Airborne assault was one of the great innovations of the 1930s and 1940s, adding a new 'vertical' dimension to infantry warfare. By the onset of World War II in 1939, Germany, Italy, and Russia were already advanced in their development of paratrooper units. Germany in particular demonstrated the tactical shock of paratroopers in Western Europe in 1940 and, most spectacularly, in Crete in 1941, galvanizing the UK and the United States to expand and train their own airborne forces, which they unleashed in 1943-45. The Allied paratrooper drops on D-Day (6 June 1944) and those of Operation Market Garden (17-25 September 1944) were the stuff of legend, huge in scale and ambition, but both Allied and Axis paratroopers were deployed in numerous other actions, including special forces raids. It quickly became apparent that the physical and tactical demands placed upon paratroopers required men of exceptional stamina, courage and intelligence. To create these soldiers, levels of training were unusually punishing and protracted, and those who came through to take their 'wings' were a true elite. The Paratrooper Training Pocket Manual provides an unusually detailed insight into what it took to make a military paratrooper, and how he was then utilized in actions where expected survival might be measured in a matter of days. Using material from British, US, German archives and other primary sources, many never before published, the book explains paratrooper theory, training and practice in detail. The content includes details of the physical training, instruction in static-line parachute deployment, handling the various types of parachutes and harnesses, landing on dangerous terrain, small-arms handling, airborne deployment of heavier combat equipment, landing in hostile drop zones, tactics in the first minutes of landing, radio comms, and much more. Featuring original manual diagrams and illustrations, plus new introductory text explaining the history and context of airborne warfare, The Paratrooper Training Pocket Manual provides a detailed insight into the principles and practice of this unique type of combat soldier.

During the Korean War and the Vietnam War, US Navy Special Warfare units played a variety of vital combat roles amid two of the deadliest conflicts of the Cold War. In Korea, underwater demolition teams (UDTs) surveyed beaches for amphibious operations, cleared sea mines from harbors, conducted seaborne raids against inshore targets, and served as scouts for the infiltration of Korean guerrillas and British Royal Marine Commando raids along the North Korean coast. In South Vietnam, UDTs surveyed beaches and demolished Viet Cong bunkers, supply caches, and river obstacles in the Mekong Delta. The SEALs (Sea Air Land teams) deployed entire platoons into the Mekong Delta and the Rung Sat Special Zone to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Viet Cong that included ambushes, reconnaissance, and capturing leaders and supply caches. In addition, the SEALs also played important roles in the Phoenix Program and in rescuing prisoners of war. Fully illustrated throughout, this study explores how the US Navy's specially trained naval commandos accomplished their missions in Korea and Vietnam.

As elite troops, the German Fallschirmjager (paratroopers) were regularly engaged in front line combat during the Second World War. Their famed actions such as the fighting in Scandinavia, the taking of the Belgian fortress Eden-Emal in May 1940, and the Battle for Crete just a year later, have given them the reputation of being determined, courageous and loyal soldiers. This book covers the early years of the Fallschirmstruppen (paratroop units) before the beginning of the war, until the height of their successes in 1941, after which the Fallschirmjager were more often deployed in a more 'traditional' way, even though high-risk actions (such as at Monte Cassino, the Gran Sasso Raid) allowed them to reconnect once more with their glorious past.

The inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFIC Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts to ever come out of World War 2. Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his journey, from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifice of war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and all too often die in the defence of their country. From the live-for-today rowdiness of Marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what it's really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow tells the gripping true story of an ordinary soldier fighting in extraordinary conditions. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come. 'Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who - somehow - survived' Tom Hanks

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was the paramount Allied sabotage force of the Second World War. Its job - in Churchill's words - was to "set Europe ablaze" through the use of sabotage, insurrection and assassination. One of its "shining Stars" and "legends" was the close-combat pistol instructor, Colonel Hector Grant-Taylor. Grant-Taylor taught the commandos, secret agents and irregular soldiers the art of how to kill at close quarters. He taught them how to be ruthless, lethal and covert, and yet his own life was itself a mystery worthy of a John Buchan thriller novel. Misinformation, deception, bravery, murder, and ultimately redemption, all play a part in his story. At Close Quarters finally puts to rest the myths and legends that surrounded his life, and unravels the mysterious truth behind the enigma that was Colonel Hector Grant-Taylor!

