As Purbeck commemorates the 80th anniversary of VE Day, a Dorset author is set to share his unique stories with a Swanage audience of how the SAS helped to turn the tide of World War Two.
War reporter turned author Damien Lewis, who lives near Dorchester, has worked closely with war veterans and their families, being given access to previously unseen wartime diaries, letters, mission reports, and interrogation transcripts.
Dorset author Damien Lewis will talk about his latest book – SAS Great Escapes Four – at The Mowlem in Swanage
Terrifying and true feats of survival
The fourth in a series of books about SAS Great Escapes is being published on Thursday 22nd May 2025, and one of Damien’s first stops to publicise it will be at The Mowlem in Swanage as part of its authors’ club series.
On Tuesday 3rd June 2025 in the main theatre, he will discuss his latest book, SAS Great Escapes Four, covering five incredible true stories, from escaping Italian Prisoner of War camps to perilous journeys across occupied Europe aided by Resistance networks.
His books include SAS Ghost Patrol, SAS Band of Brothers and SAS Forged in Hell, and one – The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – has just been released as a Guy Ritchie movie.
Tales of terrifying, astounding – and true – feats of survival from the band of elite soldiers have become hugely popular, and as more of his books come out, more relatives of World War Two SAS members have come forward to share their own stories.
Guy Ritchie’s film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, based on Damien Lewis’s book, has renewed interest in the SAS
“People need to be uplifted”
Speaking to Swanage.News, Damien Lewis said:
“It’s really great to have these tales of the triumph of the human spirit coming at a time when the world is a troubled place and when we still have war in Europe – we need to read about these stories of overcoming impossible odds.
“People need to be uplifted, they need to believe that the impossible can happen. I was a war reporter for more than 20 years, in Syria, the Balkans, Sudan, across Asia and South America as well and it was actually during my reporting years that I first came across special forces veterans.
“They often act as security for media teams and sometimes they train as cameramen because the skill sets are almost transferable.
“I was a cameraman shooting a lot of my own material, so it was from one of those guys that I first heard about a special forces operation – a relatively modern one, the hostage rescue mission that took place in Sierra Leone in 2000.”
The experiences of Damien Lewis as a war reporter have given him a unique insight
“It wasn’t gentlemanly warfare”
Damien added:
“With his help, I wrote the book Operation Certain Death, which was the nickname the guys gave to the mission, and the book became a Sunday Times bestseller.
“I then wrote a couple more modern-day true elite forces stories but very quickly I was drawn back to World War Two, because that’s where it all began. It’s really just bringing to life the origin story of how it all started.
“That’s where the SAS alchemy was first cooked up and that’s where the magic, and this new way of soldiering, was perfected.”
“We pioneered this very innovative, irregular, maverick, daring form of warfare, which was actually deeply unpopular with most in British high command and many politicians at the start.
“It was just seen as being not cricket, it wasn’t how British operatives were supposed to behave and it wasn’t gentlemanly warfare.”
SAS Captain Lewis ‘Archie’ Gibson led a patrol of desert warfare veterans into Yugoslavia to spread havoc behind enemy lines
Forged bonds of trust with SAS veterans
Damien himself has been held prisoner by rebels in more than one country and has escaped from and been hunted by the military of an extremist regime behind enemy lines over many weeks.
He believes that his experiences in the theatre of war has forged bonds of trust with SAS veterans and their families, such as with Paul Gibson, the son of SAS Captain Lewis ‘Archie’ Gibson, who has provided letters, war diaries and other wartime memorabilia from his father’s secretive past.
Archie Gibson’s story is one of those in Damien’s latest book and reveals how Gibson’s quick thinking enabled him to save the life of SAS founder David Stirling in the face of an enemy ambush while serving as his driver.
Stirling put Gibson forward for a high valour medal for his actions and he was drafted into the Long Range Desert Group and then, in the summer of 1944, he led a patrol of veterans into war-torn Yugoslavia, to link up with Marshal Tito’s partisans and to spread havoc behind enemy lines.
Archie Gibson (standing, centre) and his men were hunted remorselessly as they became a thorn in the Nazis’ side
A desperate escape and evasion
His story of operations with the Yugoslav guerrillas, and of intensive sabotage missions and battles with the enemy, offer a rare glimpse into a little known theatre of the war.
Gibson fell in love with his beautiful Yugoslav translator, Zara, but he and his men were forced to execute a desperate escape and evasion, as they were hunted remorselessly by the enemy.
Sailing back to Allied lines in Italy, Gibson was forced to leave Zara behind, vowing to return to fight at her side, but was blocked from doing so when Marshal Tito decided his future lay in an alliance with Russia, and not with the Western powers.
In July 1943, Operation Chestnut saw an SAS patrol parachuting into Sicily. The drop went disastrously wrong, leading to one of the most epic escape and evasions of the war
“Amazing testaments locked away”
Damien Lewis said:
“One of the greatest things that with this book and others that I’ve written is that I have families reach out to me with the unpublished accounts that their fathers or grandfathers have written.
“They are absolutely amazing testaments which were written at some stage, usually soon after the war, and then locked away in a cupboard for decades. Having access to that information is a really fantastic way of bringing these stories to life.
“I have experience which I can draw on and I think that’s really important. It’s great to write about what you know and what you intimately associate with because you’ve been there. I can bring that to the pages and that’s what I try to do.
“When I’m speaking to veterans we speak the same language because we’ve got the same reference points, so I hope that veracity and authenticity cries out of these pages.”
Damien Lewis, pictured here in his Dorset office, will be at The Mowlem in June to talk about his latest SAS book
“Chances of death are high”
Damien added:
“My latest book is another series of blow-by-blow accounts of what these brave men did during the war.
“As part of the nature of special forces operations, they are deploying in very small bands of individuals. Four men is often the norm, deep behind enemy lines, and obviously the chances of death and injury are high and so too are the chances of capture.
“Because of the ethos of the SAS, the onus upon them to escape is all consuming, because they have to get back to their brothers in arms and rejoin the fight.
“So, these kinds of operations make the most extraordinary escape stories, it comes with the territory. I look forward to sharing some of them with the audience in Swanage.”
Further information
- Book tickets to the talk on The Mowlem’s website
- Discover what projects are next for Damien Lewis online
