The SAS mission to bring home their fallen comrade

THE injured soldier cried in pain and collapsed in the compound of the British Army's Middle East HQ in Cairo.

Second Lieutenant Archibald David Stirling had perilously scaled an internal fence using his crutches as a ladder.

But sentries had been alerted and were hunting him down with rifles raised.

With seconds to spare he forced his way into the office of General Ritchie and delivered a daring proposal.

Daring ... David Stirling

Imperial War Museum

Stirling, the son of a Scottish laird, had hatched a plan with pal Jock Lewes to form a revolutionary new force of raiders who would operate deep behind enemy lines to destroy aircraft, gain intelligence and attack supply lines.

Instead of sending Stirling to prison for breaking in to the HQ, Army bosses liked the idea.

He and Lewes created their gang of "misfits, rogues and rule-breakers" exactly 70 years ago this week. They took as their motto "Who Dares Wins" and became known as the Special Air Service, or SAS.

The regiment has never been busier than it is today in Afghanistan.

New figures gathered by The Sun show the recent heroics played out against the Taliban behind enemy lines in Helmand.

In just six days between November 15 and 21 last year, 270 special forces operations were launched, during which 19 Taliban leaders and 252 fighters were "taken from the battlefield" in kill-or-capture raids.

And in the 90 days before November 18, special forces conducted 1,488 operations with 387 insurgent leaders killed or captured as a result.

The numbers cover all special forces operations from all the host nations but sources said SAS troops bagged the lion's share during the winter push.

However, the regiment's most secretive mission is yet to come.

The family of Lieut Jock Lewes - dubbed "The Godfather Of The SAS" - has revealed a cloak-and-dagger operation to recover the hero's remains from the Libyan desert where the regiment first worked.

Lewes trained the first SAS squad, who he dubbed "My little band of cut-throats".

But shortly after the regiment's first successful operation in 1941 he was shot down by a Nazi warplane in the Libyan desert and buried in an unmarked grave.

Now, for the first time - and 70 years after he died - The Sun can reveal how SAS heroes have helped to locate their founder's final resting place near Benghazi.

Search ... Jock Lewes, killed by a Messerschmitt in Libya in 1941

Pen and Sword Books

Now they aim to bring Lewes back to Britain and have him lie alongside his fallen special forces pals for all eternity.

His nephew John Lewes said: "Stirling said himself in a 1942 letter that 'Jock could far more genuinely claim to be the founder of the SAS than I.'

"Together they conceived one of the most successful fighting units in history.

"At the time of the North African campaign in the Second World War there had been a lot of talk in the British Army on how to solve the problem of large commando raids on the enemy - which were largely unsuccessful as the sheer numbers meant the enemy was always alerted.

"Stirling and Jock came up with the idea of a small unit of hand-picked men to conduct highly dangerous parachute experiments in Libya.

"They wanted these men to have complete freedom to operate outside normal Army rules - and expose themselves to the most daring exploits in the name of British interests.

"He wanted this small band to feel they could do anything to defeat the Nazis.

"The idea was to trick the Germans and Italians into thinking they were a much larger paratrooper regiment."

The first mission of the newly trained SAS - originally called 'L' Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade - was a disaster. A third of the unit, 22 men, were killed or captured. But its second mission was a resounding success. The unit attacked three airfields in Libya, destroying 60 aircraft without loss of a single British life.

John, a 50-year-old teacher from Bedford, said: "Jock had devised a special sticky lightweight bomb the size of a tennis ball, which could be attached to the side of vehicles and planes.

"Using these, the small SAS unit could blow up aircraft easily and quickly - which they did with great speed in this raid.

"The Axis didn't know what had hit them."

But in December 1941 Lewes was returning from a raid on German airfields when the truck he was travelling in was attacked by a lone German Messerschmitt.

Lewes was wounded in the thigh and bled to death within minutes. He was buried on the site where the attack happened but until now its location was unknown.

John said yesterday: "Stirling was devastated by Jock's death and he considered the inability to bury his friend with full honours to be a stain on the regiment.

