Secrets Of The Sas - In Their Own Words

For the elite SAS soldiers, specialists in high impact, close contact engagements, killing is a simple fact of life. In this programme they explain how they rationalise this brutal part of their existence. The soldiers reveal how, while on peacekeeping duties in Sierra Leone, they were kidnapped by a violent rebel group. The rebels were high on drugs and alcohol and prone to extreme violence, from shooting people to hacking off their heads. Witnesses and players in this hostage rescue share their experiences.

The SAS are famous for swinging through embassy windows dressed all in black or operating behind enemy lines on seek and destroy missions. But there's another side to their work, a side that is rarely talked about: operating undercover. Their most powerful weapons in this shadowy world are not assault rifles and rocket launchers, but make-up, beaten up old cars and their unique ability to think and act for themselves. Everyone in the SAS loves the thrill and intense excitement of operating in the shadows, what they call Grey Ops. Until it goes wrong.

Former SAS soldiers reveal their personal experiences of the psychological trauma that goes hand in hand with their violent lives. Soldier Yorky Crossland shares his memories of extreme conditions in the Iraqi desert, where it was so cold that his finger nails split and he cracked his back teeth from clenching his jaw. As well as the physical trauma, the long lasting emotional turmoil of killing a young Iraqi soldier left him with years of depression. Despite all their training, their unrelenting lives bring unimaginable consequences.

Much of the SAS' work involves operating behind enemy lines, be that hostage rescue or search and destroy. This carries the inevitable risk of being hunted down by the enemy. If it happens, the mission is over, and it becomes a race to reach safety while the enemy try to hunt you. Capture means interrogation, torture, even death. In this episode soldiers reveal the secrets and extraordinary stories of Escape and Evasion, selection and the strength and limits of training in resistance to interrogation.