[6] In May 1944 the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) had issued an order for the Special Air Service Brigade to carry out operations in France.

[10] On 27 July Operation Hardy I commenced - 55 men and seven Jeeps of 2nd Special Air Service under the command of Captain Grant Hibbert were parachuted near Châtillon-sur-Seine.

[7] On 19 August Operation Wallace commenced, under the command of Major Roy Farran, sixty men landed with 20 Jeeps at Rennes airfield near the Breton capital, which was by then under Allied control.

[1] Two days later Farran divided his party into three groups, and ordered them to maintain a distance of thirty minutes to increase the chances of not being discovered, as well as avoiding all German resistance.

The journey to Hibbert's position took Farran and his men four days and some 200 miles (320 km) behind German lines and headed to the northern bank of the river Loire.

A train carrying Germans came into view; Farran ordered the engine to be targeted and it was shredded by a ferocious rate of fire from the column's Vickers K guns.

Farran took command of the combined group, which consisted of a composite squadron of 60 troopers, 10 jeeps and a civilian truck, and ordered it to move to another base deeper in the forest to avoid further German scrutiny.

48 mortar bombs were dropped on the designated targets and the SAS encountered strong resistance from the German troops in the town as a huge firefight broke out.

[18] The following night after the battle the SAS received a large drop from the RAF with needed supplies, ammunition but more importantly several Jeeps by parachute, bringing their total to 18 such vehicles.

[14] On 8 September twenty men under Lieutenant Bob Walker-Brown acting on a tip off from the Marquis ambushed five German petrol bowsers en route from Langres to Dijon.

In an ambush style a motorcycle and side car and a lorry were allowed past before the lead and last vehicles were hit as the bowsers were systematically taken out and then burst into flames.

[4] In the final week the SAS set up a base in the forest around Darney but in the coming days the Germans were fewer in number and there was hardly any resistance.

[15] During the month they had been active, the SAS men had caused more than 500 German casualties along with 23 staff cars destroyed, 6 motor-cycles and 36 miscellaneous vehicles including trucks, half-tracks and troop carriers.

In a December report SHAEF noted that the raid was one of the most successful actions in which a small scale harassing force behind German lines inflicted huge damage out of proportion to their numbers, with minimal losses.

[8] Farran himself claimed the raid as a perfect vindication of Stirling's original principles of the SAS - that small units behind enemy lines harassed the Germans that bought with it a strategic gain.