Prince William attends memorial service for hero veteran Major Mike Sadler who is last of the wartime SAS ‘originals’ at Hereford Cathedral a day after returning to royal duties since Kate’s cancer announcement

The Prince of Wales today attended a private memorial service for the last surviving member of the original wartime SAS.

Major Mike Sadler, whose death at the age of 103 was announced in January, was recruited by David Stirling, who founded the British Army’s elite Special Air Service regiment in 1941.

He initially took part in night raids on Axis airfields in Libya before being parachuted into Nazi-occupied France after the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944.

Major Sadler was awarded the Military Cross for his actions in France, later served with MI6 and even had a part of Antarctica named after him.

In 2018, he was further recognized with France’s highest award: the Legion d’honneur.

Prince William was among guests at Major Sadler’s memorial service at Hereford Cathedral today.

It comes a day after he made his first public appearance since the Princess of Wales’ cancer announcement last month.

The Prince of Wales, 41, lent a hand loading food and cooking in the kitchen at food distribution organization Surplus to Supper in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey.

Major Sadler left school in 1937 to work on a farm in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

After the outbreak of war in 1939, Major Sadler joined the artillery unit of the Rhodesian Army.

In 1941 he had been appointed sergeant, but was eventually demoted when he refused a commanding officer’s order that his men wear boots instead of sandshoes while sleeping.

He then met a member of the Long Range Desert Group, a reconnaissance unit based in the North African desert.

The soldier persuaded him to join and soon took on the role of navigator. He was soon put in charge of navigation for both the LRDG and the SAS.

In December 1941, Major Sadler was part of the first successful SAS raid – on Wadi Tamet airfield – in which a six-man team destroyed 24 aircraft and a fuel dump.

This was led by Lieutenant Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, a former Irish international rugby star who would become one of Britain’s most decorated soldiers.

Major Sadler, after his time in the Desert War, fought with the SAS in Italy and France, before founding the SAS Intelligence Unit.

On August 7, 1944, Major Sadler was parachuted into the Loire as part of Operation Houndsworth.

The aim was to reach SAS squadrons behind the lines and help destroy fuel depots, encourage local resistance and prevent armored divisions from moving north.

By this time, Hitler had given instructions to execute all captured paratroopers.

Germans struck the convoy of two jeeps while Major Sadler returned fire, allowing the other jeep to flee before escaping himself. He later received the Military Cross for gallantry.

Those who formed L Detachment SAS called themselves ‘the Originals’, with Major Sadler considered an honorary member.

He was given the role of Lieutenant of Stirling, but this was reportedly never told to the authorities, so Major Sadler ended the war as a major.

On the night of July 26, 1942, without headlights or a map, Major Sadler led 18 jeeps filled with two Vickers K machine guns across 70 miles of desert to within 200 feet of Sidi Haneish airfield.

The group then opened fire as they drove between aircraft, destroying at least 37 aircraft. But one of the SAS jeep drivers was unfortunately shot in the head and buried in the sand during the attack.

“I remember the people who did not survive and who did not have the opportunity to receive this great honor,” Major Sadler said after being awarded the Legion d’honneur.

He received the Military Medal for the Tamit and Sidi Haneish attacks.

Major Sadler was also one of the officers who followed Stirling during the final SAS operation during the Desert War in January 1943.

This involved trying to cross the Tunisian desert to meet the British-American 1st Army, but they were ambushed by a German unit.

Stirling was captured and would spend the remainder of World War II as a prisoner of war in Colditz.

Major Sadler managed to escape together with another SAS soldier and an Arabic-speaking Frenchman.

He guided the group on a five-day, 100-mile trek, without a map or any food supplies, to join the 1st Army.

American war correspondent AJ Liebling witnessed Mr Sadler as he arrived from the desert and wrote: ‘This fellow’s eyes were round and sky blue and his hair and whiskers were very fair.

‘His beard started well below his chin, giving him the appearance of an emaciated and slightly speckled Paul Verlaine.’

When the SAS was disbanded at the end of the war, Major Sadler left the army and joined the Antarctic Survey of the Falkland Islands.

For his efforts he received the Polar Medal.

The soldier then worked at the US Embassy in London for two years before being recruited by MI6. He said little about his time in the Secret Intelligence Service, other than the fact that it allowed him to indulge his love of sailing.

He retired in 1984 and spent his later years in a retirement home near Cambridge.

After the war, Major Sadler married Anne Hetherington, but the union was dissolved after two years.

In 1958 he married Pat Benson, who died in 2001. He is survived by their daughter Sally.

Major Sadler was played by Tom Glynn-Carney in the hit BBC series SAS: Rogue Heroes, which aired in 2022.