WWII Veteran Alec Borrie, Who Served Under Blair Mayne in 1 SAS, Passed Away

Alec Borrie, a soldier of World War Two and a pioneer of the SAS has passed away at the age of 98. Let’s see how did Alec die and his cause of death in detail.

How did Alec Borrie die?

Alec Borrie, a WWII Veteran passed away at the age of 98. War Years Remembered posted this sad news on social media saying,

It is with great sadness that we have to report the loss of another veteran Alec Borrie, who served under Blair Mayne in 1 SAS during the Second World War.

The world will be a darker place without him, our thoughts & prayers are with his family and friends at this very sad time.

Alec was very active over the years in attending events remembering his fallen comrades and commemorating the Second World War.

He was just 19 when he was dropped into France during the Invasion of Normandy and at one stage he spent two months behind enemy lines helping the resistance.

Alec wasn’t too keen on standing up and looking but it tells you how fearless and normal that sort of behavior was to Blair… “We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

Always a little further: it may be Beyond that last blue mountain barred with Snow Across that angry or that glimmering sea” Stand down Alec. Your duties done. Rest easy and Thank you for your continued service…

He was a brave person and was remembered for his service in WWII.

Who was Alec Borrie?

Lance Corporal Borrie, who was born in London’s Soho Square in 1924, was producing bomb boxes for Vickers when he enlisted in the British Army in 1942.

Initially enlisting in the Gordon Highlanders, he then switched to the Highland Light Infantry and was assigned to the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland.

He described how he enlisted for the Special Air Service because he “wanted to get off the Orkney Islands,” which were “like the Arctic,” in an interview with History of War Magazine. 

He joined the SAS in 1944 after a successful interview with Paddy Mayne and left his Highland Light Infantry battalion. After D-Day, he witnessed combat behind enemy lines in France, Belgium, and Germany.

One of the group’s final surviving founding members has related stories of heroic exploits behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France.

Alec Borrie was one of the people who took place in the confrontations with the German troops and the Gestapo during World War II. As a 19-year-old soldier, he was recruited by famed SAS leader Lieutenant Colonel Paddy Mayne for the elite commando team.

A noticeboard posting asking for recruits for a commando parachute unit was answered by Alec and a few friends who were stationed at the time in the Orkney Islands.

In an interview with Paddy Mayne he was asked “How do you feel about killing people,” in my people. He stated, ‘I think it will be OK’… All three of us were in.”

The Special Air Service was established in July 1941. Its first parachute mission, in North Africa, that year, was a tragedy, with 22 soldiers – one-third of the squad – killed or captured. Its following mission, however, in which 60 German aircraft were shot down at Libyan airfields, was successful.

He was one of the 600 SAS commandos Winston Churchill ordered in 1944 to “cause a nuisance” for the Germans soon after the D-Day landings.

Alec Borrie cause of death:

Lance Corporal Alec Borrie died of pneumonia earlier this month at his home in Dagenham, East London. He had been bedridden for several months after recuperating from coronavirus.

With the death of Lance Corporal Borrie, Mike Sadler, 102, is the only surviving member of the original SAS, which was founded in 1941 by Lieutenant-Colonel David Stirling.

Lance Corporal Borrie was interviewed by historian Damien Lewis just a few weeks prior to his passing, and in a heartfelt homage to him, remarked that he was the “bravest of the brave”—a reference to a moving line in a poem by Irishman James Clarence Mangan.

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