Sandbaggers: Re: What's in a name? + more on the real SIS

Re: What's in a name? + more on the real SIS

Philip H. J. Davies (P.H.J.Davies@reading.ac.uk)
Thu, 30 Jan 1997 21:00:49 +0000 (GMT)

On Thu, 30 Jan 1997, Jason Potapoff wrote:

> But it's got something to do with doing something unexpected or
> devious and i'm sure that's why Burnside named his squad that.

My recollection is that the term 'Sandbaggers' wasn't a formal name, but a
colloquialism refering to what was formally known as the Special
Operations Section.

BTW, as a correction to my original posting on the real SIS (subj. re:SB
history), I described Special Ops as being technically Special Operations
Staff Officer to Director War Planning, just after WW2. I must correct
myself; the SO section or branch *was* War Planning. SO/DWP, just Staff
Officer to Director War Planning. SO/DWP's main function was coordinating
plans just after the war for SAS to operate in conjunction with SIS in
mounting sabotage and subversion behind Soviet lines in the case of a
general war (see David Smiley's _Irregular Regular_). Both SO/DWP and DWP
were abolished after Korea. SAS work as 'underlabourers' seems to have
resulted by a paper prepared by Commandant SAS in 1964, (see John
Strawson's _History of the SAS Regiment_).

Mea culpa.

Phil