The Special Air Service was the brainchild of Scots Guards' officer Lieutenant David Stirling, serving with No 8 Commando. He advocated a specially organised, specially equipped and specially trained unit dedicated to the 'unrelenting pursuit of excellence' that could act covertly and operate behind enemy lines to gain intelligence, destroy enemy aircraft and attack their supply and reinforcement routes.

The 1st SAS Regiment was officially designated after successful raids against enemy airfields in the Middle East in 1941-1942. In May 1943 a 2nd SAS Regiment was raised in Algeria and would also serve in Sicily and Italy. SAS troopers were at the forefront of the action on D-Day, serving behind the enemy lines, assisting the French Resistance in diversionary attacks and in support of Allied armies. The SAS served with great distinction through 42 significant actions in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany until the end of the war in Europe.

This new addition to the bestselling Conway pocket-book series is compiled from wartime and post-war memorandums, manuals and documents. They include unit after-action reports and lecture notes from the centres used to train special services soldiers, gathered from the Liddell Hart Military Archive, National Archives, wartime periodicals and post-war memoirs. The book covers:

- training methods
- weapons handling
- fieldcraft
- sabotage training
- operations in North Africa and the Middle East (1941-1942), Sicily and Italy (1943) and France (1944-1945)

'Pulse-pounding' Sinclair McKay | 'Truly masterful' Damien Lewis | 'Who needs spy fiction, when fact can provide as thrilling a story as this?' Lindsey Hilsum The Spymaster of Baghdad is the gripping story of the top-secret Iraqi intelligence unit that infiltrated the Islamic State. More so than that of any foreign power, the information they gathered turned the tide against the insurgency, paving the way to the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. Against the backdrop of the most brutal conflict of recent decades, we chart the spymaster's struggle to develop the unit from scratch in challenging circumstances after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, we follow the fraught relationship of two of his agents, the al-Sudani brothers - one undercover in ISIS for sixteen long months, the other his handler - and we track a disillusioned scientist as she turns bomb-maker, threatening the lives of thousands. With unprecedented access to characters on all sides, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Margaret Coker challenges the conventional view that Western coalition forces defeated ISIS and reveals a page-turning story of unlikely heroes, unbelievable courage and good old-fashioned spycraft. 'Moving, visceral, utterly revelatory. A stunning tour de force by an author who has lived every word of it on the ground' Damien Lewis, author of Zero Six Bravo 'This compelling account of how Iraqi agents infiltrated ISIS takes us deep beneath the lurid headlines and into a sharply focused world of courage, ingenuity, terror and love' Sinclair McKay, author of Dresden 'In Margaret Coker's deeply reported, unputdownable account, the previously unknown Iraqi heros of the war against the Islamic State turn out to be braver than Bond and as subtle as Smiley' Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis 'We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Falcons Unit for their important role in the fight against the most lethal terrorist group of our time' Anne Speckhard, Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism

During the Seven Years' War (1755-63), a number of independent light-infantry outfits served under British command and dedicated light companies were added to the British Army's regular infantry battalions. The light companies were disbanded after the war but the prominent role played by light infantry was not forgotten, and in 1771-72 light-infantry companies were reinstated in every regiment in the British Isles. Although William Howe formed a training camp at Salisbury in 1774 specifically to practise light-infantry doctrine, the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775 found the British Army wanting, and the light companies were no different. After evacuating Boston in March 1776, Howe began to remodel and drill his army at Halifax, standardizing lighter uniform and emphasizing more open-order tactics. He also brigaded his light companies together into composite battalions, which went on to fight in almost every major engagement during the American Revolution. They spearheaded British assaults, using night-time surprise and relying upon the bayonet in engagements such as Paoli and Old Tappan. They also matched their regular and irregular opponents in bush-fighting, and at times fought in far-flung detachments alongside Native American and Loyalist allies on the frontier. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork, this book offers a comprehensive guide to the formation, uniform, equipment, doctrines and tactics of these elite light infantry companies and battalions, and considers how, over the course of the war they developed a fearsome reputation, and exemplified the psychological characteristics exhibited by crack military units across history.

