Belsen was a pretty village ...nothing suggested the SAS were on the verge of hell

Eighty years ago today, Britain’s original special forces liberated the notorious Nazi concentration camp and saved tens of thousands of inmates

- Damien Lewis

BY the spring of 1945, the war in Europe was heading towards its bloody and violent close as Allied forces battled deep into Nazi Germany. At the vanguard of the advance were the battle-hardened soldiers of Britain's elite regiment, the Special Air Service.

Formed in the deserts of North Africa in July 1941 by David Stirling and Blair "Paddy" Mayne, the SAS had also fought across Italy and Nazi-occupied France with great distinction. But on April 8, 1945, the war's bloody endgame began as the Allies bludgeoned their way into Germany.

There, the SAS-moving at the spearhead - could no longer rely on the local population to assist them with shelter, food, intelligence and to fight alongside them.

In contrast to their operations behind the lines in France, no longer were they liberating a country from a hated force of occupation. Once they thrust into the Third Reich they were the invaders.

As the SAS advanced in their opentopped Willys Jeeps bristling with machineguns, their Canadian comrades, who were sat atop their massive Sherman tanks, coined the phrase "Our little friends in their mechanised mess tins" to describe them.

What was to happen in the coming days would cause shockwaves around the world.

The fighting in Germany was suicidal, for Hitler had ordered the invaders repelled at all costs. But there was another more sinister reason why the Nazis were battling so hard. They were hiding a terrible secret one that would cause untold revulsion around the world.

It was as the SAS approached the town of Celle, 155 miles inside Germany, that the darkness was about to descend. A series of partially blown bridges lay ahead, and only the SAS with their nimble jeeps could make it through.