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Rogue heroes : the history of the SAS, Britain's secret special forces unit that sabotaged the Nazis and changed the nature of war / Ben MacIntyre.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Crown, [2016]Edition: First editionDescription: xvi, 380 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 110190416X
  • 9781101904169
Subject(s):
Contents:
Prologue: Into the dark -- WAR IN THE DESERT -- Cowboy soldier -- L detachment -- Recruits -- Into the desert -- The long range desert group -- Devil country -- A party of ghosts -- Blitz buggy -- Benghazi bed-and-breakfast -- Seven airfields -- Mass sabotage at Sidi Haneish -- Desert doctors -- Quite, quite mad -- Alamein -- WAR IN EUROPE -- Italy -- Bulbasket -- Houndsworth -- An eye for an eye -- Paddy McGinty's goat -- A predilection for risk -- Battaglione Alleata -- Into the Reich -- Liberation -- Who dares survives.
Summary: Britain's Special Air Service--or SAS--was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat with a remarkable strategic mind. Where his colleagues looked at a map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Paired with his constitutional opposite, the disciplined martinet Jock Lewes, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. He faced no little resistance from those who found his tactics ungentlemanly or beyond the pale, but in the SAS's remarkable exploits facing the Nazis in the Africa and then on the Continent can be found the seeds of nearly all special forces units that would follow. Bringing his keen eye for psychological detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to SAS archives to shine a light inside a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy. The result is not just a tremendous war story, but a fascinating group portrait of men of whom history and country asked the most.--Adapted from dust jacket and publisher description.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 940.5412 M152 Available 33111008476976
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The incredible untold story of WWII's greatest secret fighting force, as told by our great modern master of wartime intrigue

Britain's Special Air Service--or SAS--was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war material. Paired with his constitutional opposite, the disciplined martinet Jock Lewes, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. He faced no little resistance from those who found his tactics ungentlemanly or beyond the pale, but in the SAS's remarkable exploits facing the Nazis in the Africa and then on the Continent can be found the seeds of nearly all special forces units that would follow.

Bringing his keen eye for psychological detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to SAS archives to shine a light inside a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy. The result is not just a tremendous war story, but a fascinating group portrait of men of whom history and country asked the most.

Prologue: Into the dark -- WAR IN THE DESERT -- Cowboy soldier -- L detachment -- Recruits -- Into the desert -- The long range desert group -- Devil country -- A party of ghosts -- Blitz buggy -- Benghazi bed-and-breakfast -- Seven airfields -- Mass sabotage at Sidi Haneish -- Desert doctors -- Quite, quite mad -- Alamein -- WAR IN EUROPE -- Italy -- Bulbasket -- Houndsworth -- An eye for an eye -- Paddy McGinty's goat -- A predilection for risk -- Battaglione Alleata -- Into the Reich -- Liberation -- Who dares survives.

Britain's Special Air Service--or SAS--was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat with a remarkable strategic mind. Where his colleagues looked at a map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Paired with his constitutional opposite, the disciplined martinet Jock Lewes, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. He faced no little resistance from those who found his tactics ungentlemanly or beyond the pale, but in the SAS's remarkable exploits facing the Nazis in the Africa and then on the Continent can be found the seeds of nearly all special forces units that would follow. Bringing his keen eye for psychological detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to SAS archives to shine a light inside a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy. The result is not just a tremendous war story, but a fascinating group portrait of men of whom history and country asked the most.--Adapted from dust jacket and publisher description.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 363-364) and index.

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