A gripping history of the SAS in World War II, supported by a collection of rare images from the SAS Regimental Association. The SAS are among the best-trained and most effective Special Forces units in existence. This book is the incredible story of their origins, told in their own words. During the summer of 1941, a young Scots Guard officer called David Stirling persuaded MEHQ to give its backing to a small band of 60 men christened 'L Detachment'. With a wealth of stunning photographs, many from the SAS Regimental Association, the book captures the danger and excitement of the initial SAS raids against Axis airfields during the Desert War, the battles in Italy and those following the D-Day landings, as well as the dramatic final push into Germany itself and the discovery of such Nazi horrors as Belsen. An exhaustive account of an elite organization's formative years, The SAS in World War II is the fruit of Gavin Mortimer's expertise and his unprecedented access to the archives of the SAS Regimental Association. Incorporating interviews with the surviving veterans, it is the definitive account of the regiment's glorious achievements in the years from 1941 to 1945.

Throughout history society has determined specific rules of engagement between adversaries in armed conflict. With advances in technology, from armor to in the Middle Ages to nerve gas in World War I to weapons of mass destruction in our own time, the rules have constantly evolved. Today, when killing the enemy can seem palpably risk-free and tantamount to playing a violent video game, what constitutes warfare? What is the effect of remote combat on individual soldiers? And what are the unforeseen repercussions that could affect us all? Lt Col Wayne Phelps, former commander of a Remotely Piloted Aircraft unit, and Lt Col Dave Grossman, author of the landmark work On Killing and a leading scholar of the effects of killing on the human psyche, address these questions and many others as they tell the story of the men and women of today's "chair force." Exploring the ethics of remote military engagement, the misconceptions about PTSD among RPA operators, and the specter of military weaponry controlled by robots, their book is an urgent and compelling reminder that it should always be difficult to kill another human being lest we risk losing what makes us human.

In the twilight of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th-6th centuries, the elite of the field armies was the heavy armoured cavalry - the cataphracts, clad in lamellar, scale, mail and padded fabric armour. After the fall of the West, the Greek-speaking Eastern or Byzantine Empire survived for nearly a thousand years, and cavalry remained predominant in its armies, with the heaviest armoured regiments continuing to provide the ultimate shock-force in battle. Accounts from Muslim chroniclers show that the ironclad cataphract on his armoured horse was an awe- inspiring enemy: '...they advanced against you, iron -covered - one would have said that they advanced on horses which seemed to have no legs'. This new study, replete with stunning full-colour illustrations of the various units, offers an engaging insight into the fearsome heavy cavalry units that battled against the enemies of Rome's Eastern Empire.

In this story from the frontlines of the undeclared battlefields of the War on Terror, Jeremy Scahill exposes America's new approach to war: fought far from any declared battlefield, by units that do not officially exist, in thousands of operations a month that are never publicly acknowledged. From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries and elite Special Operations Forces operators. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the shocking human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggle to keep hidden.

Most Marine and Navy Corpsmen who have seen active combat have, at one time or another, experienced a close call when they were seconds or perhaps inches from death yet survived because of personal diligence, divine intervention or just plain luck. From Pearl Harbor to Baghdad, this volume contains the stories of 62 Marines who had near-death experiences while fighting in America's wars.The book, inspired by the author's own close call in May 1968, details individual experiences in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Personal background from before and after the close calls provides a more human facet while additional research adds historically accurate information to these fascinating stories of Marines and Navy Corpsmen.

A concise illustrated history of the Special Air Service's lightweight, heavily armed vehicles and their combat use. The SAS, the world's most famous special operations unit, made its name in the desert of North Africa, shooting up Axis airfields from specially modified Willys jeeps. Following the start of the El Alamein offensive in October 1942, the SAS used jeeps effectively in reconnoitring and ambushing the retreating Afrika Korps. After the conclusion of the North African campaign, the Willys underwent several small but significant changes, including the introduction of the .303 Browning machine gun. Between June and October 1944, the SAS brigade operated deep inside Occupied France, harassing Germans reinforcements heading to Normandy, calling up air strikes on installations, and carrying out reconnaissance missions - all made possible with jeeps dropped by the RAF. Jeeps were also used in the push into Germany in the spring of 1945. Transported across the Rhine in 'Buffalo' amphibious landing craft, they formed part of the vanguard of the Allied advance, and their agility, speed and firepower proved crucial in crushing fanatical pockets of Nazi resistance. 22SAS in 1952, the regiment adopted the Series 1 Land Rover - introduced in 1948 - as the successor to the Willys jeep. A decade later the Regiment updated to the Series IIA 90 Land Rover, which saw service in the Oman and Aden, where its distinctive colour led to the 'Pink Panther' nickname. In the 1970s, the SAS begin using Range Rovers for covert operations while the Land Rover 110 HCPU became the SAS's new Desert Patrol Vehicle (DPV) in the 1991 Gulf War. This book describes the successful deployment of these combat vehicles in SAS operations from the Second World War to the present day and gives a rare insight into one of the most prestigious and secret forces of modern times.

