Listen to the episode here.

Listen to this week’s episode as Angie tells a story about a man Theresa’s already learned about. She shares the story of Anders Lassen, the incredible Danish man who joined Colin Gubbins’ Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and made the SOE what it was known for.

This episode pairs well with:
Paddy Mayne
Colin Gubbins
Odette Samson
The SAS Train Raid You Never Heard of…

Transcript

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast. The podcast where two absolute compulsive nutjobs are going to mainline history stories like it’s our full-time role, even though we have full-time roles. 

And then we’re going to join forces once a week and tell each other the story we’ve only recently looked at and learned compulsively about. I’m host one. I’m Teresa. 

That is host two. Hi, I’m Angie. Yep. And today it is a very special day. Angie has told me she has got a single and I get to sit back on my keyster and do absolutely bupkiss. So, in the words of Randy Travis, oh, what a day to be me. 

Angie: I’ve got to go. I never thought in my lifetime I was going to hear, in the words of Randy Travis, come out of Teresa’s mouth. That was not on my bingo card. So I think I just won and need to go buy a lottery ticket. Bye, guys. 

Theresa: To be fair, there’s really only like one Randy Travis song I know and it’s that one. Come for you. 

Angie: I can’t say off the top of my head I can think of the name of one. So, we’re doing all right. 

Theresa: I mean, success? Question marks? Unless you’re Randy Travis and 

Angie: or his big fan. Or a huge fan of Randy Travis or really sorry, I’m a big fan of Tim McGraw and Garth Brooks. So if you need to know that I like country music, it’s Tim McGraw and Garth Brooks. All right. 

Theresa: Well, I mean, look, you’ve got today. 

Angie: I’ve got, I’ve got a day. My story is definitely a palate cleanser. 

Theresa: Oh, so it’s one nonstop palate cleanser. So we’re going to head into the first week of March. 

Angie: Chaotic. We’re going to go with Chaotic. I am just going to get into it and tell you that I’m going to tell you the story of Major Andrews Lassen. Are you ready? Is he a Dane? 

Theresa: I know this story. I have, I have almost told you this story. 

Angie: I panicked and was like, I have to tell her this story first. 

Speaker 3: Damn it. All right. 

Theresa: Well, I am prepared for this because this man is, you remember how I said that there are two books called like very similarly named the Ministry of Ungenlally Warfare and one of the church Hills Ministry of Ungenlally Warfare? He’s one of them. Yes. 

Angie: One of my sources is the Ministry of Ungenlally Warfare. 

Theresa: I am so excited about this carry on. 

Angie: Okay. So my first source is an article called the Terrible Viking. It is on combatarchives.com by Matthew Camarelli from April 28th of 2024. How the Terrible Viking became a British war hero and a Victoria Cross recipient. Another one from the Coffey or Die website by Matt Freitas in 2021. I love, I love the title for this particular article from War History Online by Jeff Edwards of in January of 19th is called Anders Lassen, the drunken insubordinate Dane who brawled his way to a Victoria Cross. And then if, have you read the Ministry of Ungenlally Warfare? Literally my favorite book of the year. I could not, could not stop laughing. 

Okay. And I have read a ton of Dane and Louis over the last year, but this one, other than the Patty Maines, this one has been my favorite. There is also a website called Lord Ashcroft and he’s got an article about Anders Lassen and then there’s a traces of war that talks about him as well. That said, our guy is born September 22nd, 1920. 

I’m hoping I’m not going to butcher this at Hovings Garden State near Mern, Zealand of in Denmark. His parents are Emil Victor Stowell Lassen and Suzanne Marie Singh Lassen. He is the oldest of three siblings and thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed his childhood home adventures. 

This is like a wealthy aristocratic family with super strong military ties like his great grandfather and uncles were killed fighting the Prussians in the Second Schliswig War, which I had not heard of. So I’m going to have to look that up. 

Theresa: So I’m going to interrupt you. Schliswig sounds like a mispronunciation you would have after downing an entire bottle of peach schnapps. 

Angie: Let me tell you how it’s spelled because I’m almost positive I said it right. S-C-H-L-E-S-W-I-G. And honestly, maybe it is because somebody downed a whole bottle of schnapps and said Schliswig. 

Yeah, that’s where we are. It’s very clear from the onset that he is never going to be interested in running the estate like his forefathers. He is much better at hunting and camping. He’s a skilled archer and marksman. 

And that’s going to come back later. According to Combat Archives, quote, in 1931, he was sent to the Herlitz-Slam School, which is a private boarding school founded in 1565 for sons of noble and other honest men, where it soon became obvious that Anders was no intellectual, although he was popular and respected. His grades left a lot to be desired, which honestly, God, I swear is the commonality between every single commando I’ve given you. 

Theresa: Honestly, yeah. Like you say that I’m also thinking Leo Bing, the founder of the Han Dynasty, had a very similar descriptor of his childhood. 

Angie: Not great with grades, but I am here for vibes. So long story short, our guy struggles with authority throughout youth and he leaves school in 38 with the lowest exam rates of his entire year, which is also a commonality amongst my commandoes. 

And I think that’s hilarious. So he’s like 18, 19, he’s really good at drunk and brawling and not fit for regular service. So he joins the Danish merchant navy and he becomes a sailor. Then in 1940, Germany invades Denmark and it immediately drives this like natural hatred for the Nazis. Not the Germans, but the Nazis. He’s got a real beef, but he loves your average German guy. Like he’s got cousins from Germany. So there’s a real separation for him. He very, very much understands. I mean, look, nuance is key in most of these stories. Right. 

