Soldier W Guatemala Journey Into Evil

In the Central American republic of Guatemala, government-sponsored torture and mass murder had reduced the Mayan Indian population to a despairing acquiescence, and after five hundred years of struggle it began to seem as if the conqueror's peace could at last be claimed in the capital. Then, at the beginning of 1995, a guerrilla leader whom the authorities had long believed dead sprang mysteriously back to life. No loyal Guatemalan could identify him, and the government was compelled to seek help elsewhere, from one of the two SAS soldiers who had helped to mediate a hostage crisis with the guerrilla almost fifteen years earlier. To the government in Whitehall it appeared a straightforward enough exercise, but for the soldier and his comrades the mission soon turned into a nightmare of impossible choices, and then land of Guatemala, magical and cruel by turns, proved much easier to enter than to escape.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS locate their target and make it out of the jungle alive?

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS locate their target and make it out of the jungle alive? In the Central American republic of Guatemala, government-sponsored torture and mass murder has reduced the Mayan Indian population to a despairing acquiescence. After five hundred years of struggle it seems as if the conqueror's peace can at last be proclaimed in the capital. Then a guerrilla leader who the authorities have long believed dead springs mysteriously back to life. No loyal Guatemalan can identify him, and the government is compelled to seek help elsewhere, from one of the two SAS soldiers who helped mediate a hostage crisis with the guerrilla almost fifteen years earlier. To the government in Whitehall it appears a straightforward enough exercise, but for the soldier and his comrades the mission soon turns into a nightmare of impossible choices. The land of Guatemala, magical and cruel by turns, will prove much easier to enter than to escape...

In June 1966, after completing final training for Vietnam on Exercise Traiim Nau in the jungles and swamps of New Guinea, 3 Squadron SAS (Australian Special Air Service) embarked by boat and plane from Australia to set up a Forward Operating Base in Phuoc Tuy province, a swampy hell of jungle and paddy-fields forty-five miles east of Saigon. The Viet Cong main forces units had a series of bases in the jungle, and the political cadres controlled most of the villages. Arriving in Phoc Tuy province, the Australians found they had to build their camp in the middle of wet season, which had turned the ground into a mud-bath. They were also compelled to build in the heart of an enemy-dominated region while living under ponchos and being constantly sniped at. The Aussies were still working under these appalling conditions when three members of the legendary 22 SAS arrived secretly from Bradbury Lines, Hereford, to give assistance in what was to be a major assault against the Viet Cong. These three were Sergeant Jimmy 'Jimbo' Ashman, who had been with the Regiment since its foundation in North Africa in 1941; Sergeant Richard 'Dead-eye Dick' Parker, who had previously fought with the SAS in Malaya, Borneo and Aden; and Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick 'Paddy' Callaghan, who had been pulled out of administration specially for this secret mission. The presence of the British SAS among the proud Australians, initially a source of resentment and conflict, eventually led to mutual respect. Working side by side, Brits and Aussies forged themselves into a potent fighting machine which was tasked with the fearsome job of rooting the Viet Cong out of the labyrinth tunnel system where they lived and died. It was a journey into hell, from which some would never return.

At the end of July 1981, world heads of state gathered in London for the wedding of Price Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Among those present was President Jawara of the Gambia, whose absence was exploited by Marxist rebels to overthrow him. Rightly fearing armed intervention from neighbouring Senegal, the new revolutionary council seized hostages including one of the President's wives and several of his children and emptied the prisons in a desperate search for allies in the coming struggle. In the first couple of days, as opposing factions of the Gambian police force wrestled for control, many of the released prisoners succumbed to the temptation to settle old scores, and almost two thousand Gambians lost their lives. In tourist beach hotels several hundred Europeans waited and feared the worst. Only one group of men was considered capable of stabilising the situation the legendary Special Air Service the SAS! So, at Jawara's request, three men of SAS 22 Regiment were sent into this cauldron, supposedly to advise the President and his Senegalese allies. But within days, circumstances and the men's bravado turned them into the spearhead of the counter-revolution, heavily embroiled in both the pursuit of heavily armed criminals and the dangerously delicate business of rescuing hostages. Soldier N SAS: The Gambian Bluff is the electrifying story of how, against all the odds, these three highly skilled soldiers defeated the rebels and restored President Jawara to power.

