Special Air Service (time line)
Special Boat Service ( more)
Special Forces Support Group (more)
Special Reconnaissance Regiment  (more)

This page is for ex/serving members / family / friends of the "Special Air Service" who have been killed in action (or other wise) anywhere in the world. The reason that Special Forces are on this "Parachute Regiment" website is because that many SF Soldier's are recruited from the Parachute Regiment, this page will never be complete because of the nature of the operations of our Special Forces ... to contact me, please use twopara@gmx.com

Operation Loyton - 2 SAS

Len Owens (Third from the left) aged 82 has for some time hankered to create a memorial to remember his colleagues who lost their lives during Operation Loyton, an SAS operation which dropped Len and his colleagues from F Squadron Phantom Signals - Sgt. Gerald Davis, Signalman George Johnston and Signalman Peter Bannerman behind enemy lines in the Moussey area of eastern France along with members of 2 SAS.
This whole operation went horribly wrong when the Third Army stopped at Nancy to the west. This pause enabled the Germans to put 2 divisions of troops including one armoured division into the area around Moussey and the Phantom/SAS party along with many members of the resistance were harried, ambushed and attacked from one area to another with the end result of Len's 3 colleagues losing their lives, 31 men from 2 SAS losing theirs and 140 men from over 200 who were Deported from Moussey did not return from the concentration camps. The creation of the Phantom Memorial Stone which was cut from a much larger slab in the Quarry at Senones a few miles from Moussey represents the resolve of the people of the village to shield the Phantom/SAS party from the enemy. These men from Moussey could have betrayed the soldiers and saved their own lives. They did not and subsequently died horrific deaths in concentration camps. Many men from other villages in the region suffered the same fate. 

During the enemy sweep through the area 3 young women from the Special Operations Executive were rounded up and were later executed by lethal injection and their bodies found in a mass grave at Natzweiler concentration camp ...

Aden & Radfan - South Arabia 1957-1967.

Tpr J. Hollingsworth / 25.04.1966 
Tpr M R. Lambert / 12.11.1966 
Tpr M P. Lawlor / 12.11.1966 
Tpr G F Lles / 05.05.1967 
L/Cpl A G E G. Brown / 26.05.1967

Falkland Islands

WO2. L GALLAGHER. BEM / 19 MAY 1982 
Killed in Sea King Crash.

SGT. S. A. I. DAVIDSON / 19 MAY 1982 
Killed in Sea King Crash.

CPL J NEWTON / 19 MAY 1982 
Killed in Sea King Crash. 

CPL E T WALPOLE / 19 MAY 1982 
Killed in Sea King Crash.

Cpl. W C HATTON. QGM / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
CPL R E ARMSTRONG / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
SGT J L ARTHY / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
WO M ATKINSON / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
CPL W J BEGLEY / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
Cpl P A BUNKER / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
SGT P P CURRASS QGM / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
SGT W J HUGHES / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
SGT P JONES / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash.
S/SGT P O'CONNOR / 19 MAY 1982
Killed in Sea King Crash. 

Observation party attacked by Argentine troops in the only action to take place on West Falkland.

CAPT G J HAMILTON. MC. / 10th JUNE 1982

Captain Gavin John Hamilton M.C (15 May 1953 – 10 June 1982) was the Officer Commanding (OC) 19 (Mountain) Troop, D Squadron 22 Special air service (SAS) during the Falklands war in 1982. He was killed whilst behind enemy lines on West Falkland on 10 June 1982.

Hamilton was a Green Howards officer before passing SAS selection and being attached to 22 SAS.
[He was the first posthumous recipient of the Military cross and the only such recipient until the war in Afghanistan nearly twenty years later] ... read more

264 (SAS) Signals Squadron

LCPL. P LIGHTFOOT. / 19 MAY 1982
264 SAS Signal Squadron Attached G Squadron Killed in Sea King Crash.

Cpl Robert A Burns (Aged 22) / 19 MAY 1982
264 SAS Signal Squadron Attached G Squadron Killed in Sea King Crash.

Cpl Stephen J. G. Sykes (Aged 25). / 19 May 1982 
264 SAS Signal Squadron Attached G Squadron, Killed in Sea King Crash

 

Cpl Michael V. McHugh (Aged 22). / 19 May 1982 
264 SAS Signal Squadron Attached G Squadron, Killed in Sea King Crash.

Oman & Dhofar

Tpr Walter CARTER Aged 30
Died while on duty 27th January 1959

L/Cpl David Ronald RAMSDEN Aged 26 (photo's right)
Died while on duty 9th March 1972 

L/Cpl Anthony KENT Aged 26
Died while on duty 13th March 1974 

Sgt Leslie BARKER Aged 34
Died while on duty 21st November 1981 (photo below)

Sgt Kevin Andrew BUTTERTON Aged 32
Died while on duty 29th July 2002 

The attached photographs were taken with the patrol’s (C (Special Patrol) Company, 2 Para) 16mm still camera after a joint exercise with Guards (Independent) Parachute Company in Cyprus in 1970. L/Cpl “Ronnie” Ramsden was patrol commander and is on the left in the first photograph and second from the left in the photo on the right. 