And also I’m glad you said that because his story is so big that if I say anything that even remotely sounds interesting to you, just go find the books because I’m sure I’m glossing over a ton just to fit it into this timeframe. Right. Yeah. 

Theresa: I’m given the fact that I’ve gotten at least one of them, like one of your sources I’ve already read. I agree. 10 out of 10. 

Angie: His such a huge story. So that said, from here on out, just assume that I love this whole story. Like everything this man does is gold. So the Nazis invade Denmark, right? But him and his ship that he’s serving in the merchant navy on, they are like really far out to see. His ship gets the call to head for any German or Italian or other neutral port, along with all the other Danish vessels that vessels that are currently out. 

But Lassen and Co have other ideas. War History Online has the best description of what happens next. They say, quote, by means of aggressive negotiation, they force the captain to point the Eleonora mark, that’s their boat. 

It’s a tanker, in the direction of the British port of Bahrain. So I’m just imagining this as a mutiny. Yeah. That’s a big OCEATION. Yeah. Right. 

Okay. So by October of 1940, he’s made his way to Britain. He starts drinking and brawling again, because that’s like his, that’s what I do. That’s his hobby. 

That’s what he does for fun. It’s here that he has this rather fortuitous encounter meeting, where you, where he meets a British FWO operative. I assume that his major Gustav or Gus March Phillips. I believe you’re right. 

There is no one source that directly says this was the meeting, but I think it makes the most sense. And Phillips is like a hot damn, you can throw a punch and survive in really harsh conditions. And also you can sail like you’re really good at it. 

You want to join my super secret boy band and go raiding with us. I’m pretty sure that’s how the conversation went. Like I wasn’t there, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he asked. 

Theresa: Yeah. Let me introduce you to a man named Colin Guppins, who absolutely badass, and then we’re going to get you a uniform. Right. 

Angie: So Lassen’s like sick. Let’s go do some unscrupulous things that may or may not be considered illegal. Love this for him. So he has sent to both Dorset and Scotland to receive training. 

It’s during this training that he kills a deer with only his stealth and knife, and it feeds them in for like a week. And they’re all like in awe. Right. Oh my God. 

He’s, he’s so huge, but so quiet. And it’s also during this training that while sneaking around the training facility grounds with his bow, he’s arrested multiple times for spying for the Germans. I think that’s hilarious. I just get the feeling that every time he’s returned to base, the CO just laughs. Like what are you going to do with that one’s mine? I’ll take it. 

Speaker 3: Okay. Like listen, dude, eventually you’re going to get arrested enough that you’re going to be sighted, sight seen. They know who you are. You would hope so. 

Angie: Now the only problem that he’s got going for him at this point is his attitude in a temperament. It’s not going to make a great spy for the SOE. But that’s like super cool with March Phillips because he doesn’t need him to have a good temper or love authority. In fact, for both M, aka Colin Govins and March Phillips, that’s exactly what they need. Like we’re going to talk about this later, but the SAS and the SPS, which is a special boat service, it’s the water version of the SAS, they need these self starters and men that can leave from the front and change orders on the fly. Just like the SAS, the SPS is going to be conducting these butchering bolt raids, absolute agents of chaos, like right off the bat. But right now it’s not called the SPS, it’s just the Small Scale Rating Force or SSRF, but better recognized as commando number 62. I mentioned number 62 commando from the train theft episode with major carry-on us. 

Theresa: For context. I was going to say March Phillips is talked about extensively in Odette, Samson’s. 

Angie: Yeah. Patty Main, just for context, because I feel like just bringing it all around, is part of Scottish Commando 11. Now Lassen serves in both the SPS and the SAS because his unit is eventually just absorbed as a whole in 44 as part of the SAS. 

For all you SAS nerds out there, I count myself among you. I think that’s just important context. They never got to meet and I’m devastated that Patty Main and Andrew Lassen never met. 

Because I seriously feel like it was either they were born to be best friends or they would have been enemies and the world is just too small a place for both of them to be in the same place at the same time and that’s why they never met. 

Theresa: I’m with you. This makes sense to me. That’s my theory. Okay. 

Angie: So March Phillips is tasked with the formation of this special unit based in Pool Harbor that’s going to conduct these small scale raids across the Channel Islands. So he gets this bricks and trawler and he names it the maid honor and then he converts it for his special clan that clandestine ops. Right? 

Okay. The maid honor is only big enough for like 11 guys. So March Phillips has to be like super selective in the men that he chooses. So he’s got second command, Jeffrey Applyard, who in the movie, the Ministry of International Menly Warfare, they have to go save from a Nazi camp. Beth is not where they found him in the book. I was like, wait, what? There’s a movie? Yeah. 

I did not know this. Yeah, the movie’s hilarious, but it is absolutely not the book. Like it is very Hollywood. That said, Alan Richardson plays Anders Lassen and that is forever in my mind who is Anders Lassen. 

Theresa: I need to look up who Alan Richardson is because you say that I think Alan Rickman. 

Angie: No, not Alan Rickman, but that’s a fun vibe. 

Theresa: Oh, wait, wait, look it up. Yes. Okay, here for that. Carry on. 

