack O'Connell) (Photo by BBC/Kudos/Robert Viglasky)" /> Mick Gurmin: fake news in fancy dress The man who was in the SAS before it existed In 1941, a young British trooper based in Palestine was sent on an unlikely mission. Together with a fellow soldier named Smith, Mick Gurmin was dispatched to Cairo with instructions to spread an elaborate yarn around restaurants, bars and tourist hotspots. For the mission, Gurmin was issued with a uniform liberally sewn with parachute badges, to back up his membership of the 1st Special Air Service (SAS) Battalion parachute unit, which was completing its training in Transjordan. It was an intriguing costume – because the 1st SAS didn’t exist. Read more | Think James Bond's pure fantasy? His creator's real WW2 missions were more outrageous than you'd believe Both battalion and uniform were inventions of Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke. He had recently arrived in the region, having been summoned by his friend and supporter Sir Archibald Wavell, British commander-in-chief for the Middle East. Clarke’s task was to deceive the enemy about British intentions – and the capture of an Italian officer had presented him with an opportunity. The officer’s diary revealed an Axis belief that British parachute troops were present in the Middle East. In truth, there were none – but Clarke spotted the chance to exploit an existing fear. He schemed a plot to convince enemy intelligence that 500 parachutists, all specialists in vehicle sabotage, had arrived in the region. This deception operation was codenamed ‘Abeam’, and Gurmin’s carefully staged performance was a key element. Gurmin and Smith – also in fake uniform – were to leak ‘evidence’ of a crack parachute unit while seeming reluctant to do so. Clarke’s admonition made clear the importance of getting their mission spot-on: “Any carelessness or indiscretion on your part may well upset carefully arranged and important plans and have far-reaching consequences.” In the event, Gurmin and Smith had a fine old time. They visited the pyramids, watched a football match, and went to a cabaret, the cinema and a dance. They walked around Cairo Zoo and travelled north to Port Said. Wherever they went, they frequented cafes and restaurants where they attracted attention with their badges, talking with disarming conviction about a job they had never done and which didn’t exist. Operation Abeam seems to have been a success: certainly, rumours of a parachute unit began to spread. Curiously, the fake unit lent its name to the real SAS that was soon to be formed, thereby adding authenticity to Clarke’s deception. For Gurmin, the consequences were profound. Just months earlier, before joining up with the Staffordshire Yeomanry, he had been an apprentice engineer in Wolverhampton. Read more | “They changed the way war is run”: Ben Macintyre on the early SAS Now his impressive performance resulted in another commission. He initially joined the Middle East Commando and then, in the autumn of 1942, became an officer in the genuine SAS. He journeyed far across the Sahara desert, eventually reaching the Mareth Line, a system of fortifications in Tunisia, and later took part in the assault on Sicily. None of the celebrated servicemen whose ranks he was joining realised that Gurmin had been a member – of sorts – long before they had. After the war, Mick Gurmin returned to Britain and worked in the steel industry. When he died in 1978, at the age of 58, it transpired that he had never told friends or family about his wartime deception work. To this day, the SAS archive holds an uncaptioned picture of two men sitting in a Cairo restaurant, glancing knowingly towards the camera, wearing strange yet evocative uniforms: Gurmin and Smith. Before the SAS, it seems, came the SAS. Jock Lewes: the SAS’s first training officer Jock Lewes’ return from the sidelines changed the course of the war in north Africa In the early summer of 1941, Dudley Clarke decided to boost his deception efforts by staging genuine parachute drops over Egyptian airfields. In the meantime, a determined, God-fearing young commando officer, Jock Lewes, was planning his own parachute drops in the same area. The two men’s plans overlapped fortuitously. On the podcast | John Lewes describes the role of his uncle Jock Lewes in founding one of the world’s most famous special forces Lewes had arrived in the Middle East as a member of Layforce, a composite commando force that had recently taken part in a series of failed raids on targets such as Crete and the Libyan port of Bardia, and which now found itself sidelined. Some frustrated members, such as the 70-year-old Sir Walter ‘Tich’ Cowan – surely the army’s most unlikely fighting commando – transferred