Mike Sadler, who has died aged 103, won both the military medal and the military cross as an honorary “founding member” of the wartime SAS before going on to a long career in the British secret intelligence service MI6. He was the last original member of the SAS, whose exploits were dramatised in the BBC series SAS: Rogue Heroes (2022), based on the 2016 book of the same name by Ben Macintyre.
When the second world war broke out, Sadler was working on a tobacco farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He joined the Rhodesian army and was promoted rapidly to sergeant, but established an early willingness to question the wisdom of his officers’ orders.