Angie: Okay, so when we get done with this recording, I just need you to go watch the movie because there’s an intro sequence with him that makes me laugh so hard and I think about it at least once a week. 

Okay. So Anders Lassen after Jeffrey Applyard is chosen for his natural abilities and the fact that he is a skilled sailor, right? Like these are all things March Phillips and his men need. While in pool before the actual missions, he’s obviously he’s trained in weapons. There’s close court of combat training, small boat operations, swimming and these very essential long marches and our man handles his business all while sort of securing his spot on the maid honor and the respect of everybody. Like he may be a drunken brawler, but his men love him. 

Theresa: And to be fair, everybody on the maid honor is probably of the same ilk. 

Angie: Honestly, yeah, pretty sure. Now the maid honor would get her first big mission the January after Lassen arrived. So he had arrived in pool about April of 41. So the following January. For those of you that have never read this book, I could not preach the ministry of Ingenuinenia warfare more because it’s so detailed and so so dedicated. But for lack of 10 years to tell you the story, there is this natural harbor called St. Isabel Port. It’s on the island of Fernando Po. It is located just off the west coast of central Africa. It is now called Biyoko. This at the time is part of a Spanish colony in the Gulf of Guinea. 

It’s January of 42. There are three ships docked here of great interest. One is the Italian merchant vessel, the Duchess Diasa and the other two are German ships. One is this rather large German tugboat, the Lincolnbo. You have this rather large German tugboat called the Lincolnbo and the other is a barge called Burundi. What makes any of this important is that Spain at this time is giving all kinds of lip service about being neutral. I think we’ve talked about it in other episodes with your spies. 

Theresa: But Franco is not neutral. It is just on paper. Right. 

Angie: Literally that’s the next sentence. So you got it. The Allies believe that Fernando Po is being used as a German U-boat refueling and rearming station. For them, that means Fernando Po and these three ships need to be taken off the board. This is problematic, especially in the case of the U-boats. And if these ships are involved in any way of helping, we need to solve this problem. Additionally, the Diasa is not being super forthcoming with its manifest, but there’s definitely materials on board that would be really useful to the Allies. On top of that, the British press need a morale booster, like really bad. 

And capturing some enemy ships off the coast of Africa would be a total boon for them. I imagine you can all see where I’m going with this. And since Teresa’s already read the book, she knows where I’m going. 

Theresa: Oh, yeah. No, it’s bad. This is honestly, this is one of the best stories in the book. 

Angie: Oh, it’s literally. Okay. So that said, Spain is still technically neutral and we can’t just like go and take it. And aerial bombing would most definitely be identifiable and obvious, which is going to provoke Spain and cause them to most definitely join the access. And then Portugal, by default, kind of has to follow suit. 

And this does not work well for the idea in Britain’s mind. So some very intense planning begins. And the basic gist is secrecy at every level, absolute deniability. 

And there are tons of moving parts. Colin Govins and his crew begin their share of work while Churchill starts sending out these messages that basically read like, don’t open till Christmas and for the captain’s eyes only, that sort of thing. Because here’s the thing, the obvious play here would be to just sink the boats, right? But they can’t. First of all, the harbor is rocky and shallow and the boats would just be salvaged. 

Like it would not be hard for them to pull them up. As we learned, salvage divers have existed since at least the 15th century, which is bonkers. Carry on. 

Absolutely insane. But anyway, them sinking the ships would render the off useless and the allies, they need a morale booster, right? So stealing the ships is the move. But like these ships have crews. So there’s that we have to take into account the plan in the simplest of terms. 

Theresa: Okay, sorry, I was going to interrupt. Like the the mate of honor is 11 humans big as a crew. And when you take over a boat, you need to man it, you’ve got to divulge some of your crew demand that and that’s not a lot. Yeah, carry on. 

Angie: So for for a little bit of planning on this part, the mate honor does only host 11 people. However, between Colin Devins and Churchill, they have built a force that can help them. And each member of this force, whether you’re part of the land operation or part of the water operation only knows their part of the operation for that complete deniability. So the plan in the simplest of terms will be to send a small scale rating party that can not only blow the anchor chains, right, because they’re anchored in the harbor, but then actually sail the ships into the open ocean while dealing with any recoil from the boat’s actual crew that are still on board. So two things happen. Like I said, Colin Govins put together this team of land based agents that bought this party to keep as many of the sailors commanders like the officers off their ship. So the hope is whatever’s left on the boat can be easily dealt with. 

So that’s that’s the gist. Enter March Phillips and his men. Let me just read you what Damien Lewis writes about this moment because there’s almost no better explanation. He says, quote, accordingly, there needed to be a plausible explanation as to how on earth two German and one Italian ships has fallen into British hands. Working closely with Ian Fleming, the SOE’s liaison at the Admiralty and the future author of the James Bond books, M sent about coming up with just such a ruse. 

The cover story finally agreed upon by M, Fleming, and others in the know consisted of several sophisticated and interlocking elements. The British destroyer HMS Violet stationed in the West African port of Lagos in Nigeria would steam into the Gulf of Guinea to intercept the three vessels once they had been cut out of port. It would be claimed that the Italian and German crews had mutinied severing their own anchor chains and sailing away of their own accord. Officially, Violet would seize the ships and their crew in international waters and escort them into British custody at the Lagos Harbor. 