elsewhere. Others returned to their original units or languished in the Guards Depot. A few enterprising souls – like Jock Lewes – dreamed up new roles for themselves. Lewes’ plan was to create a desert-based parachute unit capable of mounting surprise raids on enemy targets. Having assembled a small group, he was granted permission to carry out trial jumps – which could double as Clarke’s deception drops – from a Vickers Valentia over Fuka airfield on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. In the event, however, the authorities put an abrupt end to Lewes’ experiment. The jumps, they decided, were not demonstrating sufficient potential. Lewes’ scheme seemed finished. Yet the project was soon saved from the scrap heap by an unlikely scavenger. David Stirling was an aristocratic Scottish idler whom Lewes had grudgingly allowed to join his party. The ‘Giant Sloth’, as Stirling was known to his fellow Commando officers, was unlike Lewes in almost all respects – but he possessed talents and advantages that Lewes lacked. He was, notably, immensely persuasive and hugely well-connected. Stirling had been injured while jumping from the Valentia and, as he lay in his Cairo hospital bed, he formulated a more detailed version of Lewes’ plan. On his discharge, with the help of his brothers, he drafted a memorandum intended to sell the idea to Sir Claude Auchinleck, newly appointed commander-in-chief in the Middle East. Stirling’s plan involved parachuting small groups behind enemy lines to raid lines of communication, aerodromes and other vulnerable sites. The men – sidelined commandos desperate to put their skills and initiative to productive use – would lie up unobserved in the desert before striking. The scheme would be economical in terms of manpower and supplies. Stirling had to win the support of Lewes, whose knowledge and technical ingenuity would be essential. Initially, Lewes refused: in his eyes, Stirling’s idea was merely an extension of his own – and he feared placing it in the hands of a half-hearted socialite. But as he recalled in a letter to his father: “I trusted in God that night… and when David came again in the morning I said yes though I know not why, for I had made no decision in the night.” Auchinleck also agreed to the plan, and the unit took shape. As it did, Lewes’ respect for Stirling grew, praising his new-found “enthusiasm, his energy, his confidence”, and admitting that “he appreciated the long-term value of my experiment more accurately than I.” Stirling was happy to give credit for the formation of the unit to Lewes. Whoever founded it, the organisation needed a name – and who more appropriate to provide it than Dudley Clarke? He wanted the new organisation to merge seamlessly with his elaborate fake. So, as his most recent fiction had been ‘K Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade’, the next unit formed would logically be ‘L Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade’. Jock Lewes duly became L Detachment’s training officer, turning his vision into a reality. His entirely improvised but immensely gruelling training programme set about creating an organisation in his own image. When army ordnance experts decreed that a light and simple bomb could not be provided for SAS use, Lewes simply invented his own. His mixture of plastic explosive, thermite and engine oil – dubbed the Lewes bomb – was pivotal in unlocking the unit’s potential. He even designed the SAS wings, inspired by a cod-Egyptian motif above the reception desk at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. Jock Lewes was killed at the end of 1941 while returning from a raid on Nofilia airfield near Libya’s Mediterranean coast. His loss was a great blow to the young organisation – as well as a huge personal loss for his co-founder, David Stirling. David Stirling: the man who sold the SAS A well-connected salesman and political strategist, Stirling used every trick in the book to keep the SAS alive The British army establishment, that most conservative body of individuals, viewed the SAS as an upstart folly with no useful role to play. David Stirling, the Giant Sloth himself, understood that there were two ways to overcome such resistance. One was to achieve impressive results. The other was to play a clever political game. When the SAS was still in training, an RAF group captain told Stirling to his face that his organisation’s chances of success were practically nil. Irritated and amused, Stirling bet him £10 that his men could penetrate the British airfield at Heliopolis and place stickers on aircraft in place of bombs. The group captain accepted the bet – and lost. On the podcast | Special forces historian Gavin Mortimer casts a critical eye over David Stirling