SAS: The History of the SAS
Written by Joshua Levine
Narrated by Dan Morgan
5/5
()
About this audiobook
The authorised history of the SAS by the number one bestselling author of Dunkirk, Joshua Levine. With 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. 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 stories long thought lost to history
Joshua Levine
Joshua Levine has written six bestselling histories including titles in the hugely popular 'Forgotten Voices' series. ‘Beauty and Atrocity’, his account of the Irish Troubles, was nominated for the Writers' Guild Book of the Year award. ‘On a Wing and a Prayer’, his history of the pilots of the First World War, has been turned into a major British television documentary. He has written and presented a number of programmes for BBC Radio 4. In a previous life, he was a criminal barrister. He lives in London.
Related to SAS
Related audiobooks
SBS – Silent Warriors: The Authorised Wartime History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Geezers: Up Close and Personal: On Camp With the SAS Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paddy Mayne: Lt Col Blair 'Paddy' Mayne, 1 SAS Regiment Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Regiment: 15 Years in the SAS Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shoot to Kill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Operators: On the Streets with Britain's Most Secret Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Agents of Influence: Britain's Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Embassy Siege Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inside the Nazi Ring: A Naval Attaché in Sweden, 1940-45 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUngentlemanly Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eye of the Storm: Twenty-Five Years In Action With The SAS Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Like No Other Soldier: The Shadowy World of Security, Protection and Surveillance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sky Warriors: British Airborne Forces in the Second World War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Elite: The Story of Special Forces – From Ancient Sparta to the Gulf War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Guardians of Churchill's Secret Army: Men of the Intelligence Corps in the Special Operations Executive Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thatcher's Spy: My Life as an MI5 Agent Inside Sinn Féin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army's Elite, 1956–1990 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spymaster: The Man Who Saved MI6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScimitar into Stanley: One Soldier's Falklands War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Dared to Win: The SAS in Rhodesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Zone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The London Cage: The Secret History of Britain's World War II Interrogation Centre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Headhunter: 5-73 CAV and Their Fight for Iraq's Diyala River Valley Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret Heart: John Le Carré: An Intimate Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sniper Fire in Belfast Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dasher: The Kevin Wheatley VC Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBandit Country Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Max Hastings On War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-Block Hunger Strike Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Wars & Military For You
77 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of Anne Frank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - Book Summary: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead And Win Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for SAS
1 rating0 reviews