Need to know and convincing theater was absolute paramount with this element of the cover story. The captain of HMS Violet would be given field orders for his eyes only and told to open them once at sea. He wouldn’t know the nature of his mission until he had embarked on it. The entirety of his officers and his crews would be left believing they were tasked to intercept a genuine enemy flotilla and heavily armed boarding parties would be sent to disarm and subdue all aboard. 

That includes all of our men from the made honors that are aboard these ships. Once the three ships had been seized, the captain of the HMS Violet was to send a coded radio message postmaster successful that would trigger the next stage of the cover story to be orchestrated from London. The BBC would broadcast the story in English, Spanish and Portuguese based upon a press release issued by the Admiralty. It would detail how three enemy vessels had been intercepted by a Royal Navy warship. 

The crews had mutiny due to poor paying conditions in Fernando Poe and the vessels had been seized as prizes of war. So that’s what’s supposed to happen and essentially that is what happens. Stuff happens along the way though. 

Theresa: I’m here for this stuff. 

Angie: Basically it goes like this at around 11 30 p.m. on January 14th the two tugboats that are with the made honor roll up to Santa Isabella Harbor with their boarding teams already on deck. Their faces are painted black because we are going in under the cover of night. One of the key elements here is that the party that’s being hosted in the Harbor City that’s like in full view of what’s going on with these ships, their Fernando Poe turns the electricity off every night at a certain hour but the hope is that the lights they use when the power is down will be bright enough to block out anybody from seeing out into the harbor. So the land party has to handle that. 

Like you have to keep those guys occupied so they’re a whole other story. So they launched kayaks from one of the other vessels called the Naineten toward both the Lincumbo and the Bruandi. These are tied up together. When the crew boards the Bruandi two freaked out crew members literally just jump ship which basically gives the Raiders free-grain to set up explosives on the anchor chain. They then pull the Naineten up next to the Lincumbo to tug the two ships out. 

So this one’s going to tug the two. They detonate the charges and the Naineten starts dragging both vessels out of the harbor. At the same time another team from this other tug called the Vulcan managed to get onto the Duchess De Oste. 

Our guy Lassen going in first. Well one squad plants charges on the anchor chain. Another crew sweeps the lower deck and rounds up prisoners. Pretty soon the Italian merchant ship is also being towed out to open water. When the Italian and German officers hear the explosion they rush to the harbor trying to figure out what the heck’s going down. 

Anti aircraft guns start blasting away at absolutely nothing because the crew thinks they’re getting bombed from the air. Which I love. They love that for us. While all this chaos is happening the Raiders just like ghost out of there completely unnoticed. The whole raid takes about 30 minutes and they don’t lose a single person. They walk away with three ships and 29 prisoners. The British warships that had been sent out to the area on purpose to later claim they had just found the floating ships around in the open water. 

They get to call dibs on them as war prizes. Now part of the problem here though is there’s like a three day time span between when they’re captured and when they actually leave Fernando Poe because Violet couldn’t get out of her harbor in time. So there’s like a few minutes there where our guys are like oh no. 

We are. Okay but eventually they get with here they’re supposed to get to and everything goes away. It’s supposed to. The Spanish authorities are absolutely livid because they know this whole story is BS. 

Theresa: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No this thinks the high heaven but they can’t do anything about it. 

Angie: After the raid Lassen gets promoted to Second Left Tenet and receives the military cross. His previous experience on the water plus the fact that he was basically fearless were huge factors in pulling off the mission. He’d found his thing fighting the enemy using guerrilla tactics. The success of Operation Postmaster led to the made on her force getting bigger and rebranded as the small scale raiding force or number 62 commando. So number 62 commando our fellows here start harassing the Nazis throughout the Channel Islands and along up and down the French coast right. And night’s work for Lassen and the men looks a lot like intelligence gathering, capturing prisoners for interrogation, demoralizing enemy in any way humanly possible whether we’re blowing petrol dumps or taking their resources whatever like that’s that’s their goal. And they’re great at it. 

Now keep in mind they’re doing this all throughout the Channel Islands and over a decent period of time. Now sadly it would be on one of these missions. Operation Aquitant in September 42 that Lassen’s beloved commander March Phillips would be killed. Lassen likely never got over it and blamed himself. He was on weekend leave and evidently couldn’t sleep and like paced his room back and forth with this like huge sense of reboting because he knew they were out on this mission and he should be there but he wasn’t. He later realizes to himself that this like sense of reboting is what is happening is this unmitigated disaster right. So basically the plan was simple the they were just supposed to mess with the enemy give the allies a morale boost. March Phillips leads a team of 11 guys onto a beach in these goatly canoes but they land at the wrong spot on the spot on the beach and immediately get up lit up lit up by German patrol patrol excuse me. Four of the raiders get injured and captured four managed to escape but they eventually get caught anyway and the rest of the team didn’t make it including March Phillips who got shot while trying to swim ashore after his canoe had been wrecked. Lewis said in his book quote Lassen wrote poignantly in his diary about the death of a man he had idolized and tried to emulate and to whom he was described by many as being devoted. Major March Phillips is dead now he noted the only man I sincerely liked and respected he died in battle leading his men a death worthy of him at times I’d wish I’d been with him when things went wrong at all the other times we fought together but not the last. That breaks my heart. 

