Shorts Win Wars

I bought Rory Stewart's book, 'The Places in Between' a few weeks ago, which recounts his walk across Afghanistan just after the Taliban were thrown out. I heartily recommend it.

Spurred on by that read, I wanted to reread Fitzroy MacLean's Eastern Approaches, which recounted a similar but mar more extensive walk in the USSR before WWII. I couldn't find it in my library and so settled for The Phantom Major, a biography of Col. David Sterling, who founded the SAS during the North African Campaign in WWII. However, bugger me, Fitzroy MacLean popped up in The Phantom Major as one of the SAS operatives under Sterling, which I'd forgotten, the SAS being phenomenally successful in blowing up German and Italian planes on Axis airfields, behind enemy lines.

Another book I want to reread is Paddy Mayne, who was also central to the SAS' desert campaign. That is when I find it in my library. I know it's there, but my catalogue system is woefully inadequate.

The BBC drama, SAS Rogue Heroes, has a codicil at the opening saying the more unbelievable bits are the truest bits and, having read the book on David Sterling, I can attest to that.

One thing that struck me in my ancillary research is that while Monty's 8th Army are always shown in shorts, you're hard pressed to find any images of Rommel's Afrika Korps in shorts.

It can thus be determined that shorts are the route to final success, as evidenced by posties.