Marching through the desert, the SAS men avoided the airfield sentries and planted stickers on the aircraft before slipping away. Stirling received £10 but, more importantly, his organisation received a valuable dress rehearsal and a measure of respect. Yet this success was quickly followed by operational failure. The SAS’s first actual raid – Operation Squatter – was an unmitigated disaster. Dozens of men were parachuted into the desert in November 1941, in weather so stormy and treacherous that no targets were reached, and barely more than one third of the men who jumped escaped death or capture. In the aftermath, it was agreed that, for the time being at least, the SAS would not parachute onto targets. Instead, the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), a motorised desert unit, would act as a taxi service, carrying the men by truck to and from operations. This solved one problem, but there were still plenty of influential figures keen to see the organisation disbanded. So, without the knowledge of headquarters, Stirling quietly moved his surviving members to Jalo, a remote desert oasis recently captured by a friendly brigadier where they were able to regroup away from prying eyes. In its early days, the SAS was kept alive by Stirling’s political nous, his connections, and a measure of sheer chutzpah. Jim Smith, for example, was a mechanic who joined along with a colleague in somewhat murky circumstances. When a military policeman arrived to arrest them for desertion from their previous unit, Stirling refused to hand them over. ‘Deserters are better than volunteers!’ he said. ‘These men stay with me!’ Stirling was keener still to welcome upper-class acquaintances into the unit. This was often attributed simply to snobbery – but there was some method in his elitism. These acquaintances could be politically useful. For example, he allowed Randolph Churchill, the Prime Minister’s overweight and overbearing son, to join. According to another member, Randolph enjoyed himself so much on his first operation “that he literally yelped with pleasure and excitement, like a dog following a hot scent”. After the raid, Randolph behaved just as Stirling had hoped, writing his father a ten-page letter praising the SAS. As a result, Winston Churchill, the most powerful man in Britain, became one of the organisation’s most ardent supporters. Under Stirling’s leadership, the fortunes of the SAS improved dramatically. By the end of Operation Crusader in late December 1941, the unit had been responsible for almost a third of the enemy’s total aircraft losses. In a short time, the SAS had established itself as a formidable fighting force, a fact that was not lost on its leader. Some months later, Stirling was driving behind enemy lines, when he noticed a truck trying to accelerate away. He chased and, soon, both vehicles ground to a sandy halt. Two dishevelled men climbed out of the truck and walked over. Stirling asked who they were. “SAS,” said one of them in a heavy accent – and Stirling was delighted. He had caught enemy soldiers pretending to be members of the very unit he had created! Yet the men were not bluffing. They really were members of the SAS – The 1 SA Survey Company – whose job had long been to map the desert. They had simply been getting on with their work when, to their surprise, Stirling’s station wagon had suddenly come after them. The Special Air Service, it seemed, was not the only SAS in the desert. It was not even the first SAS in the desert. However impressive its growing reputation, here was a timely warning to its members – not least Stirling – against hubris. Paddy Mayne: the warrior poet Serving under Stirling was Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, the SAS’s greatest operational leader and most perplexing personality Once the SAS’s first disastrous raid, Operation Squatter, had foundered, the organisation was desperate for success. David Stirling’s political judgment notwithstanding, any more failures might have spelled its end. In the event, two raids were ordered. One, carried out by Stirling, failed yet again. Fortunately, another led by Paddy Mayne, a 6’3’’ rugby international from County Down in Ireland, achieved great results. Mayne led his men to Tamet airfield, where he destroyed or damaged two-dozen aircraft and won the first of his four Distinguished Service Orders. At one point, he climbed onto the wing of an Italian fighter plane and tore its instrument panel away with his bare hands. In the days that followed both men’s raids were repeated on the same targets. As before Stirling’s party failed to destroy any aircraft while, this time, Mayne’s destroyed 27. The SAS had clearly found an operational leader whose conduct and example