It does. Right like oh a couple weeks later our remaining men set out on an operation called Operation Basalt on the night of this this one is super key to me because of Patty Main’s story but on the night of operation 3rd excuse me operation 3rd October 3rd 

Theresa: why did that make sense to me I was going with it I was like sure month operation it’s yeah 

Angie: let’s do it I like it operation 3rd Appley yard who’s now in charge since the death of March Phillips and in crew and his crew including Lassen head to this place called Sark it’s one of the Channel Islands and they’re on a motor torpedo boat nicknamed Little Pisser that that feels right doesn’t it yeah now this boat has these custom silenced engines and so for the most part they can arrive totally undetected once they hit the island the squad climbs up this area called Hogsback it’s this cliff that sort of jutes out into the ocean and they start hunting for Germans Apple Yard was basically flying blind. They planned this race using a tourist hiking guide and his own family’s vacation videos from before the war. So like we are not working with a ton of great intel here. 

Theresa: But you know you look at like the war effort like look at Odette Samson’s story. She was recruited to be a spy because the war department said, hey if you’ve got pictures from your holidays on the French coast send them to us so we can use this for intel. 

Angie: I mean it makes sense but it makes me laugh that their map is a hiking guide. 

Theresa: Yeah this is the Atlas Obscura to your war. 

Angie: The farmers on the neck if you will. So the first buildings they search are empty. They keep moving until they reach this isolated cliff house called Esprelli. I think I pronounced that right. They broke in and they wake up a British woman named Mrs. Frances Piddart who thought the uniformed men with black and faces were firefighters. Once she realized they were British soldiers she gives them all the intel on the island including where to find the enemy. 

Theresa: And I’m sure she made a mean cup of tea for them as she did and toddled around the house. 

Angie: And there’s Lassen sitting at my kitchen table. At the nearby Dix Court Hotel Annex a small group of German engineers were asleep and she sort of points them in that direction with one sentry outside. 

And there’s Lassen silently kills the lookout with his knife. The five Germans inside were woke up and dragged outside in their pajamas. Orders come down to tie their hands. When the prisoners realize this isn’t a major invasion but just a small raid they start yelling and resisting. 

Well there’s over 300 Germans on the island like 300 German soldiers and many are less than 100 meters away at the Stocks Hotel and so Appleyard orders his men to shoot anyone who tried to flee. Like we need to keep them quiet. We need to keep them tied together. 

Just handle them. Unfortunately some tried to flee. Shots are fired and only one prisoner remains. 

His last name is Weinrich. The book talks about how this idea of tying them together did not like tying their hands didn’t sit well with Lassen but like were following orders and he said tie them so we tie them. The alarm is raised and the commandos race back to their boat. They barely escape. On the right home Lassen is a little bit worried about having shot down prisoners. 

This can be seen as a war crime. The Appleyard don’t second guess it. That’s what happened. 

It is what it is. Back in England the raid is deemed a huge success. Churchill personally congratulates Appleyard while Reinrich spills all the beans of that super valuable intel during his interrogation. The ones remaining German that they had. On Sark the Nazi propaganda machine goes into overdrive. It is calling the commandos war criminals, islanders including Mrs. Pitterd who had helped them, faced deportation to Germany and most significantly the raid triggers Hitler’s infamous commando order. On October 18th, 1942, decreeing that all captured Allied commandos in uniform or not will be executed on site as terrorists. 

This is the commando order that SAS 1 and 2 in mainland Europe are fighting day in and day out. So when I read like this was where it came from I was like oh yeah that makes sense. This checks. Okay and I love knowing my guy Lassen is a part of it because it checks. 

Theresa: And the story seemed to link up and you’re like oh my god I now know. The fact that we’ve got March Phillips in multiple episodes and we’re able to kind of put together his entire crew. 

Angie: Right and I love how for me I love that every story connects to something else and it makes the world a smaller place. You’re like oh yeah hey. We talked about that in episode 22. Oh we talked about her in episode blah blah blah but it was about this. 

Like it’s so fun for me. So while I mentioned earlier while Lassen had to kill a man with just his knife that left him super troubled. He said in his diary that quote this was the hardest and most difficult job I have ever done. 

Used my knife for the first time. His personal diary was intended to go to his mother should anything happen to him and it seems poignant to say that was his last entry. Also because he’s often seen as this sort of man who’s like full of hatred and wants to brawl everyone especially the Germans. Like I said earlier it’s not that he hated the Germans he hated Nazi elitism and he hated how his home of Denmark had fallen in bed you know subjugated and he would have fought anyone over it. But this this knife killing was like kind of I think where he was like oh. Hmm. 

Theresa: It’s it’s super dirty you know yeah I can only imagine being up close and personal like that it was very personal yeah yeah it put a different spin on it and before then he was able to maintain distance if somebody were dying. 

Angie: Yeah I think it’s the same thing and I think for him it was also realizing that like I just killed a soldier he might not have been a Nazi like he might have just been a man doing his job. 

Yeah. And I think that’s when that realization hits you that they don’t all believe this some of them are just soldiers doing their job that that’s probably where a lot of between the two the intimacy of the moment and realizing like that could have just been his cousin were probably hard moments for him. That said in early 1943 number two number 62 commando is disbanded. I’m unclear if it’s because of the rate on SARC or that the higher ups had other ideas of what to do with these fine fellas but its members are dispersed among other formations. Some of them in are sent to the Middle East to join the SPS which is a special boat squad squadron with the newly promoted lieutenant Lassen included. As I mentioned earlier the SPS comes out of the recent shakeup of the first special air service which is my great love. 

