SAS Bravo Three Zero: The Gripping True Story

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Just get used to walking over distances, a couple of hours and then three hours, four hours and so forth. When I asked Damien Lewis to highlight one episode from the mission, he picked the one when they are compromised by the enemy, and they try to bug-out – escape – in their two shockingly-badly-equipped Land Rovers, and one won’t even start. Coburn's account suggests that during the planning phase of the mission, Syria had been the agreed-upon destination should an escape plan need to be implemented. My grandfather had been in the Second World War, so he was quite a disciplined guy and my father had been in national service, so both of those guys had a background of being in the military.

The patrol took up defensive positions, prepared their LAW rockets, and waited for it to come into sight. This is a very honest recounting of Bravo Three Zero’s mission into Iraq, not holding back on the moments of conflict that occured between the team as the tension, and the intensity, of their situation saw tempers flare, even as body temps plummeted. They are both firsthand accounts of an SAS patrol sent behind Iraqi lines, something the authors do not shy away from, referencing Andy McNab‘s patrol throughout.

In 2001, Asher followed the original path of the patrol, interviewing local Iraqis who witnessed the events. When I first met SAS veteran Des Powell and author Damien Lewis at National Army Museum, I was not looking for a story, I was just enjoying the first public event I managed to get after the lockdown, the launch of their new book SAS BRAVO THREE ZERO. Ratcliffe said of this move that it was "insensitive" for Mitchell and Armstrong "to hide behind pseudonyms when they named their dead colleagues in their books, in deliberate contravention of the Regiment's traditions.

There was a point near the end, when I felt almost gobsmacked and yet, to a degree unsurprised, by a certain revelation that is made, almost casually, about the failed comms links. Anyone expecting a 'hunt 'em down, brass 'em up' story of Scud destruction and fast vehicle borne action is going to be sorely disappointed.McNab has been criticised for refusing advice from superiors to include vehicles in the mission (to be left at an emergency pickup point) which would have facilitated an easier exfiltration.