Modern armies are planned and structured to fight massive World War II-type operations involving the large-scale movements of tanks and machinery across continents. In fact they are rarely called upon to participate in such conflicts. It is far more common for them to find themselves involved in lower-level, ill-defined, politically charged, messy situations known collectively as "unconventional warfare," typified by the 1990s conflicts in Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Thomas Adams argues that, for the most part, the conventional war-fighting forces of the USA are not the best military forces to deal with such situations, where there is a lack of a clearly-defined enemy and a need for persuasion, negotiation and even community leadership alongside elements who are willing to resort to deadly force. The appropriate components of the US miltary to deal with this, in his view, are the Special Operations Forces (SOF). He discusses the composition of the SOF and their varying roles, discussing their evoluation, strengths and weaknesses, and gives a history of US involvement in non-conventional warfare from the American revolution to the 1990s. He argues that the US Department of Defense still sees military conflict in the form of conventional warfare, with its emphasis on high-technology combat. The very existence of high-technology systems, however, makes conventional warfare less likely, with the result that the US Army may become vulnerable to "low-tech" offensives, and already there has been an increase in "unconventional" conflicts since the demise of the Soviet Union.
Adams proposes a change in strategic thinking together with investment in training and ausable military doctrine to guide develoment. A shift in expectations is required, with a greater willingness to accept lengthy commitments and incremental progress.

It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two U.S. Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the juggernaut they expected when and if a war began. The plan was Special Forces Berlin. The first 40 men who came to Berlin in mid-1956 were soon reinforced by 60 more and these 100 soldiers (and their successors) would stand ready to go to war at only two hours' notice, in a hostile area occupied by nearly one million Warsaw Pact forces, until 1990. Their mission should hostilities commence was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines, and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each man was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, intelligence tradecraft and able to act if necessary as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin was a one of a kind unit that had no parallel. It left a legacy of a new type of soldier expert in unconventional warfare, one that was sought after for other deployments including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the U.S. government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told.

'A no holdout account of the Falklands War from a man who was in the fight.' Andy McNab Tony Hoare always knew he wanted to be in the SAS and so, after working his way through the ranks, he passed arduous SAS selection in 1978. Less than four years later, Tony and his team were sent to the Falklands, just off the coast of Argentina, where tensions were rising and war was on the horizon. Nothing could have prepared him for what happened over the course of the next 12 weeks, as the Falkland Islands became a battleground between the British and Argentinians. As helicopters crashed and ships sank, Tony battled across treacherous terrain to help reclaim the islands from a fearsome enemy. This is a thrilling account of the Falklands from a trooper who saw it all.

Peter McAleese needs little introduction... His classic book ""No Mean Soldier"" was an immediate bestseller and set the bar for the modern military memoir. Few have since met its match. This completely revised and expanded edition sees a philosophical McAleese revisiting his time with Britain's Parachute Regiment, the SAS, Rhodesia's SAS and the South African Defence Force's 44 Para Brigade. Oh, and a few other adventures in and between - Colombia, private military companies and near fatal skydiving accidents; mercenary, soldier of fortune or flawed ideologist? Now's your time to consider this and more - as has McAleese himself. It's a compelling read - and with the addition of previously unpublished photos from McAleese's private collection, there's no other way to describe it. ""Beyond No Mean Soldier""does exactly that, going deep and further beyond the experience of ""No Mean Soldier"". Over many months and into the early hours, McAleese reflected on his wide and expansive experiences - the men he's served with and the operations he'd conducted. Here in startling detail are the Aden insurgency, covert operations with the Rhodesian SAS and one of the first ever operational HALO inserts in British military history. Heart pumping assaults on SWAPO positions with 44 Para's Pathfinder Company and the sheer terror of flawed mercenary operations in Angola with the likes of 'Colonel Callan'; near death in Colombia when an assassination attempt went terribly wrong. McAleese recounts all of this with amazing clarity and even more humility. 'I'm just an ordinary person who happened to find himself doing extraordinary things' he says. Yes, perhaps that's true to a point, but what rides through all of McAleese's narrative is his total commitment to the profession of arms - soldiering. His attention to detail, his consummate knowledge of military skills from field craft to skill at arms; airborne operations to the tactics of small unit SAS operations.... All of this echoed by the commentary of the numerous individuals that served with McAleese. From around the world, dozens have contributed perspective, commentary and reflection. ""Pete does not take fools gladly and this is based upon his comprehensive combat experience where idiots will cause casualties"" Alistair Mackenzie - Former 22 SAS Officer. ""I managed to get myself into some very nasty but also exciting scraps while latching on to the Pathfinders to see how they were shaping up as the so-called 'Philistines'. They did excellently while under fire, proof that Peter's selection and training regime paid high dividends"" Colonel Jan Breytenbach - Former Commander 44 Para Brigade Pathfinder Company, Founder 32 Battalion. These are just two of the contributions featured in ""Beyond No Mean Soldier"". In an age where we debate courage and leadership, it's all here. Go Beyond No Mean Soldier, it will certainly change the way you see soldiering.

