276°
Posted 20 hours ago

The One That Got Away: The legendary true story of an SAS man alone behind enemy lines

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

Ryan was born in Rowlands Gill in County Durham. After attending Hookergate School, he enrolled in the British Army at the age of 16. Ryan's cousin was a member of the reservist 23 SAS Regiment and invited Ryan to come up and "see what it's like to be in the army". [3] :85 Ryan did this nearly every weekend, almost passing selection several times, but was too young to do 'test week'. When he was old enough, he passed selection into 23 SAS. Shortly after that he began selection for the regular 22 SAS Regiment and joined 'B' Squadron as a medic. Needing a parent regiment, Ryan and a soldier who had joined 22 SAS from the Royal Navy, spent eight weeks with the Parachute Regiment before returning to 'B' Squadron. [3] :100–102 Chris Ryan was born in 1961 in a village near Newcastle. In 1984 he joined the SAS. During his ten years in the Regiment, he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also Sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. Unlike McNab's account, Ryan places a lot of blame and speaks very lowly of his colleage Vince, which given that Vince died during the mission and cannot speak for himself, it comes across as unfair. I guess that in a stressful situation, when you feel one of the party isn't coping as well as they could, it's easy to appropriate blame.

The book can be split into four broad sections. The patrol up to when it split, the portion with Ryan, Stan, and Vince, the solo E&E, and 'misc' bits scattered throughout the latter parts. Some of the misc stuff is filler anecdotes about training and other missions after Bravo Two Zero, and the book doesn't really benefit from it, but nor does it detract too much. The parts detailing the patrol up to the split are quite different from what I remember from McNab's book and it would be interesting to do a real side-by-side comparison. The group E&E parts are tense and gripping, the three men were in a really bad way physically and mentally, and that creates an unnerving atmosphere as you wonder what's going to go wrong next. The solo E&E part was mixed. On the one hand it felt a little like a foregone conclusion because you know he gets out, on the other there was plenty of interesting little encounters. I must say I was expecting a little more in the way of actual survival skills being demonstrated but it seems Ryan made it out on sheer strength of will. There were a few occasions I was thinking "Why didn't he [kill the goat, search the bodies, etc]" and the explanation can only be his not thinking straight due to fatigue, or surrounding circumstances making those courses of action impossible. Suffice to say, it's no SAS Survival Guide! The author's writing style drags you into the unfolding scenario and leaves you with a feeling a genuine suspense and intrigue, as you are made party to the internal machinations of Chris Ryan as he battles against the inclement weather; physical and mental deterioration, and the omnipresent threat of enemy patrols whilst he also reconciles himself to the incremental loss of his comrades throughout the evasion, compounded by the fact that he had no idea as to whether they had been captured; rescued, or killed. Burke, Jason (26 May 2002). "Battle of SAS gets bloody". The Guardian . Retrieved 31 December 2016.

Navigation menu

Freeman, Simon (16 March 2003). "The new Battle of the Books". The Guardian . Retrieved 31 December 2016.

a b Manger, Warren (27 August 2014). "SAS hero Chris Ryan: I drank radioactive water in Iraq, which meant I'd never have children". Daily Mirror . Retrieved 31 December 2016. Interesting to get a new perspective on the parts of the patrol shared with McNab, and equally interesting to see what Ryan had to go through on his long E&E. Easy read. Hard to think about it without comparing to Bravo Two Zero but it stands up on its own, in fact I'm tempted to say I think it's a bit better than McNab's book, though both are good. I read this a couple of years after re-reading Bravo Two Zero, and now I want to read that again just to get a better feel for a comparison. But let's try to avoid that and evaluate The One That Got Away on its own merits. I warmed to Ryan as a character much moreso than McNab. Ryan's obviously proud of who he is, but there's a fair amount of reflection, guilt, and admission of errors too - his own and of others. The introduction should have been a postscript, as it coloured my perception of what happened with Vince. Mild spoilers follow. Yes, Ryan blames Vince for a lot of things, and isn't very kind in his description of Vince's character. More than that, he's pretty much outright insulting about Vince. Whether that's a fair assessment or not we'll never know. It'd be interesting to hear Stan's account. On the whole though I tend to believe Ryan's version of events. Sure, some of it sounds fantastical, and maybe some of it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. But the broad strokes are undeniable. The SAS mission conducted behind Iraqi lines is one of the most famous true stories of courage and survival in modern warfare. Late on the evening of 24 January 1991, the patrol was compromised deep behind enemy lines in Iraq. A fierce firefight left the eight men miraculously unscathed, but they were forced to run for their lives.Still, just by his style and recollection, I know his type very well. While his story is amazing, it is just that. I am by no means calling him a liar, but this is his own account, which cannot be corroborated, and there are some pretty unbelievable points. During the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, of which three colleagues were killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. He has also appeared in a number of TV programmes, including HUNTING CHRIS RYAN, PUSHED TO THE LIMI Chris Ryan was born in 1961 in a village near Newcastle. In 1984 he joined the SAS. During his ten years in the Regiment, he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also Sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. After leaving the SAS, Ryan wrote The One That Got Away, which covers the account from his patrol report of the Bravo Two Zero mission. Both his and McNab's accounts have been heavily criticised by former territorial SAS member and explorer Michael Asher, who attempted to retrace the patrol's footsteps for TV and claimed to have debunked both accounts with the help of the then-SAS regimental sergeant major Peter Ratcliffe. [10] [11]

This was an incredible book! I heard of the legend of Bravo Two Zero; I had watched numerous episodes of "Hunting Chris Ryan" on the Television, but until I had read this gripping book, I had no comprehension about the incredible mental, and physical challenges that the author had undergone during his record-breaking Escape and Evasion across Iraq to the relative "safety" of Syria. Indeed, some of the most memorable sections of the book occur during the authors' arrival in "friendly" territory. As the companion to Bravo Two-Zero this provides another point of view of the events that took place in Iraq during the first Iraq war. The major difference is that the author was one of the three which got separated from the other five members of the squad and was the only one to actually escape Iraq.After the publication of fellow patrol member Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero in 1993, Ryan published his own account of his experiences during the Bravo Two Zero mission in 1995, entitled The One That Got Away. Hm... deciding between a two and a three starrer for this one was tough. I ultimately decided for three stars because his account of stumbling through Iraq was interesting. His pub conversation style of story telling carries this type of story very well.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment