Speed, Aggression, Surprise
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  • Published: 10 November 2022
  • ISBN: 9780753559895
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $32.00
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Speed, Aggression, Surprise

The Untold Secret Origins of the SAS

Formats & editions
Paperback
21 Nov 2023
Audiobook
10 Nov 2022
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Ex-SAS Commander and award-winning filmmaker provides a fascinating, myth-busting story of the REAL origins of the SAS, for fans of Ben Macintyre

The Who Dares Wins Pioneers

The origins story of the SAS is a myth.
This is the real story of how the world's preeminent Special Forces came into existence.

Speed, Aggression, Surprise is a fly-on-the-wall, character-driven story of how, from the wreckage of Dunkirk, emerged the idea of guerrilla Commando units who could inflict devastating 'mosquito stings' on larger, and better-armed opponents.

It's a story of how the shock of defeat propelled an unlikely group of renegades into the frontline of the war. An adventure that reaches back from the trenches of the Western Front to high piracy in the deserts of North Africa to the final assault on Germany. It's a story that comes together in the corridors of headquarters, on long nights at the long bar in Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo, and on the deadliest battlefields in history, around a cast of insubordinate mavericks who didn't fit into the tight military hierarchy.

Jumping between dramatic accounts from the field and back-channel power negotiations, and pulling in a cast of characters that includes Evelyn Waugh, Ernest Hemingway and Randolph Churchill, as well as a lot of alcohol, amphetamines and grenades, this is the real story of the SAS as you have never seen it before.
  • Published: 10 November 2022
  • ISBN: 9780753559895
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $32.00
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Tom Petch

Tom Petch served for eight years in the British Army, as a tank commander, adjutant, aide de camp and a Troop Commander of 22 SAS. His military experience gives him a unique perspective on recently declassified archives, operation reports, accounts and interviews of the original SAS and their commanders. He is now an award-winning film director and producer whose debut film, The Patrol, won the Raindance Film Festival. He is also the great-grandson of Samuel Shepheard, who founded Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo where the SAS was born.

Praise for Speed, Aggression, Surprise

Gripping and fascinating in equal measure... A highly readable, fast-paced and enjoyable account of the SAS, packed with unforgettable characters and thrilling adventures

Will Iredale, bestselling author of The Pathfinders

I thought I knew this story. I didn't. Tom Petch's account of the creation of the Special Forces is more complex, more compelling and more inspiring than the versions we've previously heard. And the fate of the men who have been written out of history - until now - gives it a profoundly poignant conclusion

John Nichol, bestselling author of TORNADO

We rightly value the SAS as a precious national jewel. However its is rarely seen in its full splendour, embedded in our national sceptre of strategic operations - in which the UK excels. To marvel at this phenomenon you must read this book. Well written, entertaining - with breathtaking depth of research telling a genuinely new story of an old tale

Colonel Tim Collins OBE

Awesome! The true story of the men who invented Special Forces warfare is even more compelling than the mythology

ANDY McNAB

A genuinely fresh and insightful account of the origins of the SAS. Combining extraordinary depth of research with an understanding born of first-hand experience, this is the page-turning and revelatory story of how a small group of men tried to change the way that war was fought and, in doing so, led to the formation of the world's first special force

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

A fascinating study of a complex and innovative man

Gavin Mortimer, Aspects of History

The mystique and exploits, past and present, of the SAS continues to be a source of fascination to the public. This excellent book by an author who served in the regiment strips away the myth from the reality, reveals new information, and presents a lucid account of the making of this elite and lethal force.

Kim Sengupta, World Affairs Editor, The Independent

I can honestly say that this book is the best there is on that subject

Mars and Minerva, The SAS Regimental Association