SAS Rogue Heroes 'is not a history lesson – that would be unwatchable' says author

This includes 14 civilian or celebrity runs of Channel 4’s reality show SAS: Who Dares Wins; the movie Operation Mincemeat (based on another Macintyre book) and its West End musical spin-off; several TV documentaries; and Guy Ritchie’s film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, based on a book by historian Damien Lewis.

“It is extraordinary,” says Macintyre. “I actually think it’s wonderful that the SAS has all these different entertainment iterations.” But, as the regiment’s regular historian, does he have a sense of what the not-so-secret soldiers make of now being in the running for Baftas and Oliviers rather than a Victoria Cross? “I would hesitate to give a collective view from the SAS. Certainly, the Regimental Association thinks SAS Rogue Heroes is brilliant. And I think they are grateful for the way it presents the past.

“I get the impression, though this is speculative, that they are less happy with the Who Dares Wins how-butch-are-you stuff, because that’s a bit more simplistic. But look, the SAS, ever since 1980, has struggled with the tension between the celebrity of the organisation and the need for secrecy. There is a conflict between the clear public hunger for stories about the SAS and the need not to share what they do. And I think that balance has become more and more fascinating.”

The dating of this contradiction to 1980 is precise. On 5th May that year, regular UK TV schedules were suspended to show SAS soldiers swinging on ropes into the Iranian embassy in west London in attempt to free 25 hostages (one had been killed the previous day), who had been held there by gunmen for six days. The paradox of Operation Nimrod – a covert operation broadcast live on TV – is the subject of Macintyre’s latest book, The Siege, for which screen rights have been bought by the Slow Horses stable.

“What struck me researching The Siege,” the writer reflects, “was how utterly unknown the SAS was in 1980. People had never heard of it; it was an almost entirely covert unit. Before 1980, they operated in the shadows; afterwards they are the world’s most famous soldiers! And there are people in the regiment even today who feel that this did the SAS no favours at all. It becomes almost impossible to do special operations when everyone’s watching.”

As viewers of SAS Rogue Heroes know, the earlier special services took advantage of invisibility to commit murder, theft, torture, arson and other side-steps of the Geneva Convention. In season two, writer Steven Knight shows SAS leaders Paddy Mayne (Jack O’Connell) and David Stirling (Connor Swindells) doing things that would now occupy public inquiries for years. So, were ethical concerns ever an issue?

“When I was researching Rogue Heroes,” Macintyre says, “I found a letter, written by David Stirling, about certain things that Paddy Mayne had done when they were attacking airfields in Libya, notably that moment, brilliantly rendered in the first series, when Mayne walks into a mess and simply opens fire on celebrating Italian and German pilots. Stirling had real qualms about that and it weighed fairly heavily on him after the war. But there would have been no question then of launching an inquiry or anything. There was very much an attitude that there was a war on.”

The continuum from Operation Mincemeat through SAS Rogue Heroes to The Siege is the batty audacity of the plans. Even the most paranoid enemy couldn’t reasonably anticipate trick corpses in the ocean, an attempt to break into a prison or men swinging on ropes into a hostage situation. British special forces, then and now, the author believes, have not been given enough credit for the brains inside their balaclavas. “We think of them as being fast, butch, shoot-’em-up types. And that can be true. But a lot of what they do is lateral reasoning. What Winston Churchill used to call ‘corkscrew thinking’.

“The siege would have been a disaster if they hadn’t been able to adapt to a rapidly changing situation inside that building, which was not the one they expected. They are a military unit but they are also trying to out-think what’s going on on the other side. The direct link between what they were able to do in the desert in 1942 – and then fighting up through Italy, and again at the Iranian embassy – was the ability to adapt to unfolding situations. This is a psychological unit as much as anything else.”

