Bleeding out under sniper fire & escaping Hitler’s camps… the real SAS rogue heroes who beat incredible odds to survive
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WHILE German tanks from the 16th Panzer Division massed around him, SAS Captain Bill “Skin” Fraser appeared the epitome of calm. Artillery shells were crashing into the recently captured Italian port of Termoli as the squad’s second in command played Lili Marlene over and over on a gramophone.
![[Connor Swindells in SAS Rogue Heros as Lieutenant Colonel David Stirling]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/17-09-2024-1st-looks-949456338.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
The tune was a favourite marching song of his German adversaries in North Africa which the SAS had adopted as their own. It was 1943 and the British troops’ defensive lines were fraying badly as the enemy were closing in for a counter-attack — but like his boss Paddy Mayne, Fraser never looked calmer than when danger came knocking.
![[The real life Lieutenant-Colonel David Stirling]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/b0ba22fb-3904-4ff1-8f8e-2c8acefcb957.jpg?strip=all&w=150)
The SAS had already proved its worth, spearheading the invasion of Italy 18 months after their exploits in North Africa. Renamed the Special Raiding Squadron, the elite team had captured three coastal gun batteries in Sicily that had threatened the invasion fleet.
![[Captain (later Major) Bill ‘Skin’ Fraser]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/www-specialforcesroh-com-index-php-959929068.jpg?strip=all&w=621)
Now they were in the vanguard once more. Historian Damien Lewis, whose book SAS Forged In Hell tells the exploits of the SAS in the Italian campaign, said: “Mayne new his men had to be better, fitter and more disciplined than ever before.”. Fraser was just one of the men who inspired the gripping BBC war drama SAS Rogue Heroes.
![[Stuart Campbell as boyish-looking Fraser in second TV series]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/01-01-2025-948810052.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Here. we recall more of the regiment’s real-life heroes. (played by Connor Swindells). THE son of a Scottish laird, Stirling was just 25, and recovering in hospital after an unofficial parachute jump went wrong, when he came up with the idea of the SAS in the spring of 1941.
![[The real Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Stirling]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/8563a258-df4f-49d6-b19a-363f216d22c6.jpg?strip=all&w=154)
