The Special Air Service (SAS) is a regiment of the British Army and part of the United Kingdom's special forces. The regiment was formed by Colonel David Stirling in Africa in 1941, at the height of the Second World War. Its original role was to penetrate enemy lines and strike at airfields and supply lines deep in enemy territory, first in North Africa and later around the Mediterranean and in occupied Europe. Stirling established the principle of using small teams, usually of just four men, to carry out raids—having realised that a four-man team could sometimes prove much more effective than a unit of hundreds of soldiers.
