Special Forces History

In 1940 Winston Churchill established the Special Operations Executive to "set Europe ablaze". Three years later David Smiley and Billy McLean were parachuted into Northern Greece and crossed the border into Albania to do just that. For the next eight months Smiley mediated between the competing resistance factions and organized them to conduct ambushes and acts of sabotage on fascist armies and infrastructure.

On a daring nighttime raid in September 2009, a team of Navy SEALs grabbed the notorious terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed, the villainous "Butcher of Fallujah," the mastermind behind the 2004 murder and mutilation off our American contractors. In this no-holds-barred account, bestselling author Patrick Robinson reveals for the first time the entire story, from the night the SEALs stormed the al-Qaeda desert stronghold to the accusations and legaltwists and turns that followed to the cut-and-thrust drama in the court room where the fate of three American heroes hung in the balance.

OSS Against the Reich presents the previously unpublished World War II diaries of Colonel David K.E. Bruce, London branch chief of America's first secret intelligence agency, as he observed the war against Hitler. The entries include eyewitness accounts of D-Day, the rocket attacks on England, and the liberation of Paris....

An American officer presents an invaluable handbook for dealing with cultural issues in the Middle East during military operations....

Aaron Bank was an OSS Jedburgh in World War II and the subject of William Donovon's quote, "Tell Bank to get Hitler." He’d later become the inaugural commander of the 10th Special Forces Group earning the moniker, Father of the Green Berets. The development and use of unconventional warfare in WWII created a desire to develop permanent units for future wars.

US Special Operations Command trains and equips units to undertake select military activities, frequently high-risk missions, often for the purposes of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. Since 9/11, impelled by an attack on US soil, these forces have been a central instrument of America's military campaign - operating in about 100 countries on any given day. This fight - neither hot war nor cold peace - was launched and executed as a new type of global war in 2001 and has since splintered into a spectrum of regional conflicts.

For over a century, the United States of America has been the mightiest nation the world has ever seen This is due, in large part, to its citizen servants who risk life and limb for the preservation of the American way of life. Among these citizen soldiers, there exists an elite few who have dedicated their lives to the art of the rifle. Today, they bare the hard earned title “Sniper,” and while it is regarded as a relatively modern method of warfare, it turns out that they have been there since the birth cry of America. Discover the hidden history of America's elite snipers beyond the ...

In mid-2017, whispers from Australia's most secretive and elite military unit reached Walkley Award-winning journalist Nick McKenzie. McKenzie and veteran reporter Chris Masters began an investigation that would not only reveal shocking information about Australia's most famous and revered SAS soldier but plunge the two reporters into the defamation trial of the century.

En shock por el hundimiento del destructor Sheffield, Gran Bretaña teme una derrota y envía a un escuadrón de ocho hombres a Tierra del Fuego. Tienen una misión imposible: encontrar y destruir los aviones Super Étendard y los misiles Exocet alojados en una base militar de la Patagonia y matar a los pilotos.

It is the winter of 2001. A terror ship is bound for Britain carrying a horrifying weapon. The British military sends a crack unit of SAS and SBS to assault the vessel before she reaches London. So begins a true story of explosive action as this band of elite warriors pursues the merchants of death from the high seas to the harsh wildlands of Afghanistan. The hunt culminates in the single greatest battle of the Afghan war, the brutal and bloody siege of an ancient mud-walled fortress crammed full of hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban.

On August 1, 1990, Flight 149 was scheduled for its routine London-to-Kuala Lumpur run. But when the plane, carrying 385 passengers and crew, landed at a Kuwait airport to refuel that day, it was surrounded by Iraqi tanks and about to be bombed by fighter jets. The passengers and crew were kept as hostages and suffered brutal treatment including violent attacks, sexual assaults, and mock executions.

Throughout history there has always been a need, in military forces, for special units. In the past, these units have usually been ad hoc formations that were disbanded after their mission was complete. It has only been since the early 1950s that such units have remained active, but even in recent times special purpose, special mission units have been organized and used for a period of time or for a specific mission and then either deactivated or replaced by other units.

Dawn. 19th July 1972. A force of nearly 300 heavily armed, well-trained guerrillas launches a surprise attack on the small fishing village of Mirbat. All that stands in their way is a troop of just nine SAS, aided only by an elite band of fighter pilots overhead. Two years earlier, a Communist rebellion had threatened the Arabian Peninsula, in the strategically critical Sultanate of Oman. Following a covert intelligence mission, 22 SAS deployed their largest ever assault force against the rebels. But this was to be a bitter and hard-fought campaign culminating the Battle of Mirbat.

Tras el éxito de sus libros anteriores, que han vendido más de doscientos mil ejemplares en México, el almirante William H. McRaven regresa con asombrosas historias de valentía y heroísmo durante su carrera como Navy seal y comandante de las Operaciones Especiales de Estados Unidos. McRaven participó en algunas de las misiones más famosas de los últimos tiempos, incluida la captura de Sadam Huseín, el rescate del capitán Richard Phillips —del que se hizo una adaptación fílmica—, y la redada para eliminar a Osama bin Laden.

The first into combat and the last out, their advance jumps into enemy territory were considered suicide missions by those who sent them into action. World War Two's special operations commandos, the U.S. Army Pathfinders relied on their stealth, expert prowess, and matchless courage and audacity to set the stage for airborne drops and glider landings throughout Europe.

Everything you think you know about war is wrong. War is timeless. Some things change - weapons, tactics, leadership - but our desire to go into battle does not. We are in the midst of an age of conflict: global terrorism, Russia's resurgence and China's rise, international criminal empires, climate change and dwindling natural resources. The stakes are high, and we are dangerously unprepared. As a former paratrooper and military contractor, Sean McFate has been on the front lines of deep state conflicts.

In the summer of 1943, the largest invasion fleet ever assembled sailed for fortress Europe, aiming to bulldoze its way onto Nazi shores. At its vanguard went a few hundred elite forces soldiers, the Royal Navy warship carrying them bearing the iconic winged dagger emblem on its prow, plus the motto 'Who Dares Wins'. Led by the legendary SAS commander Blair 'Paddy' Mayne, these war-bitten, piratical raiders were tasked to do the impossible - to bludgeon their way through the most heavily defended enemy shoreline, so enabling the ensuing forces to follow on.

For three decades one of the most secretive units in the British military has been a mystery force known as X Platoon. Officially there was no X Platoon. The forty men in its elite number were specially selected from across the Armed Forces, at which point they simply ceased to exist. X Platoon had no budget, no weaponry, no vehicles and no kit - apart from what its men could beg, borrow or steal from other military units. For the first time a highly decorated veteran of this specialised force - otherwise known as the Pathfinders - reveals its unique story.

Former SAS soldier Big Phil Campion tells it like is in this brutally honest account of his insanely dangerous life as a private military operator. From playing chicken with a suicide bomber in backstreet Kabul to taking on pirates with his bare hands, this is true-life action-packed drama at its best.

Ava is a Grim Reaper...a special forces soldier patrolling an earthquake flattened London. John is a citizen who has lost his wife and child when the largest earthquake in the world flattened London. Ava battles a group of terrorists called "The Red Hand," when she and her team mates are ambushed. Ava escapes, but is badly wounded. John discovers her in a broken alley, where his grief is broken by the sudden attraction he has to this soldier, who if he is not careful, will kill him if he unmasks her. But he has to unmask her to save her. What happens next will change everything..for both of...