The One That Got Away: The legendary true story of an SAS man alone behind enemy lines

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Looking at the cover of the edition I bought, I think you'd be forgiven if you initally judged Chris Ryan to be a bit egocentric, because it bears the tagline "The real hero of Bravo Two Zero". Being published two years after Andy McNab's account of his experience in the same mission I translated that as "Do you know how difficult it is to escape from Iraq when there's a war on? Those other guys just sat there and people hit them!". Whether or not Ryan himself was responsible for the final cover, I don't know, but I thought it was tactless. But the army wasn't enough for Chris. No, he wanted something special. Chris's dream was to be a member of one of the most elite fighting forces on the planet - the SAS (Special Air Service). Chris's cousin was actually already in the reservist SAS and regularly invited Chris to visit him. Chris tried to join the SAS but reportedly failed the selection process because… Ryan was born in Rowlands Gill in County Durham. After attending Hookergate School, he enrolled in the British Army at the age of 16. Ryan's cousin was a member of the reservist 23 SAS Regiment and invited Ryan to come up and "see what it's like to be in the army". [3] :85 Ryan did this nearly every weekend, almost passing selection several times, but was too young to do 'test week'. When he was old enough, he passed selection into 23 SAS. Shortly after that he began selection for the regular 22 SAS Regiment and joined 'B' Squadron as a medic. Needing a parent regiment, Ryan and a soldier who had joined 22 SAS from the Royal Navy, spent eight weeks with the Parachute Regiment before returning to 'B' Squadron. [3] :100–102 It is always worthwhile seeing the same events from different points of view, as all memories are coloured by perspective. The main difference in these two accounts is that Andy takes most of the responsibility upon his own shoulders, whereas Chris blames others. This difference is going to draw you more to one account over the other depending on how you react.

Chris Ryan was born in 1961 in a village near Newcastle. In 1984 he joined the SAS. During his ten years in the Regiment, he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also Sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. Chris was born in Rowlands Gill, which is a small village on the north bank of the River Derwent. It has a population of around 6,000 and is around nine miles from the major city of Newcastle in the North of England. Very little is known of Chris's early life - little about his school days, little about his hobbies, little about his family life. What is known is that he attended the secondary school at Hookergate School, which was around three miles from his village of Rolands Gill. The school has since been renamed Thorp Academy. He stayed at Hookergate until he was 16 years old, at which point, instead of going into further education as many of his fellow authors did, which would have been easy as Hookergate School also had a college section to it, he signed up to join the British Army. Still, just by his style and recollection, I know his type very well. While his story is amazing, it is just that. I am by no means calling him a liar, but this is his own account, which cannot be corroborated, and there are some pretty unbelievable points. The book can be split into four broad sections. The patrol up to when it split, the portion with Ryan, Stan, and Vince, the solo E&E, and 'misc' bits scattered throughout the latter parts. Some of the misc stuff is filler anecdotes about training and other missions after Bravo Two Zero, and the book doesn't really benefit from it, but nor does it detract too much. The parts detailing the patrol up to the split are quite different from what I remember from McNab's book and it would be interesting to do a real side-by-side comparison. The group E&E parts are tense and gripping, the three men were in a really bad way physically and mentally, and that creates an unnerving atmosphere as you wonder what's going to go wrong next. The solo E&E part was mixed. On the one hand it felt a little like a foregone conclusion because you know he gets out, on the other there was plenty of interesting little encounters. I must say I was expecting a little more in the way of actual survival skills being demonstrated but it seems Ryan made it out on sheer strength of will. There were a few occasions I was thinking "Why didn't he [kill the goat, search the bodies, etc]" and the explanation can only be his not thinking straight due to fatigue, or surrounding circumstances making those courses of action impossible. Suffice to say, it's no SAS Survival Guide! After leaving the SAS, Ryan wrote The One That Got Away, which covers the account from his patrol report of the Bravo Two Zero mission. Both his and McNab's accounts have been heavily criticised by former territorial SAS member and explorer Michael Asher, who attempted to retrace the patrol's footsteps for TV and claimed to have debunked both accounts with the help of the then-SAS regimental sergeant major Peter Ratcliffe. [10] [11]Burke, Jason (26 May 2002). "Battle of SAS gets bloody". The Guardian . Retrieved 31 December 2016.

