Maj. Mike Sadler, a World War II navigator on the trackless Sahara of North Africa, who guided Britain’s first special forces across sand seas on daring behind-the-lines night raids that blew up enemy aircraft on the ground and troops in their billets, died on Thursday in Cambridge, England. He was 103. Mr. Sadler was one of the first recruits and the last surviving member of the S.A.S. Like a navigator at sea, he used stars, sun and instruments to cross expanses of the Libyan Desert, whose shifting, windblown dunes can be as changing and featureless as an ocean. Comrades said he might not have fired a single shot at the enemy in North Africa.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 04, 2024 20:20 UTC