"As a member of his family, I'd also always hoped to recover his remains. In the last two years we were contacted by Gil Boyd, an ex-2 Para soldier and CID officer who set up an organisation called Gravewatch.

Unmarked grave ... location of Jock Lewes' death in Libya

"This project locates the final resting places of war heroes and aims to bring their remains back to Britain to bury them with full honours. Amazingly Gil is convinced they have managed to locate the site of Jock's death.

"Aerial photographs have shown that the vehicle parts lying deep in the Libyan desert are our Second World War trucks.

"We strongly believe this is the site where Jock's vehicle was struck by the German aircraft - and that his body lies there too. The site is in Nofilia, west of Benghazi.

"Gil was just arranging permission from the British High Commission and his contacts in Tunisia to send a team to collect my uncle when the Libyan conflict kicked off.

"But as soon as Gaddafi goes, we'll go and bring him home to sit alongside the SAS hall of greats."

Decades of daring

1941 SAS is founded by David Stirling and first called 'L' Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade.

1944 SAS was at the heart of the action during the Normandy Landings in June and served with great distinction in Belgium, Holland and Germany until end of Second World War.

1945 Despite their success, after the war the future of the SAS looked uncertain. Spending cuts reduced them to a single territorial unit but the growing Communist menace offered the regiment a lifeline, convincing politicians there was still a need for a covert, elite unit.

1950s SAS soldiers fought Communist insurgents in the jungles of Malaysia and Borneo and the deserts of Oman. It was during the latter conflict, from 1968 to 1976, that the SAS fought one of its most legendary battles. On July 19, 1972, in the coastal town of Mirbat, nine SAS troopers were surrounded by hundreds of heavily armed guerrillas but in six hours of fighting they killed at least 50, making them withdraw.

Rescued! ... Iranian siege

70s-80sThe SAS served in Northern Ireland throughout these years. during which their focus moved to counter-terrorism.

1980-82 In Iranian Embassy Siege in April 1980, millions watched on TV as 30 troops stormed the London embassy building, killing five of six terrorists.

Two years later, when the SAS helped to liberate the Falklands, unit member Captain John Hamilton led a small team through the icy wastes of South Georgia, 900 miles east of the Falklands, and forced the 100-strong Argentine garrison to surrender. He was later killed in action and posthumously awarded the Military Cross - the UK's second highest bravery award.

1991-2000 The First Gulf War in 1991 and the rescue of Brit hostages in Sierra Leone in 2000 kept the SAS in the news.

Afghanistan has seen some of the unit's fiercest fighting since the Second World War.

The secrecy over the unit was lifted in the 1990s when ex-members Andy McNab and Chris Ryan wrote books on their exploits.

Now, SAS has come full circle, with reports that they are operating in Libya, scene of their first raids in

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By ANDY MCNAB

SAS hero and Sun security adviser

"WHO Dares Wins" is a way of life for the regiment. It is living and breathing this motto that makes the SAS the best at what they do.

It is not only the harsh training of SAS troopers that results in the best. It is also how these troopers operate in battle that sets them apart from other special forces.

The SAS know that the most effective weapon in war isn't weapons - but information on what the enemy is planning.

In Afghanistan today, one of the most important jobs the SAS do is risk life and limb gathering intelligence because it is this which will defeat the Taliban and find the factories making IEDs that kill our troops.

Once the SAS have intelligence, they can destroy the enemy where it hurts most, faster and more efficiently than anyone else. That's where "Who Dares Wins" really matters.

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Special Forces around the world

AMERICA - US Delta Force And US Navy SEALs: Delta Force was formed in 1977. Famous for the battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 when their Black Hawk helicopter was shot down. The SEALs, formed in 1980, killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

FRANCE - GIGN: Formed in 1973, it has taken part in more than 1,000 operations and liberated more than 500 hostages.

RUSSIA - SPETSNAZ: Set up in 1949. Led operation to end the Moscow theatre siege in October 2002 when Chechen rebels seized hundreds of hostages.

AUSTRALIA - SASR: Created in 1964. In the Vietnam War killed as many as 598 of the enemy but lost only two men.

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