Most of the operations conducted by the SBS are highly classified, and are rarely commented on by the British government or the Ministry of Defence, owing to their sensitive nature.

However, the SBS (being the principal Royal Navy contribution to UKSF) has the additional training and equipment required to lead in the maritime, amphibious and riverine environments.

Courtney paddled to the ship, climbed aboard undetected, wrote his initials on the door to the captain's cabin, and stole a deck gun cover.

[10] The unit, on the shores of Sannox, Isle of Arran, was initially named the Folboat Troop, after the type of folding canoe employed in raiding operations and then renamed No.

[11] One training exercise required SBS members to navigate folboats 140 miles (230 km) over 3 days and 3 nights from Ardrossan to Clachan, via the Isle of Kerrera, where they reconnoitred and sketched RAF Oban.

[13] The unit worked with the 1st Submarine Flotilla based at Alexandria and did beach reconnaissance of Rhodes, evacuated troops left behind on Crete, and carried out a number of small-scale raids and other operations.

Destroying three aircraft, a fuel dump and numerous buildings, the two uncaptured SBS men had to hide in the countryside for four days before they could reach the waiting submarine.

They, with the Greek Sacred Band, took part in the successful Raid on Symi in July 1944 in which the entire German garrison was either killed or captured.

The school's Chief Instructor Norman Tailyour established the Royal Marines Special Boat Sections taking on the roles proposed in Hasler's paper.

[24] In the early 1950s, NATO doctrine for the defence of Western Europe called for a rapid fall-back to the west bank of the Rhine River, a natural defensive barrier.

[28] In 1952, SBS teams were held at combat readiness in Egypt in case Gamal Abdel Nasser's revolution turned more violent than it did.

[33] In January 1975, two SBS kayak teams were inserted from HMS Cachalot to conduct an anti gun running operation in the area between Torr Head and Garron.

[33] In 1973, their name was changed to the Special Boat Squadron and in 1980 the SBS relinquished North Sea oil rig protection to Comacchio Company, Royal Marines.

As well as searching for mobile Scud missile launchers, the SBS's assigned area contained a mass of fibre-optic cable that provided Iraq with intelligence; the location of the main junction of the network was 32 miles from Baghdad.

[37] They also carried out diversionary raids along the Kuwaiti coast which diverted a number of Iraqi troops away from the main thrust of the coalition buildup, to the SBS area of operations.

On 10 November, C squadron inserted into the recently captured Bagram Airbase, which caused an immediate political quandary with the Northern Alliance leadership which claimed that the British had failed to consult them on it before the deployment, in addition to fighting with Dostum's forces, they worked alongside TF Sword in Shah-i-Kot Valley.

]), Apache attack helicopters, the Gurkha QRF and the 16-man unit, supported by a US A-10 Thunderbolt and two Harrier GR7s managed to break contact and return to the closest FOB; two of the four Taliban leaders were killed in the firefight while the other two escaped in the chaos.

Upon reaching the FOB it was discovered that Captain David Patton, SRR, and Sergeant Paul Bartlett, SBS were missing—one was helping wounded out of a vehicle when he was shot and assumed killed, and the other went missing during the firefight.

[60][58][61] On 12 May 2007, an SBS team killed the Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah after JSOC and the ISA tracked him to a compound—where his associates were meeting—near Bahram Chah, Helmand province.

Col Moschin parachuted onto a drop zone and marched overnight to surround the target compound, while the SBS were standing by in Lynx and Chinook helicopters to provide cut off groups in case the insurgents attempted to escape.

[70][71] In February 2009, members of the SBS took part in Operation Diesel, which resulted in the seizure of £50 million of heroin and the killing of at least 20 Taliban insurgents.

[72] On 29 August 2009, Sergeant Lee Houltram of the SBS was killed by an IED during a Special Forces operation to destroy a bomb factory near Gereshk in Helmand province.

SBS and Afghan troops fought a close quarters battle for eight-and-a-half hours to eventually clear the militants from the structure.

Despite being badly injured by grenade shrapnel, Mali stayed by the side of his handler and continued to find safe routes for the British and Afghan troops as they fought their way up the tower floor-by-floor, preventing the operators from suffering major casualties.

[82] M Squadron launched a second operation at full strength ("Zero Six Bravo") in a mix of land rovers and ATVs into northern Iraq from H-2 Air Base, the objective was to locate, make contact and take the surrender of the Iraqi 5th Army Corps somewhere past Tikrit and to survey and mark viable temporary landing zones for follow-on forces.

A number of Land Rovers became bogged down in a nearby wadi, so the troops mined the vehicles and abandoned them—though several did not detonate and were captured and exhibited on Iraqi television.

[87] On 27 February 2011, during the First Libyan Civil War, the BBC reported that C Squadron assisted in the evacuation of 150 oil workers in three flights by RAF C-130 Hercules from an airfield near Zella to Valletta in Malta.

[88][89] On 8 March 2012, a small SBS team attempted to rescue two hostages, Chris McManus (British) and Franco Lamolinara (Italian), who were being held in Nigeria by members of the Boko Haram terrorist organisation that was loyal to al-Qaeda.

[125][126] It lasts eight weeks and covers specialist maritime skills such as canoeing, diving, boating, underwater navigation and demolition, negotiating surf zones, and submarine infiltration.

Training is carried out in the South of England and candidates are required to complete the following tests over the four-day initial selection course: Footnotes Citations