David Stirling, experienced outdoorsman and an all-round free-booting kind of guy, was nevertheless instrumental in the successful creation of the SAS for more reasons than his abilities as a soldier. Stirling was highly connected through family, through school and through connections of his father's. It is a well documented fact that Randolph Churchill, the son of then prime minister Winston Churchill, accompanied the fledgling SAS on a raid on the Libyan port of Benghazi.
The necessity of Stirling's high-level connections can also be traced in the history of the SAS after his imprisonment in Colditz, when the SAS was lead first by his brother Bill and then by brigadier Maclean, neither of whom managed to get the brigade into the type of strategic mission it was meant for.