Back in the 1990s when I was a law student, I spent an inordinate amount of time playing computer games at the expense of my studies. It was not unusual for me to play Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon for up to 12 hours non-stop, skipping meals and very often also, university lectures.
I would spend my waking hours playing these games and in my hours of slumber fantasizing about being a member of such a military team on special missions, sneaking around with a sniper rifle and taking out the enemy indiscriminately.
If, like me, you enjoy these games and love watching documentaries about special forces missions, then you will find Andy McNab’s Bravo Two Zero very appealing. It is a raw, fast-paced and true account of a mission McNab was in during his time as a member of the elite British SAS (Special Air Service) at the time of the first Gulf War.
The book reads like a short autobiography of McNab, starting with his abandonment as a baby – left on the steps of a hospital (“I had never known my real mother, though I always imagined that whoever she was, she must have wanted the best for me: the carrier bag I was found in when she left me on the steps of Guy’s Hospital came from Harrod’s“) to his adoption and later on his rebellious teenage years and his run-ins with the law over petty crimes that led to his signing up with the army. Caught walking out of a house they had broken into, McNab and two other men were put into a remand hostel while waiting to be produced in court – “I hated being locked and swore that if I got away with it I’d never let it happen again. I knew deep down that I’d have to do something pretty decisive or I’d end up spending my entire life in Peckham, fucking about and getting fucked up. The army seemed a good way out. My brother had enjoyed it, so why not me?”
And so began his military career, starting as an infantryman in the Royal Green Jackets with postings to Gibraltar and then Northern Ireland where he saw action against the IRA. In time, McNab came to hear of the SAS (“I felt deprived that the Green Jackets had not been sent to the Falklands. Everytime there was some action, it seemed to me, the SAS were involved. I wanted some of that – what was the point of being in the infantry if I didn’t?)
His first attempt at the SAS Selection failed in 1983. In 1984, McNab tried again. Bravo Two Zero gives an account of the training and selection process that ‘entrants’ have to go through – a 4-week endurance phase, a 4-month training period which includes a spell in the jungle in Asia and lastly a Combat Survival course. Candidates are taught survival skills for 2 weeks and then sent in to see a doctor. “He puts a finger up your arse to check for Mars bars, and you’re turned loose on the Black Mountains dressed in Second World War battledress trousers and shirt, a greatcoat with no buttons, and boots with no laces. The hunter force was a company of Guardsmen in helicopters. Each man was given the incentive of two weeks’ leave if he made a capture.”
What followed was a simulated capture and interrogation module, weeks of weapons training and then parachute training before finally, the handing over of the famous sand-coloured beret with its winged dagger and motto “Who Dares Wins”.
The moment of truth came in January 1991, when together with 7 other men in his team codenamed Bravo Two Zero, McNab was inserted by helicopter behind enemy lines in Iraq and tasked with taking out Scud missiles that were being launched by Saddam’s army at Israel to provoke a counter-attack (and thereby stoking Arab anger in the hopes of splitting the Coalition forces spearheaded by the US).
Beset by poor intelligence from the very beginning, McNab and his men had inadvertently been dropped in an area teeming with Iraqi troops. And coupled with inter alia communication problems, Bravo Two Zero’s attempt to exfiltrate was doomed. And from bad to worse, the squad’s planned rendezvous with their helicopter did not materialise because the pilot fell sick on the way to the pick up zone and was forced to turn back. Having stumbled upon an Iraqi shepherd and thinking that their mission was compromised, they decided to abort and return. But attempts to contact their base and Coalition aircraft in the sky all failed. This left them with no choice but to try to get to the Syrian side of the border on foot.
Along the way, there are comedic encounters with shepherds and also deadly skirmishes with Iraqi patrols. To read about how the squad trekked through the desert, evading the enemy and the survival tactics they employed is both inspiring and amazing.
But the most thrilling part of the book is undoubtedly McNab’s account of what happened after his capture by the Iraqis, his transfer to different Iraqi units; passed along to undergo the brutal interrogation and torture techniques used by Iraqi intelligence officers at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison – some of whom, as McNab discovered, were trained by the British government at Sandhurst. You have to respect the man for holding out mentally against his captors’ attempts to break into his mind, and these violent attempts are all described vividly and in detail. Definitely, not something those computer games can simulate.
In the end, McNab was handed over to the Red Cross and made his way home. Out of the 8 members of Bravo Two Zero, 5 survived. McNab went on to serve and become Britain’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he left the SAS in February 1993. As is also the case with one of his fellow squad members, Chris Ryan, McNab (which is actually a pseudonym) subsequently launched a successful literary career especially with his Nick Stone action hero series (See my previous review of McNab’s “Crossfire“).
I give this one a 3 out of 5.
Side notes (source: Wikipedia):
- ITV produced a TV film version of Ryan’s novel also titled The One That Got Away, in 1996. The film starred Paul McGann as ‘Ryan’, and was directed by Paul Greengrass, director of the films United 93 and Bloody Sunday.
- The BBC produced a TV film version of McNab’s novel, also titled Bravo Two Zero, in 1998. The film starred Sean Bean as ‘McNab’ and was directed by Tom Clegg. In addition to using all of McNab’s characters’ pseudonyms, the names of the three deceased patrol members, Phillips, Consiglio and Lane were also changed for the film.
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