EYE OF THE STORM : Twenty-Five Years in Action with the SAS by Ratcliffe, Peter , DCM

Lewis, US first edition, 2000, Fine/Fine condition, 6 1/4 x 9 1/2, hard bound w/dj, 336 pages, illus, many in color. ( SAS live action audio CD included) ----------------------------------------As the SAS's Regimental Sergeant-Major during the Gulf War, Peter Ratcliffe is exceptionally well placed to comment on events often widely promoted as `the full story' in other books by former SAS soldiers. His controversial autobiography corrects many of the distortions and exaggerations of earlier accounts, and proves that much of what has been written about the Regiment is fiction or fantasy.Eye of the Storm is neither. Spanning action in Northern Ireland, Oman, and South Georgia and the Falklands, the author's SAS career reached its peak during the Gulf War, in which he commanded an eight-vehicle mobile patrol behind Iraqi lines. The mission culminated in the destruction of a vital strategic target against enormous odds - perhaps the most spectacularly successful special-forces operation of the war.-------------------------------------------He also explodes a number of myths about the SAS, and many will be surprised to find him occasionally critical of the regiment he loves. Nor does he spare its members where he found them lacking in aggression or persistence, as in his unique insider's view of the abortive SAS helicopter mission to Argentina during the Falklands War. Even more crucially, he provides the most authoritative explanation to date for the failure of the disastrous Bravo Two Zero patrol.Peter Ratcliffe's insight into SAS involvement in world events over a quarter-century is laced with first-hand descriptions of ferocious and bloody fighting, of sudden death and incredible heroism. His narrative is peopled with extraordinary characters, as well as soldiers who have since become household names, among them Generals de la Billiere, Rose, and Schwarzkopf; here too are the arcane details of SAS Selection and training, weapons, equipment and, where it is safe to give them, operations.-------------------------------Eye of the Storm is a balanced, honest and long overdue account of the SAS in action and out of it, by a senior soldier uniquely fitted to tell of events as they really happened. Earthy, dramatic, humorous, occasionally disturbing, and always intensely interesting, this is the kind of fighting-soldier's memoir that appears only once in any generation.