SAS: My Trial By Fire: True Stories and Life Lessons from SAS Selection
- Author Des Powell
- Narrator Des Powell
- Publisher Quercus
- Publish Date 5 June 2025
- Run Time 8 hours and 57 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Autobiography: historical, political and military, Military institutions, Military veterans, Modern warfare, Special and elite forces, True stories of heroism, endurance and survival.
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What to expect
Famously, the Paras is home to the UK military's second-toughest training regime after the SAS. Des Powell knows all about both. In fact, Des knows SAS selection better than anyone because he's done it twice. In SAS: Trial by Fire he tells the story of those gruelling tests: how Para training turned him into a soldier but, more crucially, how the SAS process turned him into a member of the elite.
Des describes exactly what it takes to be an elite special forces operator. From raw recruit to trained fighting machine - including the heart-breaking moment he was forced to withdraw, only to begin the process again - Des shares the details of his personal journey, itself a tale of prevailing against almost overwhelming odd. He teaches us valuable life skills by taking us deep into the training regime itself: fitness, navigation, endurance, weapons and combat training, survival techniques in hostile climates, the terrifying jungle phase, the dark arts of escape and evasion, the secret of surviving interrogation.
No one's lifted the lid on what it takes to join the SAS and become the best of the best. Until now.
Praise for Bravo Three Zero
'A must read. Honesty, integrity and real experience that puts you in the thick of the action.' Billy Billingham
'The story that needed to be told' Jason Fox
'The attention to detail is unbelievable' Tim Lovejoy
'Thrilling' Express
Critics Review
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