Churchill’s Nazi Stormtroopers: Britain’s wartime leader backed ultra-secret deception unit

that broke all rules of war.

In April 1942, with the Allies fortunes at their very nadir, clandestine operations supremo
Colonel Terence Airey drew up plans for an ultra-secret deception force to hit key targets in
North Africa. Its remit was to be ‘all forms of subversive and sabotage work … in territories
occupied by the enemy or, in certain circumstances, neutral territory.’ Incredibly, it was to
be manned by those wearing ‘GERMAN or ITALIAN uniform, speaking enemy language with
native fluency, for work behind the enemy lines.’ Formed under the Special Operations
Executive – Churchill’s Ministry for Ungentlemanly Warfare – the unit would train in
isolation at Egypt’s remote Bitter Lakes region and be utterly deniable. Churchill himself
backed this stunning deception, and demanded that the ultra-secret force be given the
name ‘Commando’, partly as a cover and party due to his emotional attachment to the
‘Commando’ identity. The SOE Commando - also known by the cover name ‘the Special
Interrogation Group (SIG)’ - was armed with German weaponry, equipped with German
uniforms, transport and forged documents, and even trained by German POWs. Cover
stories were masterful. Members had suitably Aryan-looking women – WAFs – pose for
photos as their sweethearts back home in Germany, and penning love letters. The unit’s
remit was to break just about every known rule of war, to hit supposedly inviolable targets
deep behind the lines. Unsurprisingly, this was the most secret outfit ever formed within
SOE and under Churchill’s hand and their story is cloaked in mystery. Author Lewis stumbled
upon their extraordinary tale in a series of files held in the National Archives, and in
unpublished memoirs. He subsequently verified the manuscript of his book with one of the
last surviving members of North Africa elite forces operations.