Roy Farran: Rogue Hero
Bill and David Stirling, Jock Lewes and Paddy Mayne were all remarkable SAS officers, but Gavin Mortimer insists there was one more, Roy Farran, who had an extraordinary career.
Roy Farran was one of the outstanding British soldiers of the Second World War. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order and three Military Crosses while serving with the Royal Armoured Corps and the Special Air Service but he never rose above the rank of major unlike that other great SAS soldier, Paddy Mayne, who finished the war a Lt.Colonel with four DSOs. Farran and Mayne had much in common. Irish blood for a start, though the Catholic Farran was born and raised in India to a military father. They were brave and instinctive guerrilla fighters, able to size up a situation in seconds, quicker than the enemy, and react with swift and savage ferocity. The pair could be truculent and volatile, character flaws that were exacerbated by the stress of combat and became more acute after the war.
A serious back injury curtailed Mayne’s military career – and his rugby one – and he returned to civilian life after the war. Farran remained in the army, rejoining his parent regiment, the 3rd Hussars, before an appointment to Sandhurst as an instructor. It was a soulless role for a man of action. Restless, dissatisfied and probably suffering from combat stress, Farran volunteered for the Palestine Police Force. He was tasked with tracking down members of the Jewish paramilitary groups that were waging a war of insurgency against the British. In May 1947 16-year-old Alexander Rubowitz vanished while putting up propaganda posters for a paramilitary group. His body was never recovered but Farran was arrested and charged with the youngster’s murder (The death of Rubowitz is covered in Major Farran’s Hat: Murder, Scandal, and Britain’s Secret War Against Jewish Terrorism, 1945-1948, by David Cesarani). He was acquitted in a court-martial and returned to Britain, seeking refuge with the one man he knew he could trust: Bill Stirling, his former commanding officer in 2SAS.
