Speed, Aggression, Surprise

The Untold Secret Origins of the SAS

Tom Petch

$62

Hardback

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English

W H Allen
10 December 2022

History; British & Irish history; Air forces & warfare; Special & elite forces; War & defence operations

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

It's a fly-on-the-wall, character-driven story of the origins of a new means of warfare, forged from the wreckage of Dunkirk. It's the birth of subliminal methods - guerrilla Commando units that could inflict devastating 'mosquito stings' on larger, and better-armed opponents.

It's a never-before-told account 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 concept that takes shape in the corridors of headquarters, on long nights at the long bar in Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo, and on the deadliest battlefields in history, around a cast of insubordinate mavericks who didn't fit into the tight hierarchy of the armed forces.

Flashing between dramatic accounts from the field and back-channel power negotiations in Westminster, reeling 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.

By: Tom Petch
Imprint: W H Allen
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 43mm
Weight: 779g
ISBN: 9780753559383
ISBN 10: 0753559382
Pages: 496
Publication Date: 10 December 2022
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print

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-great-great-grandson of Samuel Shepheard, who founded Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo where the SAS was born.

Reviews for Speed, Aggression, Surprise: The Untold Secret Origins of the SAS

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 *