SBS Founder

Dorset Freemason, Major Stuart Syrad, who has died in August aged 88, won the MC at Suez, piloted a hovercraft on the Amazon and commanded what is known today as the Special Boat Service. In 1956, 23-year-old Lieutenant Syrad was second-in-command of X troop, 45 Commando, when the Suez Crisis broke out and Britain launched Operation Musketeer, part of the AngloFrench landings to recover the Canal from nationalisation by Egypt.

At dawn on November 6 1956, Syrad and his troop were landed by Sycamore helicopter next to the de Lesseps statue in Port Said, the first largescale helicopter landing in history. But B troop and the headquarters troop were badly mauled in a blue-on-blue air strike, requiring hurried battlefield reorganisation. Syrad immediately climbed on to the roof, crawled along a narrow parapet and jumped on to the balcony. Ignoring sniper and machine-gun fire attracted by his movements, he carried the wounded man to safety. Then, in a series of well-planned section attacks, he finished the task of clearing the building. Throughout, Syrad displayed outstanding courage, fearlessness and aggression, and his bearing contributed largely to the overall success of the operation. His brigadier, in endorsing the citation for Syrad’s Military Cross, wrote: “At all times during the battle he behaved with the utmost gallantry, and his example was an inspiration to his men.” Bro. Stuart Lawrence Syrad was born on August 7 1933 in Twickenham, the third of four brothers, and educated at Hampton Grammar School, where he was boxing captain and a sea scout. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Syrad commanded various Special Boat Sections in Malta and Singapore, conducted covert beach surveys around the world, participated in operations during the Indonesian Confrontation and a threatened Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1964, and helped to establish the SBS in Bahrain and Gibraltar. In 1965 Syrad’s career took an unexpected turn when he joined the Interservice Hovercraft Trials Unit, training as a pilot on the prototype SR.N1 hovercraft. Later he trialled the SR.N5 as a potential troop carrier on the rivers of Borneo during the Indonesian Confrontation, and in Thailand demonstrated its capability to US forces who were fighting in Vietnam. At Poole, between 1968 and 1972 Syrad commanded the Special Boat Company, as it was then known. In May 1972 it came into prominence when Syrad put together a team to parachute into the Atlantic Ocean after a bomb threat on board RMS Queen Elizabeth. Syrad was appointed OBE in 1973; the Special Boat Company became the Special Boat Squadron in 1974 and the Special Boat Service in 1987. His last appointment was as second-incommand of 41 Commando Group in Malta, before retiring in 1979 having attained the rank of major (equivalent of lieutenantcolonel in the Army).

The charitable function of the Masons was one of the important elements in his life. He was almoner of Old Hamptonians Lodge for 17 years, a member of Purbeck Lodge No.4355 (originally a lodge for tankies RTR), and a frequent guest and diner among the many Royal Marine and military masons at the Amphibious Lodge No.9050, where he helped to raise and distribute charitable funds.