... Ed's blog on his favourite Osprey book, Who Dares Wins.

9781846033957

 

'I actually remember this as it happened even though I was a small boy. The Iranian Embassy siege was the first exposure I had to the Special Air Service (SAS) and drew me into a fascination with Special Forces.

The siege was the first time the SAS had really identified themselves as a Special Forces unit. The news images at the time showed guys in the street with guns wearing ‘civvies’ who were conducting CTR of the embassy, while on top of the embassy black clad figures mustered, ready for an abseil assault, unrecognisable due to their s6 gas masks and all the time wielding their MP5’s. All this created a lot of excitement for children and adults alike.

The RAID 4 title ‘Who Dares Wins’ is an absolute cracker. The foreword written, by Pete Winner (B Sqn member who was actually involved in the assault!), is a great opener written in the style of all Special Forces books. The book itself provides the reader with a lot of detail including the origins of the SAS its function at that stage in its life, background to why the embassy was besieged, the seizure and then the assault itself. The book is very detailed with lots of photos and a schematic of how the raid took place. The book finishes with an analysis of the fallout of the raid.

Two of the most important fallouts of the raid for me are (1) that the UK government did not and will not give in to terrorist demands and (2) the raid highlighted the SAS, its capacity as an elite unit and the way it’s able to change its skill-set to any environment (non-permissive and permissive), and most of all how effective it is when conducting kinetic strikes.

If you’re looking for a bit of excitement this Christmas buy the book, but make sure you warn the wife before you start reading it because as soon as you open it you won’t put it down until it’s finished!'

 

Thanks Ed. Don't forget, on Friday we'll be giving you the chance to win all the books picked by our staff over the week.