Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by the modern master of wartime intrigue—now an original series on MGM+!
“Reads like a mashup of The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, with a sprinkling of Ocean’s 11 thrown in for good measure.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “Rogue Heroes is a ripping good read.”—Washington Post (10 Best Books of the Year)
Britain’s Special Air Service—or SAS—was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young aristocrat whose aimlessness belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a World War II battlefield map and saw a protracted struggle, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Defying his superiors’ conventional wisdom, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself.
Bringing his keen eye for detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to the SAS archives to shine a light on a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy.
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Community Reviews
It's a proper overview of how SAS started out and their campaign in Africa.
I did watch season 1 before reading it which soured me on the book. The season was so forced and historically awful. The music was horrible and modern. And the whole gay theme was so heavy we rarely got to see much camaraderie. Instead multiple characters were made gay without any historical proof. And the book is where these rumors appear. At any rate I didn't find it that interesting. The author forces these themes and stories making it feel ahistorical at times.
It's a bit all over the place. We want to see fights and hear about Holocaust. Yet it goes into details about sexual lives that are often vague as we know nothing about it. If a soldier got lucky that author makes a note of it.
I did watch season 1 before reading it which soured me on the book. The season was so forced and historically awful. The music was horrible and modern. And the whole gay theme was so heavy we rarely got to see much camaraderie. Instead multiple characters were made gay without any historical proof. And the book is where these rumors appear. At any rate I didn't find it that interesting. The author forces these themes and stories making it feel ahistorical at times.
It's a bit all over the place. We want to see fights and hear about Holocaust. Yet it goes into details about sexual lives that are often vague as we know nothing about it. If a soldier got lucky that author makes a note of it.
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