Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS recruit primitive natives to help them thwart an invading rebel force?

In 1963, the former British colony of Malaya was lobbying for the formation of a new political entity, the Federation of Malaysia, Singapore, Sabeh (North Borneo), Brunei and Sarawak. Viewing this as a threat to his dreams of expansion, President Sukarno of Indonesia began infiltrating insurgents into Borneo. In response, the British organised a force of Malay, British and Commonwealth troops to contain the rebels. What was most desperately needed, however, was a specialist group who could perform highly dangerous and arduous military tasks in the inhospitable, perilous terrain. The only men suitable for such operations were the legendary Special Air Service the SAS! Soldier H SAS: The Headhunters of Borneo is the story of one of the least-known, most extraordinary wars in British history. The SAS braved jungle and swamp infested with snakes, lizards, leeches, wild pigs and all kinds of poisonous insects to live with the primitive, headhunting natives in their longhouses by the rivers, winning their hearts and minds with medical aid and other assistance, then training them as paramilitaries who would eventually become known as the Border Scouts. While some of the SAS remained for months with the headhunters, other moved even deeper into the unexplored jungle 'the Gap' to establish ambush sites and helicopter landing zones. They also conducted daring 'Claret' raids across the border when, as the renowned 'Tiptoe Boys' who hit hard and vanished fast, they set booby traps and ambushed enemy troops moving along the many jungle tracks and rivers. They fought a bloody, nightmarish war and won it.

In 1963, the former British colony of Malaya was lobbying for the formation of a new political entity, the Federation of Malaysia, Singapore, Sabeh (North Borneo), Brunei and Sarawak. Viewing this as a threat to his dreams of expansion, President Sukarno of Indonesia began infiltrating insurgents into Borneo. In response, the British organised a force of Malay, British and Commonwealth troops to contain the rebels. What was most desperately needed, however, was a specialist group who could perform highly dangerous and arduous military tasks in the inhospitable, perilous terrain.

March 1945. A handful of young Allied operatives are parachuted into the remote jungled heart of the Japanese-occupied island of Borneo, east of Singapore, there to recruit the island’s indigenous Dayak peoples to fight the Japanese. Yet most have barely encountered Asian or indigenous people before, speak next to no Borneo languages, and know little about Dayaks, other than that they have been – and may still be – headhunters. They fear that on arrival the Dayaks will kill them or hand them over to the Japanese. For their part, some Dayaks have never before seen a white face. So begins the story of Operation Semut, an Australian secret operation launched by the organisation codenamed Services Reconnaisance Department – popularly known as Z Special Unit – in the final months of WWII. Anthropologist Christine Helliwell has called on her years of first-hand knowledge of Borneo, interviewed more than one hundred Dayak people and all the remaining Semut operatives, and consulted thousands of military and other documents to piece together this astonishing story. Focusing on the operation's activities along two of Borneo’s great rivers – the Baram and Rejang – the book provides a detailed military history of Semut II’s and Semut III’s brutal guerrilla campaign against the Japanese, and reveals the decisive but long-overlooked Dayak role in the operation. But this is no ordinary history. Helliwell captures vividly the sounds, smells and tastes of the jungles into which the operatives are plunged, an environment so terrifying that many are unsure whether jungle or Japanese is the greater enemy. And she takes us into the lives and cavernous longhouses of the Dayaks on whom their survival depends. The result is a truly unique account of the encounter between two very different cultures amidst the savagery of the Pacific War.

This comprehensive guide by a Special Ops combat veteran is the ultimate reference for military tactics, techniques, and procedures. Intended for military SpecialOps personnel, this volume presents invaluable operational guidance with lessons learned from the legendary Military Assistance Command Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). Drawing on Special Reconnaissance operations conducted during the Vietnam Era, author Edward Wolcoff provides practical information alongside operational accounts and analyses of specific missions. Wolcoff covers the gamut of specialized SR topics ranging from operational planning and preparation, through execution, logistics and command and control – all in substantial tradecraft detail. Few of the tactics, techniques, and procedures or lessons-learned included in this book have been previously presented in a usable form for SpecOps personnel. This book is intended instruct the Special Operations units of today, and preserve this valuable tradecraft for future generations.

In 1995, in the aftermath of the First Gulf War, a defector from Saddam Hussein's Iraq makes contact with the Western press. He claims to have startling new information about an Iraqi nuclear weapons programme, but suddenly he disappears without a trace. Unwilling to risk a new war in the Gulf, the West disregards him as a fraud, but a key scientific advisor to the British government has other ideas. When news of a hush-hush project on a converted rig in the Caspian Sea breaks with reports of another disappearance – this time of a nuclear missile expert – the threads of an international plot are unravelled. It soon becomes clear that there is only one group with the necessary skills to investigate: Britain's legendary Special Boat Squadron. Marine I SBS: Escape from Azerbaijan finds the Squadron's finest in a corner of the old Soviet Union riven by war and lawlessness, fighting for survival against the sadistic intelligence agents of Saddam's Mukhabarat and the heirs of the KGB. This is classic military fiction at its best.

In the controversy over the reporting of the Falklands conflict, criticism focused on the media's use of armchair strategists to interpret and speculate about operations in the South Atlantic. Valerie Adams sets that media commentary in an historical perspective and examines its actual content to see whether the criticism was justified and whether the material actually helped to inform the public about the actions undertaken on their behalf. The issues raised in wartime by the relationship between the media, the government and the public in a democracy are explored: the Falklands' problems appear insignificant set against potential future difficulties.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS be able to outfox the IRA as they prepare a deadly reprisal?

In Cold War parlance, the British government liked to think of it as a counter intelligence mission. To the Russians it would be seen as an act of international piracy. In an operation cloaked in secrecy, the elite men of the legendary Special Boat Squadron were to go up against the most sophisticated and hi-tech surveillance systems the Russian Navy possessed with only some crude, hastily-built wind-powered craft at their disposal. Little did they know that things were about to go terribly wrong. Marine D SBS: Windswept sees the SBS put to the ultimate test, with all their tactical prowess and monumental daring required to rescue the situation. There would be no second chances as failure could see the volatile Middle East blasted into all-out war. This is classic military fiction at its best.

Fresh from the 1943 Aegean Campaign, explosives expert Sergeant Colin 'Tiger' Tiller of the Royal Marines, is selected to undergo covert training in a one-man midget submarine fitted with a newly modified, specialist weapon. Posted to the Far East he enrolls in the Special Boat Section, where he set about ruthlessly destroying Japanese supply ships among the crocodile-infested mangrove swamps along the Arakan coast, raiding enemy-held islands, and employing his deadly skills on Burma's Irrawaddy River. There he receives special orders to use the midget submarine in his most dangerous raid yet... Marine H SBS: The Burma Offensive - based on real operations mounted during World War II- recounts the death-defying exploits of a group of highly trained individuals pitted against the armed might of the Japanese Empire. This is classic military fiction at its best.