The SAS’s parachuting padre’: How chaplain landed in Nazi-occupied France WITHOUT a gun – and then ministered to Britain’s toughest troops amidst fire fights and terror

When Fraser McLuskey parachuted into Nazi-occupied France with the SAS in 1944, there was no reason to think he did not belong on the mission.

At 6ft 2in and imposing with it, the Scot had been, just like his commanding officer and friend Paddy Mayne, a great rugby player. 

But, unlike the legendary Mayne and his troops, who had formed deserved reputations as hardened soldiers, McLuskey was not there to kill but to preach. 

For the Army Chaplain was the churchman who went to war not with a gun but with a wicker basket containing a wooden cross, prayer books and an altar cloth.

Having survived that initial jump on June 21, 1944 – two weeks after D-Day – McLuskey would spend months ministering to his dispersed ‘flock’ amidst the constant threat of being killed or captured.

He would then join the SAS as they pushed into an almost defeated Germany and later wrote of the ‘tragic’ scenes of death and devastation he encountered.

Now, McLuskey’s son Andrew, 77, has told MailOnline of his pride for his ‘humble’ father, who after the war rose to the most senior position in the Church of Scotland and became a friend of the Queen Mother.

He remembers his ‘excellent’ dad leaving to officiate at Mayne’s funeral service in 1955 after his death aged just 40 in a car crash.

When Fraser McLuskey parachuted into Nazi-occupied France with the SAS in 1944, there was no reason to think he did not belong on the mission. At 6ft 2in and imposing with it, the Scot had been, just like his commanding officer and friend Paddy Mayne, a great rugby player

And he recalls how he and his older brother Kenneth learned of their father’s wartime exploits not through brags from him but by a process of ‘osmosis’ – and through reading his memoir.

‘Although he didn’t pontificate about his past, it sort of came through, partly because of things he said.

‘He also gave us copies of Parachute Padre and was often going off to reunions. Friends from the Regiment would also ring up from time to time.

‘Dad was not arrogant, he was very humble. By a process of osmosis as youngsters and teenagers we gathered his story.’

Historian Damien Lewis, who wrote about McLuskey’s wartime role in his most recent book, SAS Daggers Drawn, told MailOnline: ‘The padre epitomised the drive to fight and save. You could argue he was the bravest of the brave. 

‘You could argue he travelled further in France in 1944 than anyone else because he was going to this widely dispersed flock in a Jeep. 

‘He had no weapon, just one bodyguard and driver. He was an extraordinary individual.

‘Had he actually deployed as a combat trooper, I’m sure he would have been a fearsome combatant. In a sense, thank God he did.’

Having survived that initial jump on June 21, 1944 – two weeks after D-Day – McLuskey would spend months ministering to his dispersed ‘flock’ amidst the constant threat of being killed or captured. Above: McLuskey seen far left in front of a makeshift Communion table as he leads an impromptu church service in occupied France 

McLuskey acted as a ‘touchstone’ for the men of SAS by providing ‘critical’ pastoral care in their time of need, Mr Lewis added.

He recounted in his book how, when the SAS were trying to make their way through gravely dangerous territory in Germany, Mayne sent for McLuskey, writing in a message: ‘Can you send PADRE to us…’

‘That’s how much he was valued. It was a game changer,’ Mr Lewis said. 

McLuskey had survived a difficult early life, with his father’s laundry business going bust in the 1930s. 

The family had to move into tenement flats in Edinburgh’s South side and McLuskey had to ‘pull himself up by his bootstraps’, his son said.

But, by the outbreak of war, he was serving as the chaplain at Glasgow University. 

Yet he could not ignore the urge to join up and do his bit. Having decided to do exactly that, he wanted to join a Scottish regiment but was diverted by a letter inviting him to do parachute training.

Being young and fit, he was accepted and was sent to do training that first involved jumping from a height in a hangar, before dropping from a balloon and then finally a plane. 

After getting his wings, he was told to report to a mysterious organisation he had not heard of. 

McLuskey ween with comrades including Paddy Mayne (centre) as they have a break in occupied France

It was the Special Air Service, which had been formed by David Stirling just two years earlier. 

McLuskey was sent to where 1st SAS were quartered, in East Ayrshire in Scotland.

He recounted his experiences in his 1993 book, The Cloud and the Fire: His Path for Me.

‘Our Commanding Officer, Lt. Colonel Blair Mayne, DSO and Bar, was already a legend.

‘As a padre come so very late to the scene of active service, how could I hope to be one of them? 

‘In fact, from the moment I arrived I felt that I was – not by any right of my own but simply because both officers and men welcomed me as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do and offered me their friendship and their trust.’

McLuskey was the new chaplain of 1st SAS. Four squadrons from the regiment were going to be dropped behind enemy lines after the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.

Just over two weeks after D-Day, A Squadron was flown to Nievre in central France.

McLuskey with his wife Irene and their sons Kenneth (left) and Andrew in 1953

McLuskey, who had volunteered to join the mission, was allowed to take the basket containing the tools of his trade. 

As well as the prayer books, cross and alter cloth, there were hymn books and copies of the New Testament.

McLuskey later wrote: ‘I added a few books for light and general reading, should opportunity be given. 

