The SAS in WWII

Balaclava Stropweasel is – surprisingly - nowadays not quite as well-known as his exploits in the SAS* during WWII merit. For it was Stropweasel who led some of the most spectacular undercover behind-enemy-lines auditing raids of both the Desert and the Normandy campaigns which did much to help Britain win the war against the Nazis, all of which came in under budget with very few unforeseen expenses claimed.

It was assumed, early in the war, that the German army had some of the best battlefield accounting tactics in the world, especially in their use of the Blitzkrieg Auditzensplazten, which could identify, down to the last bullet and plate of battlefield-ready sauerkraut, just how much any single military action would cost.

However, it took someone with Stropweasel’s inherent military accountancy genius to realise just how damaging it would be for a small Allied unit to infiltrate behind the German military lines and intercept, alter, or even destroy the vital lines of receipts, invoices and petty cash books of the German army. For, such was the extremely disciplined nature of Wehrmacht accounting techniques that - as Stropweasel discovered, through a German Enigma signal decoded at Bletchley Park – once an entire German Armoured division was rendered immobile through the loss of one mid-ranking officer’s overnight billeting expenses claim.

However, it was the actions of Stropweasel’s squad during the early morning hours of D-Day that military historians credit for the successful Allied landings later that morning. Parachuted behind the enemy lines manning the Normandy coastline, Stropweasel’s six-man squad made their way – under cover of darkness to each of the defensive concrete bunkers on the beach known by its D-Day code name of Sword Beach.

Once at a bunker, Stropweasel himself – covered by the rest of his squad – would crawl on his hands and knees into the bunker and steal all the pencils he found in there, before making his escape undetected. These pencils were vital for the German defensive effort, because they were used to fill in the requisition forms used to keep a precise tally of every bullet, grenade and shell the German troops were issued from the storerooms and arsenals. Without such a suitably-completed requisition form the troops could only use the ammunition they already had been issued.

Consequently, this brave and daring action by Stropweasel’s squad meant that the Germans soon ran out of ammunition - and were unable to requisition any more - as the Allies landed, and were thus then easily overrun. For his bravery on that day Stropweasel won the Victoria Cross and – in a special ceremony – was also awarded the King’s Award for Accountancy.

*SAS – the Secret Accountancy Service.