Bravo Two Zero
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Bravo Two Zero (B20) is the name popularly given to an eight-man British SAS patrol that was tasked with finding Iraqi Scud missile launchers during the Gulf War. Bravo Two Zero was the patrol's callsign. The patrol has been the subject of several books and two TV movies.
On the night of January 22, 1991 the eight man team was inserted into Iraq by a Chinook helicopter.
The team moved across 20 km of iraqi desert and found a cave in which to hide during the day. Soon they discovered that their long range radio did not work and planned to return to their landing zone to obtain another radio. Before they could return, however, the patrol was stumbled across by a farmer who later reported them to the Iraqi authorities.
The patrol atempted to exfiltrate to the Syrian border, which was a huge 200 km away! unfortunatly three of the team died, one succeded in making it to Syria and other four were captured.
The captive soldiers were held at Abu Ghraib Prison where they were tortured horrificly before being released.
Literary Accounts
The first public mention of the patrol was in the autobiography of Lieutenant-General Peter de la Billière, the commander of the British Forces during the Gulf War. The autobiography entitled Looking for Trouble: SAS to Gulf Command-The Autobiography (ISBN 0006379834), only mentioned Bravo Two Zero in passing, but it broke the ground for further books to be written on the patrol.
The leader of the patrol published an account of the patrol in a book titled Bravo Two Zero (ISBN 0440218802) under the pseudonym Andy McNab. Soon Chris Ryan published another account, The One That Got Away (ISBN 0099460157). It criticized McNab's leadership of the patrol.
Both the above accounts are critiqued in a book by SAS veteran Michael Asher The Real Bravo Two Zero (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0304365548/026-5416790-7473204) (ISBN 0304365548), where in post-war Iraq, he followed the path of the patrol and interviews local Iraqis who witnessed the events.
A further account, Soldier Five by Mike Coburn (ISBN 184018907X) published in 2004 aimed to set the story straight, especially with reference to criticism of some of the deceased team members in previous publications.
Chris Ryan's book was turned into a TV film also titled The One That Got Away in 1996. IMDb page[1] (http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0117250/)
A TV movie based on the Andy McNab book followed in 1998, starring Sean Bean and directed by Tom Clegg. IMDb page [2] (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120617/)