Damien Lewis - The Nazi Hunters: The Ultra-Secret SAS Unit and the Hunt for Hitler’s War Criminals

Damien Lewis

For Moussey.
For those who never returned.

SAS Operation Loyton - Mission Area

SAS Nazi Hunters - Immediate Area of Operations

There are sadly few, if any, survivors of the Second World War Special Forces operations depicted in these pages, or from the French Resistance (the Maquis), or of the Nazi hunters who operated immediately after the war. Throughout the period of the research for and the writing of this book I have endeavoured to contact as many of these individuals as possible, in addition to the surviving family members of those who have passed away. If there are further witnesses to the stories told here who are inclined to come forward, please do get in touch with me, as I may be able to include further recollections on the operations portrayed in this book in future editions.

The time spent by Allied servicemen and women as Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents, Special Forces operators, and working with the Resistance was often deeply traumatic, and many chose to take their stories to their gravesespecially those who ended up captives of the enemy. Memories tend to differ, and apparently none more so than those concerning operations behind enemy lines. The few written accounts that do exist of such missions also tend to diverge in their detail and timescale, and locations and chronologies are often contradictory. That being said, I have done my best to provide a comprehensible sense of time and place in the story as written.

Where various accounts of a mission appear to be particularly confused, the methodology I have used to reconstruct where, when and how events took place is the most likely scenario. If two or more testimonies or sources point to a particular time or place or sequence of events, I have opted to use that account as most likely. Where necessary I have recreated small sections of dialogue to aid the storys flow.

The above notwithstanding, any mistakes herein are entirely of my own making, and I would be happy to correct them in future editions. Likewise, while I have endeavoured to locate the copyright holders of the photos, sketches and other images used in this book, this has not always been straightforward or easy. Again, I would be happy to correct any errors or omissions in future editions.

The suggestion for this book came from out of the blue.

I happened to meet up with a Special Air Service (SAS) soldier who had risen to some degree of rank and influence at the Regiment, as it is known. That soldierIll call him Steve; he asked for his real name not to be used, as is the wont of SAS operatorsand I had become friends over the writing of several books.

I had just published Churchills Secret Warriors , the story of the wild Danish Viking warrior Anders Lassenthe only member of the British SAS ever to win the Victoria Crossand his band of Special Forces desperadoes, those who had taken Churchills 1940 edict to set Europe aflame and made it a reality, spreading chaos and terror behind the German lines and breaking just about every rule of war.

I gave Steve a copy of Churchills Secret Warriors, and mentioned that I was hopeful that a film might be made based upon the book.

Steve glanced around the restaurantwed met at BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, for it seemed like a fitting venue for our breakfast chatand, typically, he cracked a joke.

So, do you get to mix with the rich and famous? Do you get to meetwhos that woman who plays Lara Croft, in Tomb Raider ?yeah, Angelina Jolie?

Steve remarked that Churchills Secret Warriors should make a fantastic basis for a film. Only two veterans of the Regiment are honoured by having their statues at the SASs Hereford base. One is David Stirling, the founder of the SAS. The other is Anders Lassen. Steve reckoned a film telling of Lassen and his band of brothers exploits was long overdue. The story deserved as wide an exposure as possible.

For a moment he studied the cover of Churchills Secret Warriors, turning it over in his massive, gnarled hands. At six-foot-three and wide as a barn door, he wasnt your average BAFTA visitor, and I could see him getting the odd, surreptitious look from those enjoying their eggs Benedict and espresso.

He glanced at melevel gaze, face all serious for a second. You know, theres another SAS tale from the Second World War that needs to be told. Never has been. Theres a danger it never will be.

Go on, I prompted. Im listening.

You ever heard of Op Loyton? Most havent. But to those of us who have its known as the SASs Arnhem. In late 44 an SAS force parachuted into the Vosges Mountains to arm and raise the French Resistance and spread havoc behind enemy lines. Unfortunately, they landed amongst an entire German Panzer division. Bad timing, bad intelligence. Ran out of food, ammo, explosives, weaponry, not to mention anywhere to run. Hence: the SASs Arnhem.

Eventually, they found sanctuary of sorts in a French village called Moussey. When the Germans realized they couldnt kill or capture all the SAS, they rounded up the Moussey villagers and carted them off to the concentration camps. But you know the most amazing thing? Not a villager talked. No Moussey villager ever revealed the location of the SAS base or gave them away.

For weeks the German military combed the surrounding forests and mountains, and over time they captured dozens of our guys. Handed them over to the Gestapo and SS, at which point they disappeared in the Nacht und Nebel the night and the fog. And thats when the story really starts to get interesting

Steve went on to explain how at the end of the war over thirty Operation Loyton men were listed as missing in action. The then commander of 2 SAS, Colonel Brian Franks, refused to let matters rest there. He promised the families that he would find out what had happened to the missing: he also felt the Regiment owed it to the villagers of Mousseyfrom where so many had been taken, never to returnto do likewise.

Moussey sits within a densely forested, high-walled valley, one which became known as the vale of tears, and with good reason. Across its length, approaching one thousand villagers had been carted off by the Gestapo to suffer what was at the time an unknown fate. As far as Colonel Franks was concerned, the SAS owed it to all the missing to trace their whereabouts, to track down their oppressors and to see justice done.

The trouble was, the SAS was about to be disbanded. After the war Winston Churchill had been voted out of power, the minds of a war-weary British public turning towards peace, and the days of what had often been accused of being a private army of maverick rule-breakers looked numbered. By October 1945 the SAS Regiment had lost the battle for survival. It was formally disbanded, or so the official version of history says.