As the companion to Bravo Two-Zero this provides another point of view of the events that took place in Iraq during the first Iraq war. The major difference is that the author was one of the three which got separated from the other five members of the squad and was the only one to actually escape Iraq.The SAS mission conducted behind Iraqi lines is one of the most famous true stories of courage and survival in modern warfare. Late on the evening of 24 January 1991, the patrol was compromised deep behind enemy lines in Iraq. A fierce firefight left the eight men miraculously unscathed, but they were forced to run for their lives. Ratcliffe said of the book (and of Bravo Two Zero), "[It is] insensitive on [Ryan's] and [McNab's] parts to hide behind pseudonyms when they named their dead colleagues in their books, in deliberate contravention of the Regiment's traditions.". [8] The author's writing style drags you into the unfolding scenario and leaves you with a feeling a genuine suspense and intrigue, as you are made party to the internal machinations of Chris Ryan as he battles against the inclement weather; physical and mental deterioration, and the omnipresent threat of enemy patrols whilst he also reconciles himself to the incremental loss of his comrades throughout the evasion, compounded by the fact that he had no idea as to whether they had been captured; rescued, or killed. The One That Got Away is a 1996 ITV television film directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Paul McGann. It is based on the 1995 book of the same name by Chris Ryan telling the true story of a Special Air Service patrol during the Gulf War in 1991.

Both Ryan and McNab have similar writing styles: first person, which gives them impression of them telling the story to you personally, and this makes it easy to read even when it gets technical. I would have preferred the introduction into who Ryan was and how he ended up joining the SAS to have been at the start. It's placed in the middle, almost like a dream sequence when they're lying up waiting during the day.In addition to his writing Ryan has contributed to several television series and video games. In 2002 Ryan co-created and appeared in ITV's action series, Ultimate Force, playing the role of Blue Troop leader Staff Sergeant Johnny Bell in the first series. He acted as a military adviser for the video game I.G.I.-2: Covert Strike. [ citation needed] Edemariam, Aida (27 October 2008). "The new star of romantic fiction: ex-SAS hardman Chris Ryan". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 January 2010. Hm... deciding between a two and a three starrer for this one was tough. I ultimately decided for three stars because his account of stumbling through Iraq was interesting. His pub conversation style of story telling carries this type of story very well.

After the publication of fellow patrol member Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero in 1993, Ryan published his own account of his experiences during the Bravo Two Zero mission in 1995, entitled The One That Got Away. During his escape, Ryan suffered injuries from drinking water contaminated with nuclear waste. [8] Besides suffering severe muscle atrophy, he lost 36lb (16kg) and did not return to operational duties. Instead, he selected and trained potential recruits, before being honourably discharged from the SAS in 1994. [ citation needed] During the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, of which three colleagues were killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. Coburn also commented on the book: "The portrayal of Vince Phillips was a despicable betrayal of what happened. Revelations became more and more outrageous, culminating in a book and film that saw him portrayed in an unfair and undignified manner.". [9]He has also appeared in a number of TV programmes, including HUNTING CHRIS RYAN, PUSHED TO THE LIMI Chris Ryan was born in 1961 in a village near Newcastle. In 1984 he joined the SAS. During his ten years in the Regiment, he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also Sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. Michael Asher's investigative book, The Real Bravo Two Zero, released in 2003, also criticised Ryan's portrayal of Phillips. Asher found that many of the negative attributes Ryan had described did not correspond with the available evidence, nor the other patrol members' accounts. This was an incredible book! I heard of the legend of Bravo Two Zero; I had watched numerous episodes of "Hunting Chris Ryan" on the Television, but until I had read this gripping book, I had no comprehension about the incredible mental, and physical challenges that the author had undergone during his record-breaking Escape and Evasion across Iraq to the relative "safety" of Syria. Indeed, some of the most memorable sections of the book occur during the authors' arrival in "friendly" territory. Unlike McNab's account, Ryan places a lot of blame and speaks very lowly of his colleage Vince, which given that Vince died during the mission and cannot speak for himself, it comes across as unfair. I guess that in a stressful situation, when you feel one of the party isn't coping as well as they could, it's easy to appropriate blame. The One That Got Away is the 1996 ITV dramatization of Chris Ryan's 1995 account of the Bravo Two Zero mission from the first Gulf War directed by Paul Greengrass ( The Bourne Ultimatum, Green Zone). His book was released after Andy McNab's book, but his movie came out three years before the BBC's dramatization of Bravo Two Zero, both of which were filmed in South Africa using the same armorers. The book and film were highly critical of McNab's leadership before and during the mission. Both Ryan and McNab were criticized for publishing the real names of the three troopers who perished while themselves still hiding behind pseudonyms. A third book about the mission by "Mike Coburn" ("Mark" in the film) was published in 2004, despite opposition from the British government.