Usually, when a single source book is used for a second series, the adapter has to invent more. Is that the case with Knight’s SAS Rogue Heroes? “After the first series,” says Macintyre, “there was still plenty of war and of the book left. But what Steven wanted to do with the Libyan campaign in series two was to expand the story emotionally. He has built up characters and invented other situations. But a lot of it is still the real historical meat. I’m not one of those people who believes that, if a cap badge is wrong, the whole thing’s a disaster. After the first series, some people said, ‘My God! There’s a woman in there!’ Well, fine by me, because you are trying to attract a modern audience.”

Fact-based dramas now routinely begin with a disclaimer about some scenes and people being imagined, but SAS Rogue Heroes has a caveat as punchy as its dialogue: “This is not a history lesson”.

“Thank God!” says Macintyre. “It would be unwatchable if it were! That disclaimer says that, if you want to tell us that someone was shorter than that and someone else didn’t have a moustache, please don’t write in!

“There are many different ways of looking at a historical story. You can be entirely faithful or you can say we are going to treat the period as a scene and create drama within it. Or you can take the Guy Ritchie approach, as in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which is a great shoot-’em-up movie but its relation to history is minimal. He takes events and creates a Guy Ritchie movie out of them. That’s great if it’s what people want. And, if viewers want to know what really happened, the books are there.”

On his shows, Macintyre takes the title “executive producer”, which, as he says, “can mean anything from actually producing the show to standing around saying the costumes look nice”. His own duties are somewhere between and he’s regularly consulted by Knight. “We usually have a meeting at the start where he maps out the story. Then I get scripts and make a few comments.”

Such as? “Gosh! At one point he had a Scotsman singing The Fields of Athenry, which is an Irish song. But that’s the only one I can remember. There haven’t been any real clashes of storytelling. I don’t think it’s good for a writer of history who allows their work to be adapted into other art forms to criticise the result. I’m in awe of screenwriters – the way Steven gets into a few words what it took me pages to say.”

It’s pretty clear watching SAS Rogue Heroes – and knowing the later life of some of those men –that they had undiagnosed PTSD. “I have not come across any example of any of those people getting any kind of treatment for anything,” says Macintyre. “Which is astonishing. One of the most touching elements of writing SAS Rogue Heroes was the letters I got from family members of people who had been in the special forces during the war, saying thank you for explaining why Dad was like he was – the drinking, the violence, the inability to settle down. These are all symptoms of PTSD. And not being allowed to talk about it – due to the Official Secrets Act – obviously made it worse.”

Although the series does hint at the psychological damage to the men, some have expressed concerns that SAS Rogue Heroes glamourises military violence. Macintyre, though, says, “I was careful in the book to avoid that. And I do think Steven has followed the same approach. These are troubled people who have to do terrible things. Without giving too much away, much of series two is about what it feels like to have to leave people dying in a wartime situation.

“Yes, there’s a rocking soundtrack and scenes of incredible excitement. But it’s never a situation where the Nazis are mown down and then everyone goes to the pub. That may be an unfair way to describe Guy Ritchie’s film, but it’s certainly not the case in SAS Rogue Heroes.”

Would he be pleased if the series encourages recruitment to the SAS? “If it encourages people to think they could walk into a mess firing a machine gun, as in the 1940s, then no.

“The 1980 siege led to a massive upsurge in recruitment, with people turning up saying, ‘Give me a balaclava and a machine gun.’ And you probably don’t want that either. But we need an army and the SAS story has been a remarkable recruiting sergeant for the British Army and its reputation round the world.”

People who watch the SAS spin-off series probably dream of the meta moment when Ben Macintyre himself goes on SAS: Who Dares Wins. Has he been asked and would he agree? “Ha! I’ve not been asked and I think no one in their right mind would want me. So, let’s cross that hill – mountain? ditch? – when we come to it. I very much doubt that we will. But it would bring the wheel full circle. What a great thought.”

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SAS Rogue Heroes season 2 will air at 9pm on New Year's Day on BBC One, while the full season will be available from 6am on BBC iPlayer. Season 1 is available on BBC iPlayer now.

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