1 Demolition Squadron, PPA, was a unit of British Special Forces set up in Cairo in October 1942 by Major Vladimir Peniakoff who was a Belgian Jewish officer of Russian extraction.

1 Demolition Squadron was formed specifically to attack Field Marshal Rommel's fuel supplies, in support of General Montgomery’s offensive at El Alamein,[1] at the suggestion of Lieutenant-Colonel John Hackett.

After the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and the Special Air Service (SAS), PPA was the last and smallest of the three main irregular raiding, reconnaissance, and intelligence units formed during the North African Campaign.

He was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his previous intelligence reporting and petrol dump raiding while leading the LAFC for three months behind enemy lines, and for the operation with the LRDG.

He was given the nickname Popski, from a Daily Mirror cartoon character,[4] by Captain Bill Kennedy Shaw (the LRDG's Intelligence Officer) because his signallers had problems with the name "Peniakoff."

A joint LRDG-PPA patrol discovered the gap in the mountains that let Bernard Montgomery launch an outflanking move around Erwin Rommel's defense at the Mareth Line.

In September 1943 an advance patrol of PPA sailed to Taranto on board the USS Boise[6] and headed inland, where they discovered the hitherto unknown weakness of the German 1st Parachute Division opposing 1st Airborne.

Several operations used DUKWs or small landing craft called RCLs (manned by 7 Royal Engineers who became known as "Popski’s Private Navy") with sapper John Francis Dobinson to sail up the Adriatic and get behind the German front line, escorted by the Royal Navy’s Coastal Forces.Throughout the bitter winter weather and fighting of 1944 and 1945 PPA undertook their operations ahead of regular forces, in support of British, Canadian, Indian and Polish armoured, infantry and commando units.

Popski was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in November 1944, during joint operations (such as “Porterforce”) with the 27th Lancers and Italian partisans of the 28th Garibaldi Brigade, to liberate Ravenna.

By this time PPA personnel had gained between them a DSO, a Distinguished Conduct Medal, 6 MCs, 10 MMs, and 14 Mentions in Despatches; King George VI had personally requested an account of the unit’s exploits.