could inspire his men to far greater things. At a professional level, David Stirling was delighted at Mayne’s success. At a personal level, though, it aggravated him. So began a rivalry that drove the SAS to increased success. Mayne went on to lead a series of successful desert raids. One sergeant spoke of feeling “immune to danger” when led by him. But it was also not unusual to see him nursing the wounded. Yet such recollections only reveal part of Mayne’s character. At the start of the Tamet raid, Mayne led his men to the door of the pilots’ mess, before opening fire; others with him joined in. At least two-dozen men were killed, an act Stirling characterised as something closer to an execution. Off the battlefield, Mayne’s exerted a power over his fellow SAS officers to such an extent that they rarely refused when summoned to drinking sessions in the early hours of the morning – which often turned violent. There was one occasion, however, when Mayne and Stirling truly came together. In a desert tent in 1942, Stirling revealed to Mayne that he was a failed artist; Mayne, in return, admitted his own frustrated ambition. He had wanted to be a writer. It dawned on Stirling that Mayne was a deeply sensitive person sitting on a well of unfulfilled creative energy, driven to all manner of behaviours by an inability to fully express himself. Mayne, Stirling realised was driven to behave in the way he did through an inability to express his buried frustrations. Little wonder that Mayne was often seen lying in the desert with a book, or that he would recite poetry in the mess. Though Paddy Mayne survived the war, he died not long after it – in a car accident in December 1955, aged 40. Mike Sadler: the expert navigator To destroy Luftwaffe airfields, the SAS first had to find them. That’s where Mike Sadler came into his own It would be hard to quantify the importance of Mike Sadler to the wartime SAS. Without Sadler to guide the warriors onto the airfields, there could have been no raids. Many of his erstwhile colleagues have described him as a gifted navigator yet it was a role that came to him by chance. On leaving school in England, Sadler had travelled to southern Africa, where he worked as a farm assistant. When war broke out he became an anti-tank gunner, then, after a chance meeting in a bar, joined the LRDG and trained as a navigator. “I was so tickled,” he says, “by the idea of being able to find where you were by looking at the stars.” Sadler used a theodolite and wireless receiver by night to mark his position, and a sand compass by day to remain on a bearing. He found his relationship with the landscape constantly evolving. “You were continually shoved off course by hills or rocks or boulders,” he says. During the first half of 1942, Sadler took part in both LRDG and SAS operations. That summer, though, Stirling got hold of some tough American vehicles known to British soldiers as ‘Willys Bantams’ – the earliest Jeeps. The SAS could now drive to and from raids – but this posed two problems. First, very few SAS members, many of whom had been raised in relative poverty during the Depression, knew how to drive. Second, the LRDG had provided not only transport but also navigational expertise. How would the SAS find its way? The first problem was solved by hastily arranging driving lessons, the second by engaging Sadler as L Detachment’s senior navigator – though he was never actually asked if he wanted to join the SAS. “All I knew,” he says, “was that David Stirling decided he wanted me – and somehow he got me.” This was how the Jeep – a relatively late addition to L Detachment’s desert compendium – became the most instantly recognisable symbol of the wartime SAS. Sadler’s defining moment as navigator – his “finest hour”, according to a colleague – probably came in July 1942. On an ambitious mission, he guided 18 heavily-armed Jeeps and their adrenaline-pumped crews across the desert to Sidi Haneish airfield. “Where’s this bloody airfield, then, Sadler?” asked Stirling, after many hours of driving. “I think it’s about a mile ahead,” answered Sadler – at which moment a brilliant array of landing lights switched on precisely where he was indicating. This was the raid that saw more than three-dozen German aircraft destroyed by 68 Vickers-K machine guns. As time went by, the psychological impact of a shapeless threat destroying aircraft and breaking lines of communication had proved profound. As Rommel’s forces fled west in late 1942 following their defeat at El Alamein, David Stirling spotted an opportunity to harry them. Not only would this assist the Allied effort, but it would advertise the SAS as a force deserving of a major role in any coming theatre of war – particularly if it could