Excuse me it had been created in North Africa back in July 41 to pull off sabotage missions deep in enemy territory which if you’ve been around here for any minute of time you will know we’re big fans of deep in enemy territory raids. The group gets split up into two now so you have the special raiding squadron which is the SRS this is part of like Patti Mayne and his lot and then you have the SPS which is going to be led by Major George Jellico and I just need you to say real quick for fun because it’s such a fun word to say the Earl Jellico. 

Theresa: Earl to be of nobility and Jellico. Yes Earl Jellico. 

Angie: The Earl Jellico had met Lassen in London for the record there’s a cat that hangs out in my backyard I’ve named the Earl Jellico because it’s such a fun word to say and my kids have to hear it all the time. Anyway the Earl Jellico had met Lassen in London just after the Sark Raid and personally requested him to help the shape the SPS so Lassen was flown to Cairo and Appley Yard joins them a little while later with 50 of them in by sea so he’s not working an entirely new unit a lot of these guys have been together for a long time and they’ll stay together right. 

Oh hopefully I’ll get there in just a minute. There’s a Riley that’s involved and he serves as Lassen’s bodyguard which I think is hilarious and I’ve only bring this up because I didn’t put him in my notes but I love Riley. Lassen does not need a bodyguard and at one point 

Theresa: I forgot that he had one if I knew that to begin with. 

Angie: Right at one point in the middle of a fight later in the story like I said I don’t remember if I mentioned him or not but he accidentally shoots Lassen. Lassen’s like you’re kind of a crap bodyguard. 

But anyway that just hit me that I was like oh my gosh I haven’t talked about Riley at all. Anyway okay so by this point all the Allied forces they’re gearing up for D-Day right and the center like the center for all this small scale raiding moves from North Africa to the Mediterranean. So like this for me again watching all the like gears click into place Patty Main and his men are working their way to and through Sicily while the SBS and Lassen and his men are like roaming the Mediterranean, the Aegean Islands and Greece and all of that. 

So like it’s really fun for me to see all the moving parts of how the Allied forces worked together during this time. Absolutely wild. Without text messaging. 

Like insane. We can’t even get a group of adults together in the same room at the same time but somehow they were able to pull this kind of stuff off. 

Theresa: So anyway I think it had to do with more motivations right? Do a little bit more motivated 

Angie: to get the same group in the same room yeah. Jelako loves Lassen. At one point he said something like off to him they’re at this bar in Tel Aviv and Lassen just flat knocks him out. Like he knocks out his commanding officer. But when he came to when Jelako came to his response was quote I think it must have said something annoyed him. That’s a good boss. Jelako goes on. Right? 

Jelako goes on to explain. I wasn’t aware of it except the next thing I was aware of is flat on my back on this bar floor and I must have been out for quite a bit. He carried quite a big punch if you wanted to punch. I said well I don’t know what on earth this is all about Andy and in any case we had a few more drinks and drove back to my camp. 

He was too valuable a person for me to make too much of a fuss about. I love all of that. I could just I just want to meet Jelako so bad. He sounds like the guy you want to hear all the war stories from. Anyway so to summarize his time in Greece he had a great time. He loved Greece. 

He had so much fun in Greece. The SPS specializes in amphibious warfare. Basically they’re doing a ton of recon and all these sabotage missions. 

They are based in this coastal town south of Hesia in Palestine and the SPS launches its first major op in July of 43. They were taxed with hitting Axis airfields in Crete and Sardinia and as a distraction right before the Allied landing in Sicily. Right so we’re we’re trying so hard to keep everybody occupied while all the Allies start coming into Sicily and I just think that’s so much fun. Lassen has a four man team and they raid this airfield in Crete called Castile which is also a really fun word to say. After getting dropped off by a motorboat launch the guys paddle ashore in these little deans and then they hike inland for two days through this super brutal train. I am not about this hike. I don’t care how pretty Greece is. 

Stop doing it. Lassen splits his patrol in two so they can attack from different angles. After sneaking past the wire undetected he and the private by the name of Ray Jones they get to this parked aircraft and they start like attaching timed bombs. Suddenly a sentry spots them and Lassen like immediately shoots them dead but the noise it alerts the other guards and a firefight breaks out which gives the other two man team or the other two team members cover to plant and like get their bombs ready completely unnoticed. 

So the explosions are going off they’re creating all kinds of chaos. Lassen and Jones slip away. The team escapes Crete after destroying five aircraft. This success earns Lassen a bar to his military cross which I think is super cool. 

After at least surrendered in September 1943 the Allies tried to grab the Italian controlled the Deccanese islands before the Germans could hoping to use them as sort of a launching point against the German held Balkans. This is where the SBS gets super involved in the fighting. Lassen who had been promoted to captain in September he takes part in tons of these missions including these brutal battles on Sime where he earns a second bar to his military cross. 

