60 Facts About Roy Farran

Roy Farran was highly decorated for his exploits with the Special Air Service during the Second World War.

Roy Farran served as a cabinet minister in the government of Premier Peter Lougheed during that period.

Roy Farran was born on 2 January 1921, either in Purley, Surrey, or in Shimla, India, to a family of Irish Roman Catholics.

Roy Farran's father was a Warrant Officer in the Royal Air Force.

Roy Farran was educated in India at the Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, and then at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Roy Farran was posted on attachment to the 3rd The King's Own Hussars, which was serving in the North African Campaign at the time, and joined the regiment just in time for the beginning of Operation Compass.

Roy Farran was attached to the regiment's 'C' Squadron, which was located several miles west of Canea when the Germans began their invasion of Crete on 20 May 1941.

Roy Farran was ordered to take a troop of tanks and block a road that led from the village of Galatas, and shortly afterwards sighted and killed a number of German troops escorting a group of 40 captured hospital patients.

Roy Farran later wrote that the incident occurred in the heat of the moment.

German forces were eventually able to break through the British and Commonwealth positions around Galatas, and Roy Farran was part of a counter-attack in an attempt to retake the village.

Roy Farran protested about the unsuitability of his light tanks for the task but was told that no heavy tanks were left.

Roy Farran made several unsuccessful attempts to escape, and finally succeeded when a sentry became distracted; Farran was able to crawl under the wire and make his way unseen to a nearby ditch.

The boat ran out of fuel after two days, and Roy Farran created an ad hoc sail from blankets; their water supplies ran out shortly after, and Roy Farran was forced to knock out one man who became agitated as a result.

Roy Farran was awarded a Bar to his Military Cross as a result of leading the Greeks and prisoners to freedom.

In January 1942, Roy Farran was appointed as the Aide-de-camp for Major General John "Jock" Campbell, the newly promoted commander of the 7th Armoured Division and recipient of the Victoria Cross.

Roy Farran was evacuated to Britain, but pulled a number of strings until he was able to convince a medical board in February 1943 to pass him as capable for combat; he was transferred to three separate units before joining a group of new recruits heading for the Middle East to join the 3rd Hussars.

Roy Farran commanded it during Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, and despite suffering from malaria led the squadron in an assault against a lighthouse at Cape Passero which was believed to hold a machine gun position.

Roy Farran led a number of reconnaissance and sabotage patrols behind enemy lines.

Roy Farran's jeeps were to advance some 200 miles behind German lines and link up with 50 SAS troopers who had previously established a base camp near Chatillon, to the north of the city of Dijon.

Under the command of Captain Grant-Hibbert, the troopers had spent the three weeks prior to Roy Farran's arrival ambushing German convoys and blowing up a stretch of railway between Dijon and Langres.

Now left with only seven of his original jeeps, Roy Farran pressed on, the remainder of the troopers strafing a passing goods train, puncturing the boiler on its engine and forcing it to come to a halt.

Roy Farran took command of the combined group, which consisted of a composite squadron of 60 troopers, 10 jeeps and a civilian truck, and ordered it to move to another base to avoid further German scrutiny.

The squadron had only been recently formed and was composed of volunteers from the British 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions; Roy Farran believed it to be well-trained and highly disciplined.

Roy Farran focused his planning on the three departments of what is Emilia Romagna: Parma, Reggio Emilia, and Modena.

Roy Farran wanted to command the operation, known as Tombola, himself, but was forbidden by staff officers at 15th Army Group's headquarters.

Roy Farran did get permission to accompany the transport aircraft the SAS troopers used to parachute into the area.

Roy Farran ignored the injunction and continued towards the target, on the grounds that he might lose all credibility with the partisans if their first operation was cancelled.

Roy Farran therefore decided to target German troops on and around the road with the 75-mm howitzer, and then send in the jeeps after they had been bombarded.

The howitzer was used to bombard the main square of the town, and Roy Farran later discovered that the local German and Italian Fascist garrison believed the attack to be coming from the vanguard of an American armoured division.