become the first element of Eighth Army to meet up with the Anglo-American force, which would be moving east after its invasion of French-held territories in Morocco and Algeria. But then disaster struck. In January 1943, Stirling was captured by the Germans; Sadler narrowly escaped the same fate, slogging through the desert on foot before reaching safety at a French Foreign Legion outpost. Sadler and two SAS colleagues were handed on to an American unit at Gafsa, becoming almost certainly the first members of Eighth Army to make contact with the Americans. This deeply symbolic encounter was witnessed by journalist AJ Liebling, who filed a piece for The New Yorker magazine. Sadler had inadvertently fulfilled Stirling’s desire to advertise the SAS, even if his boss wasn’t on hand to see it happen. Mike Sadler passed away in January 2024 at the age of 103 John Tonkin: the warrior with wanderlust From Sicily to Normandy to the heart of Germany, John Tonkin was on the frontline of SAS operations across various theatres in Europe, marking a new phase in its development By summer 1943, the SAS had destroyed more than 300 enemy aircraft in north Africa, and had been made the 1st Special Air Service Regiment. Now its war moved to Sicily. With the unit was John Tonkin, who had first arrived in the Middle East as a Royal Northumberland Fusilier. Bored with constantly running up and down sand hills to stay fit, he volunteered for the commandos before joining the SAS in late 1942. Several months later, Tonkin became an officer in the Special Raiding Squadron (SRS) commanded by Paddy Mayne, the organisation’s pre-eminent figure after the capture of David Stirling (and perhaps for some time before). The SRS was one arm of the regiment, the other being the Special Boat Squadron commanded by George Jellicoe. The SRS’s first action, on 10 July 1943, saw 287 men landing at Capo Murro di Porco on the south-east coast of Sicily with the job of knocking out the enemy’s artillery defences. With its deployment in Sicily, the SAS had to adapt. Its men were now used as shock troops, thrown at the enemy ahead of the arrival of the main invasion force. This commando role was quite unlike anything the SAS had been created to do. In truth, the organisation – viewed by many as a localised desert sabotage unit with no wider application – was fortunate to have survived the end of the north Africa campaign. Several days after the landing at Capo Murro di Porco, Tonkin and his men attacked the port of Augusta on Sicily’s east coast. Jumping ashore from their landing craft as machine-gun bullets rattled the vessel’s armoured side, they headed up a seemingly abandoned street, kicking in doors and periodically dropping down to shoot from low level. Reaching a junction, Tonkin opened fire on a man running down the connecting street – only to realise that the man was his own sergeant. Finally, the party reached a crossroads where they ran into heavy enemy fire. Suddenly the firing stopped. Tonkin remembered that: “We heard this shuffling… and this peasant woman appeared. She was very old, and she was just walking quietly… down the middle of the road… it was only after she had completely disappeared that the firing started up again.” The war had stopped so that one old lady could cross the road. This small but intensely human moment affected Tonkin deeply. At the start of October, during the SRS attack on Termoli – a town on Italy’s Adriatic coast – Tonkin was taken prisoner by members of the German 1st Parachute Division. Shortly afterwards, while being transported through the countryside in the back of a truck, he prised back the canvas canopy, jumped and bolted for freedom. With the help of a succession of sympathetic Italian civilians, he reached Allied lines. A fortnight after his capture, he rejoined his SRS colleagues in Bari. In early 1944, the SAS achieved brigade status and prepared for operations in France. The unit’s operational instructions for the upcoming invasion of Normandy indicated that members would parachute behind enemy lines to impede the movement of German forces by attacking roads, bridges and railway lines, and by calling in RAF air strikes. In an entirely new theatre, the SAS would again be performing the role for which it had been created. Tonkin was placed in charge of Operation Bulbasket, which involved dropping men near Poitiers, in the Vienne department of western France. On arrival in France, he met the local SOE agent with whom he would be working closely. Together they agreed that they would allow the SAS’s presence to become known locally, to attract the maximum information about enemy activities. Clearly, this might have negative ramifications as well as positive – but it soon paid off: a railway