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The One that Got Away: My SAS Mission behind Enemy Lines | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris Ryan
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy Used: $3.70
You Save: $14.25 (79%)
New (19) Used (18) Collectible (2) from $3.70
Rating:  66 reviews
Sales Rank: 44422
Media: Paperback
Pages: 260
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 1574881566
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.70442
EAN: 9781574881561
ASIN: 1574881566
Publication Date: March 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The British Army's Special Air Service is one of the world's premier special operations units. During the Gulf War, deep behind Iraqi lines, an SAS team was compromised. A fierce firefight ensued, and the eight men were forced to run for their lives. Only one, Chris Ryan, escaped capture or death, and he did it by walking nearly 180 miles through the desert for seven days and eight nights. This story features extraordinary courage under fire, narrow escapes, a battle against the most adverse physical conditions, and, above all, of one man's courageous refusal to lie down and die.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Whooaaa January 1, 2008
K. Siegrist (APO, AE United States)
Great book, real life action hero's. A must buy for anyone interested in SF community and what brave men will do for Country and Brotherhood.
 Not the best December 6, 2007
Calvin Newton (Tucson AZ)
This was a fairly good book, but I expected more from this true story. The author makes some of his SAS counterparts seem like cowards and certainly not professional soldiers. This might have been his view of the truth but it seems a little out of the norm.
Overall good read.
Great story! July 10, 2007
Erik (Netherlands)
This book is great mainly due to the dangerous background of the mission. Ryan survived for about ten days in a hostile environment while he had to deal with coldness, exhaustion, injuries and starvation. Therefore it is an account of an incredible surviving. Respect for Ryan. His book is a must-read !
Worth a read March 27, 2007
Chris Hann (Alameda, CA United States)
Not the tale of an inhumanly capable and faultless warrior and all the more compelling for that. Very interesting and informative, a more realistic treatment of events that the McNabb book, or at least more believable.
The limit of human endurance... January 26, 2006
D. Colley (England)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Imagine driving two hundred miles, a long boring journey no doubt. Seems like ages...
Imagine walking it with no food, little water, and freezing temperatures that had already cost the lives of two of the SAS patrol troopers. That's what Ryan did when he journeyed to the Syrian border when the infamous Bravo Two Zero mission fell apart due to bad luck, poor intelligence, and below zero temperatures.
The famous - or infamous - Bravo Two Zero mission was about eight SAS troops that where sent behind enemy lines during the first gulf war. They were compromised early on, and with a fire fight early on, and no communication from headquarters, the men had to evade and escape. Four of the men were captured and tortured in an Iraqi sess-pit of a gaol. Three of the men died, one shot in combat and two died from hypothermia. Only one escaped. "The One That Got Away" is his story...
Ryan had to endure a terrific journey on foot of 200 miles to get to the Syrian border. Along the way, he drills (kills) a few Iraqi soldiers, or guards. He even breaks one's neck, told in squirm-inducing detail:
"When the second man saw me, his eyes widened in terror and he instantly began to run. But somehow, with a surge of adrenalin, I flew after him, jumped on him and brought him down with my legs locked round his hips. I got one arm round his neck in a judo hold and stretched his chin up. There was a muffled crack, and he died instantaneously."
Ryan's spirit comes from a very deep well, and with his SAS training, he pushes on even when he is on the verge of complete exhaustion (towards the end, he starts hallucinating).
Andy NcNab's "Bravo Two Zero" book is about McNab's torture at the hands of his Iraqi captives. Ryan's story is also about brutal pain, but his is self-inflicted as he desperately seeks to escape capture (he loses all his toe nails due to the 200 mile hike, he is on the verge of getting frost bite, he drinks radioactive water, and to finish off bad luck, he nearly gets lynched when he finally gets to Syria).
Ryan comes across as a methodical man. He plays by the book (he doesn't journey during the day - an SAS no-no). His methodical thinking about getting things right sometimes makes the other members of the SAS patrol seem incompetent. That seems a tad unfair (though as the author, and with the slight fact that he was actually there, he may have a right to say what he wants). I think the real incompetence in the Bravo Two Zero mission was the lack of intelligence from the top brass and not the men on the ground (why should you have the cold terrain as the enemy as well as the Iraqis when it needn't be? Shouldn't Intelligence know that the temperatures in Iraqi can drop really low?)
Even if you not a fan of Special Forces you will find this book riveting. People who like endurance will also love this book - for example if you are one of them loons who think climbing Everest in a pair of flip-flops is a great day out, then this book is also for you.
Seriously, I would recommend reading this, especially now when the second Gulf war is still simmering. It gives you a realistic journey on combat that you rarely get with the media. I also recommend McNab's "Bravo Two Zero" as it gives an account of his capture and torture.
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