SAS officer John Tonkin is captured by the Germans

Lost in translation 😬 #SASRogueHeroes #SAS #WorldWarTwo #BBCDrama

SAS Rogue Heroes is the adrenaline-fuelled origins of the fearless, reckless Special Forces unit, its legend forged among the mayhem of World War Two. By Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.

[ATGaming-bqvq]

The German officer was just happy the enemy had his paperwork in order...

[JamesEhler]

Tonkin escaped from German soldiers after he was captured, he dined with a German general the night before his execution who advised him to escape before he was executed. The Major took this advice, and walked half the length of Italy in order to rejoin the SAS.

[gershonperry]

The SAS members were interviewed in 1987 and I watched them all. Great soldiers.

[kolepate]

At first I was confused because he seemed to give him an order. Then I realized he was reciting the order he was given.

[davidca]

Most German officers treated surrender respectfully, especially Luftwaffe. SS on the other hand were completely a gamble.

[ThorstenWieking]

Seems the BBC got a german actor for the german role. Good. In todays international TV market getting a native speaker shouldn’t be much of a problem.

[flankspeed]

Tonkin was extraordinarily lucky to get away. Many ordinary Wermacht soldiers despised this order.
By 1944 France, it was strictly enforced, and many SAS would not be so lucky.
Heroes all.

[catherton]

Hitler gave orders that all commandos were not to be taken prisoner, as quoted in the clip.

[TripsandFeasts]

At a certain level, there's a mutual respect.

[Mtjakaramazov]

If there was any branch of the German army you wanted to surrender to, it was probably the Luftwaffe. They had relative autonomy thanks to Göring, and a vestige of morality thanks to their traditions.

[helljumper]

The real Tonkin was captured, taken to a prison camp and then asked to dine with the commander of a german parachute unit. On his way back he was told he was being handed over to the german "special police". He then rolled out of the truck the next day and ran off.

[dslaphead]

Looks like a luftwaffe officer, less partial to the more extreme orders given to them, usually just ignored them.

[davidnunan]

One of my distant grand uncles, (the nephew of my great grandmother) was a senior officer in Norway in early 1944 after getting orders to lay waste to everything in their retreat he decided to do training excercises with Norwegian officers consisting of crosscountry skiing for long periods. After a few weeks of training, while sitting around a camp fire one night, he told his offficers that all this training was for an attempt at deserting the army and the German war effort by skiing over to freedom in Sweden. They had a 18 hour head start before the alarm was raised but they succeeded in getting across the border to Sweden. He told me years later that he had made good friends with the Norwegian people and refused to carry out Hitlers demand to destroy Norwegian assets so the enemy would have nothing worth occupying. So in the end he had a conscience. Incidentally the Germans broadcast his escape and announced that he had been captured and imprisoned but of course that was not true. His wife and children assumed he was executed and it was eighteen months before they got the good news and another few months before he saw his family again.

[OtisRLeePr]

My great grandfather was a commando, and had ended up being a PoW for three years

[herbertx]

According to some old guys I flew cessnas with in the 1990s, if you were captured, you really wanted to be captured by the luftwaffe.

[billvandorn]

Despite being enemies, it was not uncommon to have a mutual respect for each other...

[commanderkeen]

My grandfather was in the SAS during WWII. In 1944 in France he accidentally tripped over and fired off a flare which gave away the position of his entire company. That's how he won the Iron Cross

[YTD-ky]

The cell door was left open and all eyes were turned

[Steve-wmw]

Got to hand it to hugo boss he put together some outstanding German uniforms

[rambo]

They're both soldiers so they have mutual respect.