worker arrived with news that petrol tankers belonging to the German army were standing in local railway sidings. Tonkin immediately sent a junior officer (dressed in clichéd French costume) to check that the report was genuine. It was – and the following evening, 12 Mosquito fighter-bombers destroyed the tankers. Subsequent events, however, led to the enemy discovering the location of the Bulbasket camp – and, on the morning of 3 July 1944, it came under attack by hundreds of troops of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division. Tonkin and several other men escaped; most of the SAS men were, though, captured. Four days later, the prisoners were placed in trucks, driven to a quiet spot in the woods and murdered by their captors. John Tonkin finally returned to England on 7 August 1944, but his war was far from over. In March 1945, he crossed the Rhine as the SAS pushed into Germany in support of Allied parachute landings. Here the unit carried out a combined commando and sabotage role, driving through enemy lines before shooting at them from the rear. The following month, he was part of the SAS party that liberated the concentration camp at Belsen. He remembered arriving at a camp that seemed, from the outside, to be merely a well-maintained military installation. He had absolutely no idea of the horrors that he was about to encounter. After the war, Tonkin worked for Shell Oil, and moved to Australia in the 1950s where he became general manager of a uranium mine near Darwin. He died in 1995, having been awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his services to Aboriginal peoples. The SAS was disbanded at the end of the war – or so it seemed. However, an SAS War Crimes Investigation team under Major Eric ‘Bill’ Barkworth remained in force to investigate the murders of SAS men in France, as did a series of SAS Mobile Teams sent to Greece to examine the roles of local people in the rescue of Allied servicemen. These teams were still in existence in 1947, when the name and concept was revived with the creation of 21st SAS Regiment. SAS troops have since served in numerous operations across the globe. Any report of the SAS’s demise in 1945 was, perhaps, an exaggeration. Joshua Levine is a historian and bestselling author. His latest book, SAS: The Illustrated History of the SAS, was published by William Collins in May 2023 SAS Rogues Heroes season 2 is available on BBC iPlayer now. For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, history TV and film to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week
Upcoming in 2025: historical anniversaries, exhibitions and television
Discover the exciting historical television, movies, exhibitions, anniversaries and events coming up in 2025
From D-Day’s 80th anniversary and the 75th anniversary of the creation of NATO, to the release of the second season of hit Tudor drama Wolf Hall, history has never seemed too far from the public consciousness in 2024. The coming year looks set to be no different, with lots to enjoy for history lovers in 2025 – from new period dramas and the latest films, to exciting new exhibitions. There are also major anniversary milestones to keep in mind, too. New period dramas in 2025 New Year's Day saw the release of the second season of SAS Rogue Heroes, exploring the early years of the unit during the WW2 – read more on the real history behind the drama. Also early in the year is the return of 1923 for its second season, marked for February. A spin-off prequel of hit series Yellowstone, 1923 season 2 will return audiences to early 20th-century Montana on the newly settled border of the American Frontier. The series is superficially a series about cowboys and their changing role in an unforgiving landscape filled with enemies, but it’s deeply rooted in its post-First World War and colonialist historical context with these issues central to the drama. Tune in for Harrison Ford in a cowboy hat. Spring will see the second season of Wolf Hall airing in the US, having already been released in the UK. Meanwhile, A Thousand Blows will debut on Disney+. Created by Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight, this gritty drama follows two friends as they navigate the high-stakes and brutal world of bare-knuckle boxing in the East End of Victorian London. Toward the end of the year, marking 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth, will be Miss Austen starring Keeley Hawes. This four-part drama set in the early 1800s will explore the rift between Austen and her sister, Cassandra Austen. Also keep an eye out for King and Conqueror, an as yet undated series expected to arrive on the BBC in 2025. This production will explore the end of the Anglo-Saxon era and the