Lofty Large Donald " Lofty " Large ( 27 September 1930 – 22 October 2006 ) 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 ( SAS ) 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 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 " . Early life . Large was born in Oxfordshire , the first child of Joseph Large and his wife Emily ( née Pratley ) . His sister , Janet , was nine years his junior . In 1939 , the family moved to a cottage outside the village of Guiting Power in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds . As a child his father taught him how to shoot game ; he later said of this experience , " little did I realise I would spend a lot of time , many years later [ in the SAS ] , being trained in exactly that type of instinctive shooting " . Large would later dedicate his first book to " the best parents a man could ask for " . Growing up during the Second World War , and having watched British and American soldiers on field exercises in the Cotswold Hills , Large said that he had always wanted to be a soldier . He also joined the Army Cadet Force . Army career . Large joined the British Army as a " band boy " at the age of 15 . Unable to join his county regiment ( the Gloucestershire Regiment ) because of a lack of vacancies , he instead joined the Wiltshire Regiment , with whom he served for five years in England , Germany and Hong Kong . During this time he was given the nickname " Lofty " , having reached his adult height of 6 feet inches ( 1 . 975m ) . In 1951 , by requesting a transfer to the Gloucestershire Regiment , Large volunteered to fight in the Korean War . After a combat training course in Japan , he was deployed to the front line . Korean War . In March 1951 , along with half a dozen other newly badged Glosters , Large was sent to B Company ' s position in the low hills above the Imjin River . The Glosters , as part of the 29th Brigade , were defending routes through the valley that could potentially be used by the Chinese in a southbound offensive towards Seoul . On 22 April 1951 , they engaged with Chinese troops in the Battle of Imjin . By the morning of 24 April , B Company had fought off seven assaults before they were able to rejoin the remainder of their battalion on what became known as Gloster Hill . By this time the battalion was vastly outnumbered , low on ammunition and cut off from United Nations lines . Large himself was shot in the left shoulder and , along with most of the remaining Glosters , was forced to surrender . After a 10 - day forced march north , and having received only basic medical attention , Large arrived at a prison camp outside Chongsung , about 50 miles north east of Sinuiju . He spent two years in the camp and celebrated his 21st birthday there . Throughout his incarceration he had two bullets and at least 18 pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body . To help Large cope with the chronic pain of his untreated injuries , an American POW introduced him to marijuana , which grew wild in the area . Although he found it to be a highly effective – and enjoyable – painkiller , he was somewhat alarmed by its psychoactive effects and subsequently tried to limit his use of the drug . Like many of his fellow prisoners , Large also suffered from beri - beri and dysentery . In March 1953 , a Chinese doctor operated on Large and removed a tracer round from his ribs as a preliminary to his being released as part of an exchange of wounded prisoners . Having weighed in March 1951 , he had dropped to by the time of his release . He also still had very limited movement in his atrophied and wasted left arm and was later told that if he had been treated by a British doctor at the time of his injury his arm would probably have been amputated . Large was one of a batch of 22 exchanged British POWs whose release and subsequent return to Britain became front - page news : " The Guardian " newspaper reported that the group had been unaware of the death of King George VI ( which had occurred over a year earlier ) , but were now looking forward to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II . Interviewed after his release , Large described the war as " useless " and said that he believed the communist ' s claims that the US had engaged in germ warfare . For its defence of Gloster Hill in the Battle of Imjin , the 1st Battalion , Gloucestershire Regiment was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation . The citation is conferred on units of the armed forces of the United States and of allied nations , and was awarded to the Glosters for " exceptionally outstanding performance of duty and extraordinary heroism in action against the armed enemy . . . Every yard of ground they surrendered was covered with enemy dead , until the last gallant soldier of the fighting battalion was over - powered by the final surge of the enemy masses . " After returning to the UK , Large was offered a discharge on medical grounds , which he declined . He went on to serve briefly in the quartermaster ' s stores , as an instructor , and in the regimental police . Throughout this time he worked on regaining his fitness and rehabilitating his arm . Special Air Service . In 1957 , wanting to escape the " stupidities of drill " and the " bullshit " of the regular Army , Large volunteered for the SAS ; however , within hours of successfully completing the notoriously tough selection course , he crashed his motorbike while driving home from the Brecon Beacons , and , having injured his ankle , he had to repeat selection – this time with one boot two sizes larger than the other in order 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 overnight ascent of the south side of the jebel , with each soldier carrying up to 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 spent the final years of his 27 - year Army career as an instructor with 23 SAS Regiment ( one of the SAS ' s two reserve regiments ) , eventually leaving the Army in 1973 as a squadron sergeant major and warrant officer class 2 . Legacy . In his book " SAS Heroes : Remarkable Soldiers , Extraordinary Men " , former SAS soldier Pete Scholey describes Large as " simply the finest soldier [ I ] had ever met . . . an inspiration to those around him . . . with an admirable sense of fair play " . Andy McNab , who joined the SAS 11 years after Large ' s departure , has written about Large ' s enduring impact on the Regiment : Being like Lofty was something I aspired to without realising it . When I joined the Regiment I was told that the best way to survive those first years in the Sabre squadron was to pick out someone who you thought you would like to be . Shut up , watch and listen . For me there were a number of the ' old and bold ' who fitted that requirement . It wasn ' t until later in my service that I learned that most of them , as newly ' badged ' members to a squadron , had picked Lofty . A memorial bench was donated to the Allied Special Forces Memorial Grove at the National Memorial Arboretum by a group of Large ' s former SAS colleagues . The inscription reads : < br > Personal life . Before leaving for Hong Kong with the Wiltshire Regiment in 1951 , Large had met Ann , a nanny at the Regiment ' s depot in Devizes . She wrote to him five times a week during his captivity in Chongsung , although only about 90 of these letters were actually delivered to Large . They eventually married in 1955 and afterwards lived in an Army rental property on the top floor of a farmhouse in Longford , on the outskirts of Gloucester . When Large volunteered for the SAS in 1957 it was not a unit that was well known outside of military circles – a fact that Large took advantage of by initially telling his wife that the Regiment ' s job was to air drop supplies to troops in the jungle . In 1960 the couple moved with the Regiment to Hereford , where they later had two children , Andy and Donna . Later years . After leaving the Army Large worked in the UK and the Middle East . Having earned a heavy goods vehicle driving licence and a qualified testing officer ' s certificate during his time in the Army , he spent the last 14 years of his working life as a driving instructor . He wrote two books about his time in the Army : " One Man ' s SAS " and " One Man ' s War in Korea " , and was one of the first non - commissioned officer s ( NCOs ) to write about the SAS , preceding such soldiers - turned - authors as Andy McNab and Chris Ryan . A third book , " Soldier Against the Odds : From Korean War to SAS " , consisted of revised versions of his first two books together with some additional material . Andy McNab has said that " [ Large ' s first two books ] were recommended reading for Regiment candidates . He was instrumental in setting the template for future members of the Regiment . " In his seventies , Large , along with Pete Scholey , returned to the Borneo jungle as part of a 2003 Channel 4 documentary about the history of the SAS , taking the camera crew to the exact spot on the bank of the Sungei Koemba River where his patrol had successfully ambushed an Indonesian Army river boat in 1965 . Having been ill with leukaemia for three years , Large died aged 76 at St Michael ' s Hospice , Hereford . His funeral was held on 1 November 2006 at St Martin ' s Church ( which has a long association with the SAS ) .