A Special Forces expert reveals the illustrated story of the SAS since the Falklands War, including their operations in the Gulf War and the War on Terror. Highly trained and immensely skilled, the SAS are widely regarded as one of the best Special Forces units in the world. Their missions are uniquely diverse, ranging from counter-terrorist responses at home and abroad; counter-insurgency in collaboration with US Delta Force and other foreign Special Forces; mobile operations in support of conventional forces; targeting terrorist leaders and man-hunting war criminals, to 'direct action' raids. This book charts the changing organization and operational emphases of the Regiment over the past 25 years; its individual deployments and operations, including those planned but aborted, joint missions with other British and foreign units. It sheds light on the SAS's involvement in the Troubles of Northern Ireland, their operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the widespread use of the SAS in counter terrorism and counterinsurgency operations since 9/11. Illustrated throughout with colour photographs and superb artwork plates.

A gripping history of Britain's Special Boat Squadron in World War II, drawing on veteran interviews and including rare photographs from the SAS Regimental Association. The Special Boat Squadron was Britain's most exclusive Special Forces unit during World War II, and yet its exploits have been largely forgotten. This book tells its story. Highly trained, totally secretive and utterly ruthless, the SBS was established as an entity in its own right in early 1943. Unlike its sister unit, which numbered more than 1,000 men, the SBS never comprised more than 100. Led by men such as the famed Victoria Cross recipient Anders Lassen, the SBS went from island to island in the Mediterranean, landing in the dead of night in small fishing boats and launching savage hit and run raids on the Germans. Through unrivalled access to the archives of the SAS Regimental Association and interviews with the surviving members of the unit, Gavin Mortimer has pieced together the dramatic feats of this elite fighting force. In this new and updated paperback edition, featuring additional content including new text and photographs, the unit and its members are finally granted the recognition that they so richly deserve.

The memoirs of the legendary Skorzeny appear here in its first unabridged English edition. Skorzeny's fame began with the successful raid to free Benito Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, Italy in 1943. His elite commandos surprised Italian guards in a daring daytime raid. Hitler presented Skorzeny with the Knight's Cross for this operation. Not only is this raid explained in minute detail, many of Skorzeny's previously unknown operations in all European and Russian theatres of World War II are given in detailed accounts. Operation Griffin - the innovative use of German Kommandos dressed as American soldiers working behind enemy lines - during the Ardennes Offensive in 1944 is given in-depth coverage, as is Skorzeny's rememberances on the Malmedy massacre. Skorzeny also offers his insights into the mysterious Rudolf Hess mission to England in May 1941, and offers a behind the scenes look at German and Russian secret military intelligence, and the workings of Canaris and Gehlen.