By early 1944 the tide of the war was flowing steadily against the Germans, but to the Western Allies the need for a speedy victory was becoming more apparent with each new Russian advance and each new hint of the horror at work in the camps of occupied Europe. The SAS, born in North Africa as a strategic raiding force behind enemy lines, was well suited to performing a similar role in the different terrain of the Italian mountains and French forests. Here, after making common cause with the local partisans, they could cut the road and rail likes which served the front line German armies. Hitler knew as much, and was determined that the SAS should pay a terrible price for their efforts. In October 1942 he had issued the infamous Commando Order, which decreed that the raiders captured behind enemy lines, whether in or out of uniform, would be summarily executed. Denied the safety net usually provided by the rules of war, the SAS embarked on each new mission knowing that it would end in either success or death. Soldier Z SAS: For King and Country tells the riveting story of the undertaking and execution of these death-defying operations and of how, later, in the final days of war and the opening weeks of peace, the survivors at last began to seek out the murderers of their comrades and bring them to justice.

Terrorist bombs in town and city streets, an ever-rising tide of crime and a teenage drug problem that was rapidly escalating out of control this was the ugly face of Great Britain in 1995. The conventional police forces were already stretched beyond their limit and now a new threat was looming. A fanatical right-wing movement that in recent months had wreaked murder and chaos in mainland Europe was spreading its evil tentacles into the UK. Using terrorism and crime to fund its undercover activities, and a frightening new drug to spur on its growing army of bullyboys to unprecedented extremes of violence, it threatened to turn the streets of Britain's towns and inner cities into battlegrounds of anarchic brutality. In desperation, the civil authorities turned to the only group of men who might be able to confront and beat these fanatics on their own terms: the legendary Special Air Service the SAS! Guided by a maverick undercover drug cop, the SAS team were pitted against an enemy as ruthless and deadly as any the regiment had faced in its chequered and splendid history. The SAS were at war, and that war was just outside the window a war on the streets.

Guillermo Macias disappeared in 1976, in Argentina's 'Dirty War'. Twenty years later, in 1996, his terminally-ill father was determined that someone should find out what had happened to him and why. He had the names of two men he wanted questioned one in Mexico City, the other in a prison on the Colombian island of Providencia but no one to ask the questions. A friend of the family suggested retired SAS hero Jamie Docherty, now living with his Argentine wife in neighbouring Chile. Marysa Salcedo had disappeared on a picnic the previous year, along with four other young women. Her family had given her up for dead when her older sister Carmen stumbled upon a Miami newspaper story that mentioned two of the friends. One had just died of a drug overdose; the other, half-deranged, told a garbled story of sexual slavery on a Caribbean island which sounded suspiciously like Providencia. MI6 and the British Government were also more than a little interested in the island. They were certain that a huge drug-trafficking empire was run from the prison, and knew that at least some of the profits were being funnelled by its Argentine 'guest' into the financing of a mercenary invasion of the Falklands. Ignored by the Colombian authorities and mysteriously obstructed by their American allies, the British had no choice but to send their own elite force the SAS.

In the North African desert in 1941 the war is being won by the brilliant German commander General Rommel, and the British are in retreat on all fronts. A young British army lieutenant, David Stirling, believes that the only way to reverse this situation is to attack the enemy behind their own lines, using small groups of men who can insert by land, sea or air as required. The first of these men are dropped by parachute to attack enemy airfields in the Gazala area, but the raid is a disaster, with many lives lost. The following year, the survivors of that operation, now working hand in hand with the Long Range Desert Group, mount a series of spectacular, successful raids in heavily armed jeeps against airfields in the Benghazi region, destroying nearly a hundred enemy aircraft, leaving the German army reeling, and reversing the course of the war. In September 1942, having proved their worth, that group of bold, resourceful men is formed into a new British army regiment to be used for special and especially dangerous operations behind enemy lines. They are listed officially as the 1st Special air Service Regiment the SAS! Soldier G SAS: The Desert Raiders is the colourful story of the birth of the most renowned regiment in the history of the British Army forged with fire and steel in the vast, sun-scorched plains of the North African desert, pitting themselves against the might of the formerly invincible German Army, and gaining a reputation that would make them a legend in their own time.