When he returned to Florence and reported to Army Group Headquarters, Roy Farran was told why the Headquarters had wanted to delay the raid on the Corps Headquarters; a major attack by 15th Army Group against that Corps had been scheduled to take place 10 days after the raid, and it was feared that Roy Farran's assault on the headquarters would alert the Germans to the attack.

The attack had been cancelled, and as a result of this Roy Farran believed that he would be court-martialled for disobeying orders.

Roy Farran was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1946, and then returned to the 3rd Hussars where he became the regiment's second-in-command.

Roy Farran served with the regiment in Syria for a time, as well as British Mandate Palestine.

Shortly after this, Roy Farran transferred back to Britain to serve as an instructor at Sandhurst, but then volunteered to be seconded to the Palestine Police Force, which maintained order in the Mandate.

When Roy Farran arrived in Palestine, the British authorities were in the midst of attempting to suppress Jewish paramilitary organizations operating in the Mandate.

Roy Farran did not have any fluent Hebrew speakers, but didn't liaise with the Criminal Investigation Department out of security concerns, and his unit lacked accurate intelligence on insurgents.

Suspicions of Roy Farran's involvement were first raised after a grey trilby hat, bearing the name Roy Farran or Farkan, was found near the street corner where a struggling Rubowitz was seen being pushed into a car.

Roy Farran claimed he was being framed and fled to Syria.

The Syrians, who were sympathetic to Roy Farran, offered him political asylum, hoping he would train their troops for special operations against the Zionists.

However, when, contrary to Fergusson's assurances, he was arrested, Roy Farran escaped to Jordan, finally returning when he heard of reprisals being planned against British officers.

Roy Farran was brought to trial in a British military court in Jerusalem.

Roy Farran was court martialled on a charge of murdering Alexander Rubowitz.

Colonel Fergusson, to whom Roy Farran was said to have confessed his guilt, refused to testify, on the grounds that he might incriminate himself.

The package arrived almost one year to the day after Alexander Rubowitz had disappeared, but Roy Farran was away and the explosion killed Francis Rex Farran, his younger brother.

Roy Farran briefly went to Africa before returning to the United Kingdom to run in the 1950 United Kingdom general election in the constituency of Dudley where he ran as the candidate for the Conservative Party.

Roy Farran lost to incumbent Labour Member of Parliament George Wigg, finishing second out of the three candidates.

Roy Farran began working for the Calgary Herald, and later became owner and publisher of his own newspaper, the North Hill News.

Roy Farran launched his political career in Canada in 1961, running for a seat on the Calgary City Council.

Roy Farran's campaign was coordinated by a young RCAF officer, Lynn Garrison, and would serve his first stint on Council until October 1963.

In June 1963, while he was still serving on Calgary City Council, Roy Farran ran for a seat to the Alberta Legislature in the 1963 Alberta general election.

Roy Farran ran as an Independent candidate in the provincial electoral district of Calgary Queen's Park and finished in third place out of six candidates, losing to Social Credit incumbent Member of the Legislative Assembly Lee Leavitt.

Roy Farran returned for his second stint on Calgary City Council in 1964 and served until 1971 when he was elected to provincial office.

Roy Farran ran for a seat to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1971 Alberta general election.

Roy Farran won the new electoral district of Calgary-North Hill, defeating Social Credit incumbent Robert Simpson and future MLA Barry Pashak, as well as an Independent candidate in a hotly contested race to pick up the district for the Progressive Conservatives.

Roy Farran would run for re-election in the 1975 Alberta general election with ministerial advantage.

Roy Farran faced Simpson for the second time, and a further three candidates.

Roy Farran held that position until he retired from provincial politics at the dissolution of the legislature in 1979.

Roy Farran became a visiting professor at the University of Alberta and later founded a non-profit organization called French Vosges, providing Franco-Canadian student exchanges.

Roy Farran was awarded the Legion d'honneur in 1994 for his work in founding the organization.

Roy Farran battled against a throat cancer which resulted in having his larynx surgically removed.