This book is about the most elite unit in the Israeli army, Talpiot. Instead of only being trained to fight the soldiers brought into this unit are taught how to think. The book details how this unit which specialises in teaching young cadets the military applications for computer science, physics and maths (properties needed for research and development) was conceived and developed in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, how the program came of age and how it surpassed even air force pilot training in terms of priority for the IDF. Instead of signing up for three years like most Israeli soldiers, if you are selected for Talpiot you must sign up for ten years. Graduates of this tiny unit, sometimes as few as 20 people a year are invited to enlist, have had a huge influence on the weapons Israel has developed through research and development and through the businesses they have founded after leaving the army, often using many of the technologies they developed in the IDF. The book contains dozens of interviews with Talpiot graduates and some of the early founders of the program. It explains Talpiot's ultra-successful methods of recruiting and it explains many of the secrets of the program's success. The book also profiles some of the most successful businesses founded by Talpiot graduates including Compugen, CheckPoint Software, Anobit which was recently bought by Apple and XIV recently bought by IBM. The soldiers of this unit are truly unsung heroes. No other military unit has had more of an impact on the State of Israel.

'We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go, Always a little further; it may be, Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow.' If there was ever anyone who went a little further, a little beyond, it was Alastair MacKenzie. In a career spanning 30 years, MacKenzie served uniquely with the New Zealand Army in Vietnam, the British Parachute Regiment, the British Special Air Service (SAS), the South African Defence Force's famed ParaBats, the Sultan of Oman's Special Forces and a host of private security agencies and defence contractors. MacKenzie lived the soldier's life to the full as he journeyed 'the Golden Road to Samarkand'. This extraordinary new work from the author of Special Force: The Untold Story of 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) vividly documents the experience of infantry combat in Vietnam, life with the Paras, the tempo of selection for UK Special Forces, covert SAS operations in South Armagh and SAS Counter Terrorist training on the UK mainland, vehicle-mounted Pathfinder Brigade insertions into Angola and maritime counter-terrorism work in Oman.

The authorised illustrated history of the SAS by the number one bestselling author of Dunkirk, Joshua Levine. With never-before-seen photographs and unheard stories, this is the SAS’s wartime history in vivid and astonishing detail. The SAS began as a lie, a story of a British parachute unit in the North African desert, to convince the Axis they were under imminent threat. The lie was so effective that soon a small band of men were brought together to make it real. These recruits were the toughest and brightest of their cohort, the most resilient, most dynamic and most self-sufficient. Their first commanders, David Stirling and Paddy Mayne, would go down in history as unorthodox visionaries. Yet this book tells much more than the usual origin story of the unit and seeks out less well-known leaders like Bill Fraser, who was essential in helping the SAS achieve fame for their devastating raids. By looking beyond the myth, this book brings back to life a group of men who showed immense bravery and endured unimaginable risks behind enemy lines. Written with the full cooperation of the SAS and with exclusive access to SAS archives, Levine draws on individual stories and personal testimony, including interviews with veterans and family members. On every page, the book gives a visceral sense of what it was like to fight and train in the SAS in both North Africa and Europe during the Second World War, focusing on their failures as well as their successes. This book is vivid with the characters of the men, their eclectic personalities, their strengths, weaknesses and many disagreements. Levine has uncovered a remarkable portrait of this enigmatic unit with photographs and stories long thought lost to history

A hard-hitting history of the U.S. airborne unit who made a name for themselves in the unforgiving jungles of South Vietnam. "It was easier killing than living." Third Battalion 506th Airborne veteran Drawing on interviews with veterans, many of whom have never gone on the record before, Ian Gardner follows up his epic trilogy about the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in World War II with the story of the unit's reactivation at the height of the Vietnam War. This is the dramatic history of a band of brothers who served together in Vietnam and who against the odds lived up to the reputation of their World War II forefathers. Brigadier General Salve Matheson's idea was to create an 800-strong battalion of airborne volunteers in the same legendary "Currahee" spirit that had defined the volunteers of 1942. The man he chose to lead them was John Geraci, who would mold this young brotherhood into a highly cohesive and motivated force. In December 1967, the battalion was sent into the Central Highlands of Lam Dong Province. Geraci and his men began their Search and Destroy patrols, which coincided with the North Vietnamese build-up to the Tet Offensive and was a brutal introduction to the reality of a dirty, bloody war. Gardner reveals how it was here that the tenacious volunteers made their mark, just like their predecessors had done in Normandy, and the battalion was ultimately awarded a Valorous Unit Citation. This book shows how and why this unit was deserving of that award, recounting their daily sanguinary struggle in the face of a hostile environment and a determined enemy. Through countless interviews and rare personal photographs, Sign Here for Sacrifice shows the action, leadership, humor and bravery displayed by these airborne warriors.