SAS: The Illustrated History of the SAS

'With incredible photos from never-before-seen archives which show the SAS in all its remarkable dash and splendour, this is incisive commentary and a fine wartime history. Spiced with sexual and criminal statistics, Joshua Levine reveals a Britain of loose morals, opportunistic pilfering and cheating, and hedonistic pleasure alongside the familiar virtues of courage and community.' - Sunday Telegraph. 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, and these recruits were the toughest and brightest of their cohort. Their first commanders, David Stirling and Paddy Mayne, would go down in history as unorthodox visionaries. This book tells much more than the usual origin story and seeks out less well-known leaders like Bill Fraser, who was essential in helping the SAS achieve fame for their devastating raids. Written with the full cooperation of the SAS, and with exclusive access to archives, Joshua Levine includes interviews with veterans and family members and each page 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, focussing on their failures as well as their successes. Levine's background as an actor, barrister and historian makes him the ideal interlocutor putting his interviewees at ease. 310pp, masses of archive and colour photos.