‘My airborne Communion set found a place in the kit-bag along with a lightweight all-weather sleeping back, rations for fourteen days, maps, and as much spare clothing as could be crammed in.’ 

McLuskey then dropped from the plane with 15 soldiers.

But things started to go wrong from the off. He landed ‘well beyond the drop zone’, he later said, in a ‘dense forest’.

With his parachute caught in a tree, McLuskey had to cut himself free. He landed head-first, but thankfully did not have any lasting injuries.

Andrew, who lives in Ashford, Middlesex, said: ‘He might well have broken his neck or become injured. That would have been difficult.

Andrew (right) with his older brother Kenneth. The pair lost their mother in their teens

‘God was with him. He landed on a mossy bank, he was sick but he did wake up. 

‘So I think God’s hand was in that. It was quite an amazing thing.’

After linking up with the rest of his party, McLuskey and the SAS troops met up with members of the French Resistance.

Days later, McLuskey oversaw the 30-strong group’s first Sunday service using a makeshift communion table.

He draped the altar cloth over his hamper and affixed the cross to it. 

The chaplain later wrote: ‘We were engaged in a task on which we believed we could ask His blessing. We sought no selfish advantage for ourselves or our allies.

‘Our aim was the liberation of our fellow men from a hideous tyranny and the preservation of those freedoms upon which any life worth the same must depend.’

Although McLuskey was not involved in fighting and was protected from home by his bodyguard, Harry Wilson, he was there in the immediate aftermath of skirmishes. 

McLuskey in later life with members of the SAS

On one occasion, he helped treat Sergeant-Major Reg Seekings after he was hit in the head.

McLuskey wrote: ‘I cannot forget the first and last surgical operation at which I assisted, however inexpertly.

‘The bullet lodged deeply at the base of the skull and could not be removed.’ 

But it was not just physical wounds he tended to.   

‘He was the individual who alerted people like Paddy Mayne to the terrible mental cost the men were paying,’ Mr Lewis said.

‘In some ways I think that helped him process his trauma. And you have to ask if his faith did. He had a higher cause that did not let the darkness seep into him.’

McLuskey spent nearly three months in France before returning home to his wife on leave.

But he was soon impatient to get back to the SAS.

McLuskey with Queen Elizabeth II when she visited St Columba’s church in London in 1984

In 1945, he was sent in his role as chaplain to be with the 2nd Army as it went through Belgium, Holland and then Germany itself. 

He told of receiving a rapturous welcome in Brussels, where he stayed with the family of a wealthy manufacturer.

But once in Germany, things took a darker turn. The ferocious battle to cross the Rhine at the end of March was over before McLuskey arrived.

‘The cattle and horses unlucky enough to be in the line of fire seemed especially grotesque. The horror of war hit us with a new force,’ McLuskey wrote. 

‘The more deeply we penetrated German soil the more tragic the conflict appeared.’

After Adolf Hitler’s suicide and Germany’s subsequent surrender, McLuskey made his way home via the Rhineland, where he went to find out the fate of his wife’s family.

Remarkably, McLuskey had met Irene, the daughter of a German pastor, when he was visiting Nazi Germany in 1938 shortly after graduating from university. 

Tragically, an Allied bomb in the final days of the war had landed on her parents’ home and killed them both.

McLuskey became good friends with SAS commander Paddy Mayne.. Above: Mayne in North Africa with dog Withers

And one of his wife’s brothers had been wounded. Thankfully, all three of her siblings did survive the war. 

McLuskey later served in Norway and was there when Kenneth was born in Edinburgh.

He and Irene had by then endured the trauma of losing their baby daughter, who died shortly before he parachuted into France.  

By the time he returned to Britain, he had been awarded the Military Cross for ‘beavery, steadiness and cheerfulness in all situations, and complete disregard for personal safety’.

The citation added that he served as an ‘inspiration for the whole squadron.’

McLuskey showed his immense capacity for empathy by taking it upon himself to visit families of SAS men who had been killed in the war. 

He later became a parish minister in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, and then in Bearsden, a suburb of Glasgow. 

Tragically, Irene passed away from breast cancer when her sons were just 14 and 12. It left McLuskey with the job of being both a single father and a minister.  

Andrew said: ‘We knew mum was ill but we didn’t know how ill. It’s not a condemnation of Dad. 

‘We didn’t know how bad things were until the night before she died. Nowadays people are much more open. 

‘By the standards of his day, Dad was. He did talk to us about mum, the funeral and things.’

In 1960, McLuskey took his sons and their golden labrador to London, when he took up a post as minister of St Columba’s in Chelsea.

The place of worship was one of two Church of Scotland congregations in London.

In 1966 he married again to a widow who had previously been divorced.

He served as Moderator of the General Assembly from 1983 to 1984. In that Church of Scotland role, he was photographed with Queen Elizabeth II when she visited St Columba in March 1984.

After he retired two years later, McLuskey returned to France to visit parts of the country where he had been deployed with the SAS.

He died aged 90 in Edinburgh in 2005. 

Andrew first worked as a history teacher before feeling the call to serve God. He had to retire early after suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis, which is better known as ME or chronic fatigue. 

When he feels able to, he still preaches at local churches and has also started a PHD on the subject of religion and science. 

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