Lieutenant John Steel "Jock" Lewes was a British Army officer prominent during the Second World War. He was the founding principal training officer of the Special Air Service. Its founding commander, David Stirling, said later of Lewes, "Jock could far more genuinely claim to be founder of the SAS than I." Lewes also invented an explosive device for use by the SAS, the eponymous Lewes bomb.
Lieutenant Jock Lewes, co-founder of the SAS, 1940 – a portrait painted by Rex Whistler (at the time a fellow officer in the Welsh Guards).
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling, and in 1950 it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, direct action and special reconnaissance. Much of the information about the SAS is highly classified, and the unit is not commented on by either the British government or the Ministry of Defence due to the secrecy and sensitivity of its operations.
SAS patrol in North Africa during WWII (1943)
21 SAS soldier after a night parachute drop exercise in Denmark (1955)
Ascension memorial at Hereford Cathedral