Despite his efforts though the campaign is a disaster for the Allies the entire Deccanese falls to the Germans within two months. Like the Germans have figured out right quick what’s going on here but the SBS raids continue tying down enemy forces that could have been used elsewhere so they’re still making it work. Now I love this throughout these missions Lassen has become like a local legend like the local Greek people and the local people that he’s encountering along the way they already know who he is before he gets there. They’re like oh the Viking man the big blonde one we like you and also just on the side Lassen is a ladies man of 

Theresa: course he is 

Speaker 3: you don’t look like this and then decide I mean unless you’re gay but you know what I mean 

Angie: right um he at one point I can’t remember what island he’s on but they’re they’re they have like they’ve just completed the mission and they have a weekend off and he swaps bedrooms with another another guy for some reason I can’t remember why they ended up changing bedrooms but it wasn’t because Lassen like asked him to it’s just they had to swap. In the midst of this some guy breaks into what he thinks is Lassen’s room and tries to shoot and assault the guy there because he thinks he’s Lassen and after the the ally commando uh saves his own life and deals with it he comes up to Lassen and is like the hell man I think that guy invaded your previous room because you slept with his wife and Lassen was like my bad so sorry do you want to swap rooms again 

Theresa: also accurate um but which 

Angie: one she’s lovely uh 

Theresa: was this Lucinda was this like I there’s so many it’s hard for me to keep them 

Angie: straight like typically I’m not I’m not so keen on the um the playa and the gay but Lassen every encounter he has is funny to me so I’m just like yeah you’re kind of perfect like you’re exactly what I expect you to be I love this for you um so he becomes this legend he’s this absolute ladies man but on top of that like he leads these silent high-stake raids and they’re sailing around the islands in small greek fishing boats they’re hiding during the day and they’re striking under the cover of darkness and the enemy never knows where they’re gonna hit next or who’s gonna hit him and this is where Lassen’s hunting skills kick in except now he’s silently stalking killing Nazi centuries instead of deer um his men love him he’s not just being fearless and insanely skilled like not just because of those but because he’s never asked them to do something he wouldn’t do himself and he’s also super connecting with the local people not just the ladies which earn their support so one of the things that he sees that totally pulled my heartstrings is that coming into Greece he’s seeing that these locals are starving that there’s they don’t have enough supplies to like survive the winter let alone the next few weeks we need to do something for them so they’re planning raids at night they’re raiding at night but they are also sneaking food and supplies into the villages so it’s kind of like this right this sort of like Robin Hood like the villagers all love them because they’re helping and the villagers are willing to protect them because they’re offering help they don’t need to offer but they see a problem they’re gonna solve it we have the ability to do so so why will we not right and I absolutely love that in April of 44 Lassen leaves an 18 man team on a raid against Santorini they sailed there from their hideout which at this point is on the Turkish coast that just sounds so much fun to me like I want to hide out on the Turkish coast I’m just saying anyway April 19th they um there takes about three days to get there and after traveling by night and hiding by day off these small uninhabited islands the both then head into Christian into the Christina Islands which is about 16 kilometers southwest of Santorini and they’re like sort of waiting for pickup Lassen splits his forces into three groups one to hit the barracks another to capture to capture the germane commanding officer at his residence and the third is to take out the radio station so we’re busy we got stuff to do today right in the early hours of April 24th the raid kicks off Lassen leaves the assault on the most of the 35 man garrison wiped out in this event two of the sbs men are killed the attempt to grab the german seal fails he manages to escape but they are successful in blowing up the radio station the raiders get away from Santorini after being picked up by their boats and dodging enemy aircraft that hunt them over the next couple days um when Lassen gives back gets back to base he gives his mission report so on and so forth the following month another raid goes down on on this area called Paris where it’s targeting an airfield that’s being built later on May 16th Lassen and his 12 man team with help from local resistance fighters because this whole time they’ve had like local guides and local like linguists to help them maneuver the area that they’re in and these guides whether they have any skill in fighting or not like beg to stay with them like just hand me a gun sir i can do it and so Lassen often finds himself with like um like i forgot a new greek i like this that’s truly right like i think it’s awesome and honestly like he sees you know these rigs see these foreigners fighting for them and so yeah we can fight too right like we can do this we’ve got help we can handle this and i just think that’s so cool now in this particular mission on may 16th their goal is to hit the airfield destroy the communications equipment and take out any enemy soldiers including their german commander they also grab important intel on the island’s defenses in this particular case their greek guide and nicholas stillis or nico gets captured by the german germans amoeia publicly hanged 125 other men from the village were also marked for execution but the island’s new german commander decides not to go through with those part of the repraise which i guess is nice but also probably because he is very fearful of how we got there in the first place 

Theresa: yeah because you fit the bad everybody hates you and now they’re joining against you 

Angie: maybe let’s don’t maybe let’s don’t um in july the sbs goes back to see any where they had already fought some some brutal some pretty brutal days good lord that was hard to say so this is a combined operation with the greek sacred band which i know nothing about i’m gonna have to look up i was like i’m sorry what that’s on my mental list of things to to check so if you know something about them i’m here tell me i’m so curious um this is a bigger raid that results in 21 germans killed and 151 captured they also sank an s boat two ferry barges and 19 german kaiks while destroying all sorts of other enemy military infrastructure allied losses were eight wounded and two drowned the seamy raid was the last of its kind in the aegean for the sbs by august of 44 the unit had relocated to italy to prep for attacks on targets in ukoslavia on august 30 last and leave sabotage mission against a rail raid a railway bridge at karsovechi the bridge gets blown up successfully to make the german retreat from greece and the balkans even harder so like you need to go kicking you out um despite finishing their objective lassens team runs into some forces one of his men is killed and two others are captured the rest of the patrol makes it back to their area it’s called barry and lassen delivers another one of his legendary after action reports with we landed we reached the bridge we 

Theresa: destroyed it and i if i’m not mistaken he was known for giving these reports that were super succinct command hated because they want the details they want the t and he’s like we arrived we shot people we accomplished goal aim at this yes 