Viking age, through the onset of the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the feats of William the Conqueror (expect this to temporarily fill the The Last Kingdom and Vikings shaped hole in your heart). New historical films in 2025 Moving to cinema, the year begins with the UK release of The Brutalist, a post-Second World War drama set during the second half of the 20th century. Exploring the lingering scars of the conflict, The Pianist star Adrian Brody portrays a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who rebuilds his life and career in the US as an architect. Also in January is Amazon Prime’s Nickel Boys. Set in Jim Crow-era 1960s Florida, the film follows two teenage boys sent to a reform school called the Nickel Academy during the turbulent progress of the Civil Rights movement in the latter half of the 20th century. In March, Alto Knights will feature Robert De Niro as playing both infamous mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello – at a time when tensions and rivalry between the pair escalated to boiling point. Expect assassination attempts, audacious crime and lots of Italian-American accents. Later in the year, another Downton Abbey sequel will debut, bringing the beloved period drama to the big screen once again, with much of the cast returning for this next outing. The currently untitled film is due to land in September 2025. This will then be followed in October by a Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, which tasks itself with delving into the life and legacy of a singer who became the defining pop cultural icon of his era. What exhibitions and events are on at British museums? For a trip to 19th-century Japan, visit the British Museum from 1 May 2025 onwards for the exhibition Hiroshige: artist of the open road. This journeys across Edo Japan’s landscapes through the eyes of artist Utagawa Hiroshige. Until 12 October 2025, you can also catch the Ancient India exhibition at the British Museum – a major exhibit displaying sacred pieces of art from ancient India. In September 2025, the V&A will host an exploration of Marie Antoinette’s life, exploring the sprawling stylistic influence of “the most fashionable queen in history” with a collection of impressive objects and media. In York, the National Railway Museum is holding a celebration of 200 years of modern railways – and 50 years since its own opening. You’ll find events dedicated to exploring the impact of trains and also people’s passions for them. Or you can head over to the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester between February and November to enjoy a selected collection of the works of artist JMW Turner, marking 250 years since his birth in the Georgian era. Historical anniversaries in 2025 There is a wealth of major historical milestones in 2025, from political events to scientific innovations. The coming year marks 225 years since the birth of George Hudson on 10 March 1800. Hudson, dubbed the “Railway King,” played a central role in shaping the rail infrastructure that transformed Victorian Britain’s economy and society, though his later career was marred by scandals involving fraudulent accounting, stock manipulation, and financial mismanagement. On 4 April, it will have been 50 years since the founding of Microsoft in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The software giant profoundly revolutionised personal computing and continues to shape how billions interact with technology. Eighty years ago, on 16 July, saw the first successful test of an atomic bomb. Conducted as part of the Manhattan Project, this 1945 event heralded the arrival of the nuclear age, profoundly shaping global politics, warfare and ethical debates since. In the same month, 26 July marks another important anniversary from the Second World War: 80 years since the Potsdam Declaration in 1945. This outlined the terms of surrender for Japan during the Second World War, and foreshadowed the imminent end of the global conflict. On 25 November, it will have been 110 years since Albert Einstein presented his theory of general relativity. This groundbreaking work transformed the consensus understanding of the universe, influencing everything from black hole research to GPS technology. As the year concludes, 16 December marks 250 years since the birth of Jane Austen in 1775, the beloved novelist whose sharp wit and keen observations of Georgian society have captivated readers for generations. Life in Victorian Britain | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | This six-week course covers everything you need to know about Victorian Britain, guided by historian Ruth Goodman and filmed on location at Black Country Living Museum. Explore the course now