Bosnia
Corporal Fergus McIndoe Rennie, The Parachute Regiment (PARA), aged 28, shot by a Serb sniper near Gorazde, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 15 April 1994.
Para / SAS

Operation Barras

Trooper Brad Tinnion. Aged 28

First published on Wednesday 13 September 2000:

SAS soldier killed in Sierra Leone action: Trooper Brad Tinnion, aged 28, suffered fatal wounds when he was hit by machine gun fire as he helped lift six Army hostages out of the jungle in Sierra Leone. The young soldier was to become a father in a few weeks time. He lived with his partner in a small village just outside Hereford. News of his death while in action on Sunday has shocked colleagues and many friends in Hereford. The SAS had masterminded the daring, but dangerous mission to rescue six men of the Royal Irish Regiment who had been held hostage for more than a month by rebels known as the West Side Boys in Sierra Leone.

They were joined by members of the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment and had carried out considerable reconnaissance to pinpoint the hostages and their captors in dense jungle and mangrove swamps. Trooper Tinnion was one of the men who went in by helicopter to rescue the hostages and capture some of the rebels. 

As they were moving them out to a waiting Chinook helicopter, the men came under heavy machine gun fire. Trooper Tinnion was hit, and taken by his colleagues to a Royal Navy support vessel Sir Percivale in Freetown Harbour, but sadly, had died from his injuries. It is believed that several other soldiers were wounded but none of their injuries are life threatening. Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen. Sir Charles Guthrie has described the military operation as one of the most complicated he had ever been  involved in.

Sergeant 'Scruff' McGough

Sergeant Paul "Scruff" McGough, who has died aged 41, was a member of the Special Boat Service unit which took part in the siege of Qala-i-Janghi, Afghanistan, one of the most highly decorated missions in the recent history of the British special forces.

In November 2001 McGough was with C Company, SBS, when it flew unannounced into the former Soviet airbase at Bagram. A key strategic objective in north-east Afghanistan, it was disputed by thousands of Afghan government fighters, and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, led by the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. Though vastly outnumbered, the SBS held the huge airbase for a day and a night, to the fury of both armies, and to the chagrin of the Americans, who had expected to be first there. Once relieved by the much larger US 10th Mountain Division and Delta Force (the American equivalent of the SAS) McGough, in local dress, undertook intelligence-gathering patrols in the mountains.

On November 25, as his team returned to the Anglo-American special forces base in the newly captured town of Mazar-i-Sharif, McGough heard the sound of battle at Dostum's sprawling headquarters in the mud-built prison-fortress of Qala-i-Jangi, (SBS History) known as the "Fort of War". Several hundred prisoners had revolted while being interrogated by the CIA, and, overpowering their Northern Alliance guards, armed themselves with AK47s, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades from Dostum's huge armoury. They killed Captain "Mike" Spann, a former member of the US Marine Corps with the CIA, and cornered another agent, Dave Dawson, in a blockhouse. McGough was one of eight SBS men in two armed Land Rovers under a British commander, and nine US special forces, led by Major Mark Mitchell, who raced to prevent the Taliban from breaking out of the jail to retake Mazar-i-Sharif. 
Using only Leatherman handtools, McGough and a comrade stripped two general purpose machine-guns (known as "jimpies") from their vehicle mountings and carried them with ammunition to the ramparts. McGough stood silhouetted against the sky firing his heavy jimpy from the hip to halt a determined charge by scores of screaming warriors, despite a hail of bullets which tore up the battlements under his feet. Next he and another SBS man set alight three pick-up trucks. As the guns in the fort fell silent for first time since the battle had started, Dawson made his escape. McGough's action marked a turning point, and for two days he and the other seven SBS men displayed extraordinary heroism in the face of hundreds of fanatical Taliban. A man of few words, he chain-smoked while repelling charges by the tribesmen for several days until the US Special Forces called in air strikes. Chief Petty Officer Stephen Bass (USN), who was attached to the SBS, received the Navy Cross from the American President and the Military Cross from the Queen. Mitchell received the US Distinguished Service Cross from his government, and two SBS men received the British Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. Despite reports to the contrary no Britons received any foreign awards, and McGough, though rumoured to have been recommended for the award of the Military Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor, received a mention in dispatches.

True to the cloak of secrecy which surrounds all operations of the SBS, whose motto is "By Strength and Guile", little else is known about Paul McGough. He was one of the most respected men to serve with the SBS and fought in Operation Barras during September 2000, when 11 members of the Royal Irish Regiment and a Sierra Leonean soldier were being held hostage by "the West Side Boys", former members of the Sierra Leone Army.

Some of McGough's exploits were described in Damien Lewis's Bloody Heroes ... Read more here

He was killed in a hang gliding accident on Cyprus on 1st June 2006, and leaves a widow and children.