Rare special forces badges found in loft of man who told relatives he'd been 'just a cook' in the war

Leslie Scott never revealed that he had been an officer or that he had been recruited into one of the most remarkable units of the war, an elite force that brought together some of the hardest men in the British Army to carry out one of the most dangerous jobs in the last few months of the conflict.

It was after Captain Scott’s death that items relating to his military service were found to include two of the wing badges of the Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force, a special forces unit in March 1945 to parachute men behind enemy lines to aid allied PoWs who were in danger of being massacred in the German camps.

The SAARF wings are amongst the most scarce Allied airborne insignia of the Second World War and have been described as “the stuff of which collectors dreams are made”.

Jess Tarver of auctioneers David Duggleby said the unit was made up of 360 British, American and European parachute-trained special forces volunteers, many of them German-speaking.

"In the event there was only one mission in which teams went in by parachute and it got off to a disastrous start. Half the 18 men in the six teams sent to monitor Stalag XIA and other camps in the Altengrabow area were captured by the Germans and taken into the Stalag.

"However the mission ended miraculously well when they persuaded the camp commandant that with Allied forces fast closing in he should permit the evacuation of prisoners. He provided them with a radio to call in transport!

"After that SAARF missions were inserted more conventionally, without behind the lines parachute jumps, and then the war over.

"The unit was for a time involved in the interrogation of German troops and the hunt for war criminals but it was disbanded eight weeks after VE Day.”

Captain Scott’s relatives were unaware of the treasure they had discovered when they came across the wings in a drawer as they were clearing his London flat after his death at the age of 89 back in 2008.

The collection has spent the last sixteen years in an attic in North Duffield.

The family got a shock when they offered a number of surplus items on EBay after a recent attic clearout.

They received one bid of a £1,000 for the wings - which was the point at which they decided they needed advice.

The two SAARF wings go under the hammer in separate lots in Thursday’s Militaria, Medals, Weapons & Sporting Guns Sale at David Duggleby’s Vine Street Saleroom in Scarborough.

The auction starts at 11am and the catalogue is available at www.davidduggleby.com.