Angie: um and i can only like on the one hand if i was his commander i would be like son of a bitch could you just tell me what happened but then on the other hand i’d be like thank you for that that was a nice text but i appreciate you um they go back to greece for a little while so because the german grip is like sort of weakening by the day and the next month lassen and his unit help liberate athens on october 29th he leads the first british force into slonky slonny slonky this is greece’s second largest city the germans were about to destroy the harbor and the fuel depots and even though he only had 50 of his men with him he convinced the germans he was a way bigger landing force and he makes a veil on the city without doing any of their sabotage like they think the whole army’s coming by between december of 44 and february of 45 lassens serves as the governor of crete because you know what at this point i’m just doing side quests 

Theresa: it’s just resume builders at this point 

Angie: yeah like um you know whatever okay here is where his small force contains like a 13 000 strong german garrison that he has pulled back into this very small little pocket he is also trying to manage all the rising tensions between the left ring and the white ring white ring greek parson groups that are there and um things between the factions they get worse and lassens men get attacked not just by communist partisans but also the civilians two of his guys are killed in an ambush and i’m going to say he’s probably pretty relieved when in february the sbs gets sent back to italy to keep fighting the germans like politics is not his jam 

Theresa: he’s not there for it he’s here for the bar fight and there’s not a ton of bar fights at uh 

Angie: these yeah i mean politics would be way more fun honestly if there was a strong So this is the opening move in the Allies, 15th Army groups like Big, Spring, and their offense to push Germany out of Italy. And it’s meant as more of a diversion to pull German reserves away from like the main attack that’s going to come through. So on the 9th of April, April 9th, Lassen gets orders to lead an 18-man patrol on a raid along the northern shore of the lake. And their job is to make it look like a major landing is happening. 

This is another one of those like fake out operations that they’re so good at, right? After landing, the team finds itself on this narrow road. It’s got water on both sides. Lassen leads the patrol with two scouts out front, and then soon they, German sentries, challenge them. Even though they try to play it off like their local fishermen, a machine gun position opens fire on them, followed by two more seconds later. Lassen immediately goes into action, taking out the first position with grenades while the rest of his guys, they’re like providing cover fire. He charges through the storm of bullets to silence the second position as well. By this point, his patrol has taken casualties, and their firepower is seriously reduced. 

They are still under fire. And Lassen rallies his team before personally charging the third position. He keeps throwing grenades until he hears shots of surrender. 

So, okay, they’re putting up the white flag. He then moves forward to capture the enemy soldiers when yet another machine gun opens fire, hitting him with fatal wounds. As he goes down, he manages to throw one last grenade that injured some of the men manning the final position. And this leads his men to be able to rush in and take it. 

Their ammo is almost gone. His men realize they have to pull out, and they try to carry him. He’s dying. He knows it. He orders them to leave him behind. He refuses to be evacuated because he believes it’s going to impede their withdrawal and endanger further lives. 

Theresa: Four SDS men died during this raid, right? 

Angie: Four died during this raid, including Lassen. He was just 24 years old. He died fighting for his adopted country and for freedom weeks before the Allied would witness victory, which breaks my heart. During his final battle, he’d taken out three enemy positions, silenced six machine guns, killed eight men, and captured two more. For his actions, he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, making him the only non-common wealth recipient of the award during World War II. His family received his medals from King George VI that bucking him down in December of 44. He’s got a lot of medals. Yeah. He’s got the Victoria Cross. He’s got a military cross with two bars, the 39 to 45 star, the Africa star, the Italy star, the defense medal, a war medal, King Christian, the 10th Memorial Medal and the Greek War Cross. 

This part gets me every time. At SAS headquarters in Hereford, England, there are only three statues. David Sterling, Patty Main and Andrew Lassen. Oh, I didn’t know that last bit. Right. Um, he has a bust in Churchill Park in Copenhagen. 

That was installed in 1987. The Italians erected a monument near the site where he earned his Victoria Cross, which I think is like, oh, my heart breaks to know that. His gravestone inscription in Danish, it’s in Danish, but in English it says, fight for all that is dear to you. 

Even if you must die, then life is not so hard, nor is death so hard. His nickname, according to his commanding officer, George Gelico, arose from his having all the qualities of a buccaneering Viking, extraordinary courage, physical endurance, devil may care and keenness. I would like to end my story of Lassen with quite possibly my most favorite after action report ever landed, killed Germans, fucked off. Well done. 

Theresa: That was the one I could think of, but I couldn’t like recall word for word. So I tried to abandon ship. 

Angie: I want so bad, like a work shirt that just says L K G F O. Yeah. Right. Like, yeah, did kill Germans fucked off. Like, yeah, okay, bye. But that’s totally, I can see why his commanding officers were a little pissy about the paperwork. 

Theresa: I mean, it could have been a little tiny bit more descriptive. I mean, I think he, where did they die? 

Angie: Where did you land? Where did you fuck off to? Fuck off. Where exactly? And where friend part, part say, did you, did you fuck off? Yeah. Love it. 

Theresa: If you’ve enjoyed this and kind of went, holy crap. Ander’s story does connect to everybody else’s that they’ve told. Great reviews, subscribe, send this to somebody else who wants to sit in the center of all of the twine around the maps and all the stories we’ve told and got it connects to everything. 

Angie: It’s all one story. And on that note, goodbye. 

Speaker 3: Bye.