page_title: Lofty Large
section_title: Special Air Service
hierarchical_section_title: Lofty Large / Army career / Special Air Service
caption_attribution_description: English: Group photograph of men of 22 Special Air Service Regiment in Malaya.
context_page_description: Donald "Lofty" Large was a British soldier and author.
  Having joined the Army as a boy, Large fought in the Korean War and was wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Imjin. He spent two years in a prisoner-of-war camp, where his injuries went untreated and he lost more than a third of his body weight. After his release and rehabilitation, he joined the Special Air Service and went on to serve in various conflicts around the world, hunting communist guerrillas in Malaya, suppressing rebellions in Oman and Aden, and conducting deniable cross-border reconnaissance and raids during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.
  An imposing figure – he was almost 6 feet 6 inches tall – he was given the nickname "Lofty" after joining the Army.
  After his retirement, Large wrote two books about his Army career, preceding such authors as Andy McNab and Chris Ryan. Andy McNab has said that Large and his books were "instrumental in setting the template for future members of the [SAS] Regiment".
context_section_description: In 1957, wanting to escape the "stupidities of drill" and the "bullshit" of the regular Army, Large volunteered for the SAS; however, while riding home from the Brecon Beacons within hours of successfully completing the notoriously tough selection course, he crashed his motorbike, and, having injured his ankle, he had to repeat selection – this time with one boot two sizes larger than the other to accommodate the bandages and swelling. He went on to serve with 22 SAS in Malaya, Oman, Borneo and Aden.
  Large's first operation with the SAS was in Malaya, hunting the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA) guerrillas engaged in the Malayan Emergency uprising. By the time of Large's involvement there was little communist activity and, despite months of jungle patrols and encounters with leeches, scorpions, civet cats and tigers, he never had any contact with MRLA guerrillas.
  While suppressing a rebellion in Oman in 1958, Large infamously lost his temper with a recalcitrant donkey. Recalling the incident in a 2003 interview, he said:
  
  All the donkey handler did was laugh. Just as I turned round, the donkey's face was right by me and it shook its head and I stuck a punch in among it somewhere, and the donkey went down like it was shot ... much to my amazement. But not to as much amazement as the donkey handler's –  I've never seen a bloke sober up so quick. It was a hole in one: the donkey struggled to its feet and looked really willing to go up the hill and the donkey handler lost his laugh.
  Several weeks later, in January 1959, Large was part of the "A" and "D" Squadron assault on the Jebel Akhdar. This entailed a 2,500-metre (8,200 ft) overnight ascent of the south side of the jebel, with each soldier carrying up to 120 pounds (54 kg) of kit. Having completed the ascent the SAS were able to surprise and defeat the rebels, who had previously held the plateau as a virtually impregnable stronghold.
  During the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation in Borneo, Large took part in Operation Claret. As the leader of a four-man SAS patrol, he spent up to two weeks at a time hidden in the jungle on deniable incursions into Indonesia, performing reconnaissance or ambushing Indonesian forces.
  While hidden on the banks of the Sungei Koemba River during one of these incursions, Large and his patrol had the opportunity to assassinate Colonel Leonardus Moerdani, the commander of the Indonesian special forces in the area (and later Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces and subsequently Indonesia's Minister of Defence and Security), who was passing by on a river boat. However, at the last moment Large spotted a woman on the boat. He later described the incident:
  There could have been other women and there could have been children on the boat. And we don't do that sort of target, so ... it went. And it was in fact the very man we'd been looking for for three months: Colonel Moerdani of the Indonesian paracommando unit, and he was on the end of my rifle and I let him go – but ... you can't blat women and kids.
  For his service in Borneo, he was mentioned in despatches.
  Parachuting was an important part of SAS training and operations, but it was not an experience that Large enjoyed: He suffered from a fear of heights and his considerable bulk meant that he descended far too quickly to have any chance of a comfortable landing. Despite this, he eventually qualified as a parachute instructor, although the footnote on his course report read, "not suited to parachuting – either in size or inclination."
  In his memoirs Large recalls that the last shots he fired on active duty were warning shots. Fired at long range at the ground a few feet in front of a local woman (it is unclear where the incident took place), they were intended to dissuade her from heading into "certain danger". Despite firing increasingly close to the woman's feet, she continued forward, moving out of sight, only to reappear moments later leading the previously unseen bull which she had been intent on retrieving – "What a player! God help any poor son-in-law she might have."
  Large
caption: November 1957 photograph of a group of 22 SAS troops in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency
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