UK ‘Special Forces’

[Paladin]

Where will I find this?

Loads of SAS memoirs books. The One That Got Away by Chris Ryan. Bravo Two Zero by McNab. Others have written accounts of the first Iraq campaign, notably Peter Ratcliffe, the RSM.

The Ryan and McNab books are really good. There are plenty of other good books about Special Forces activities. Lofty Wiseman goes further back. The stories of Sergeant Labalaba and Mike Kealy at Mirbat are fascinating.

 

[bluevillain]

Operation Certain Death by Damien Lewis is a good book. Account of the rescue of British troops from the West side boys in Sierra Leone.

 

[Big mals fedora]

Loads of SAS memoirs books. The One That Got Away by Chris Ryan. Bravo Two Zero by McNab. Others have written accounts of the first Iraq campaign, notably Peter Ratcliffe, the RSM.

The Ryan and McNab books are really good. There are plenty of other good books about Special Forces activities. Lofty Wiseman goes further back. The stories of Sergeant Labalaba and Mike Kealy at Mirbat are fascinating.

Have read all these books, amazing life stories. Think I remember Chris Ryan saying Andy McNabs account in Bravo Two Zero was a little further from the truth than his own version.
The Peter Ratcliffe one was brilliant, Eye of the Storm. Highly decorated soldier from Salford.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Operation Certain Death by Damien Lewis is a good book. Account of the rescue of British troops from the West side boys in Sierra Leone.

That was a tough day for the SAS; for all involved.

 

[Aba452]

Where will I find this?

The book is SAS Rogue Heroes which you can pick up from Amazon/Ebay cheaply. The 3 part series is Rogue Warriors which is £12 but you should be able to find it on YouTube.

It really goes into detail on the formation of the SAS, how the regular Army viewed them as underhand, and the personalities of people like David Stirling who founded them.

 

[give it to gordon]

Have read all these books, amazing life stories. Think I remember Chris Ryan saying Andy McNabs account in Bravo Two Zero was a little further from the truth than his own version.
The Peter Ratcliffe one was brilliant, Eye of the Storm. Highly decorated soldier from Salford.

Soldier I SAS by Michael Paul Kennedy
Freefall by Tom Read
Baptism of Fire by Frank Collins
Soldier Five by Mike Coburn
Geordie by Geordie Doran

 

[Cheesy]

I took part in a training exercise with the SAS in which I was one of a number of hostages on a plane.

The storming of the plane by them was mighty fucking impressive and, despite it being an exercise, mighty fucking scary too!

 

[middman]

I was in Scarborough July 98 I think, been watching us play them in a friendly and stayed down there for a few nights with the Mrs , Sat on a pub one afternoon I got talking to an old Scottish man who was fucking huge, he told me he was on the way back from France he had to attend a ceremony there and dropped off to see his daughter on the way home. After a few beers we got talking about his trip and asked him if he enjoyed it ,he took a newspaper from his bag and on the front page was a picture of him and a few others holding their medals up alongside other dignitaries. I asked him what it was for and he said he was in the sas in the 2nd world war and him and his fellow soldiers were being honoured for bravery , he had left his medal at hi daughters I would have loved to have held it . What a humble man he was to talk to it made the trip enjoyable cos it never stopped raining.

 

[TheBlueDune]

Rusty Firmin has a number of videos on YouTube.
He was the lead man at the Embassy, along with about 10,000 others by the sound of some of the posts.
Talks through his selection, also passing RM selection, some of his training experience, some insight into the life, etc.

 

[paulchapo]

Rusty Firmin has a number of videos on YouTube.
He was the lead man at the Embassy, along with about 10,000 others by the sound of some of the posts.
Talks through his selection, also passing RM selection, some of his training experience, some insight into the life, etc.

I've watched some of Rusty's stuff. While he is a top bloke and has done the business he takes the term grey man to a new level he could send a glass eye to sleep lol.

I bumped into a few in my time travelling the world at sea, onboard and ashore. A group of us once went on the piss with a French foreign legion guy in Marseille, good lad but fuck me you wouldn't want to upset him. Years later when I worked on the cross channel ferries we did a few training exercises with the SBS, counter terrorism stuff. One was them coming up the back of the ship in the channel as we did 22 knots with passengers onboard. I helped the onboard guy get set up, he had a backpack on full of radio equipment. He was built like a brick shitehouse. We cordoned off part of the aft deck and lounge and I could hear what was happening on my radio. I saw the rapid raider in the distance, then it disappeared as it was alongside. Next you saw a black ladder come up the rail quickly followed by a load of frogmen with guns on their back, then poof, they dispersed. A couple of passengers spotted what was happening and the look on their faces lol. It was like, "Did I really just see that???" I got a few panicking but just told them it was a training exercise nothing to worry about.

As others have said you wouldn't pick the majority out in a bar as many are nondescript looking and the opposite of the macho meatheads with tattoo's and a steely stare, which is many people's perception of special forces.

There are some good interviews on YouTube with Ollie Ollerton and Jay Morton and a few others worth watching.