Secrets of the SAS: In Their Own Words (2016–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Hunted - full transcript

The SAS.

The world's most secretive
and feared military unit.

The SAS, in reality,
is nothing like anything

I have ever seen portrayed
on a movie or on TV.

It's better than that.

For 70 years,
this mysterious force

has played a pivotal role

in every British military operation
you've heard of...

...and plenty you haven't.

We know we're on it,

the British Government will deny
all knowledge of us being on it.



In this series, for the first time,

elite SAS soldiers talk
in unprecedented detail

about the gritty reality of life
inside the Special Air Service.

You have to have control

but when it's necessary,
and only when it's necessary,

act with extreme violence...
professionally.

Piling off of helicopters,
people swinging down ropes,

enemy running this way.
It's carnage.

Cars and guns, stuck everywhere.

You've got pistols and machine guns
in the car,

you've got all sorts going on.

It was great fun,
like, a video game almost.

There's no such thing
as an uninjured soldier.

We're trained to go to war,
we're trained to fight.



But how do you train
to look at somebody

that was once your friend
and is now dead?

I, basically, drunk myself into a
stupor and tried to shoot myself.

This is the frank, intimate truth

of serving and surviving in the SAS.

Yeah, we were whipped, we were burnt.

I felt like I was gonna die
at that stage

because the body was starting then
to close down.

If you're caught,

then one of the better situations is
if you're killed.

One of the worst situations
would be tortured,

seeing your colleagues killed
in front of you

and then, probably, finally killed.

What you're gonna do is fight
until the very last minute.

Because when you're dead,
you're dead.

So if you're still breathing,
you're still winning.

When the balloon went up
and the air war started,

the deputy director
Special Forces Group called us all in

and he stood on the table,
on the big dining room table,

and then he told us
that it was gonna be a big theme park

and we were the only ones
that are invited to it.

By definition,
the Special Air Service,

what we now call the UKSF,
United Kingdom Special Forces,

are involved
in small covert operations, you know,

it might be a Squadron group
maybe 60 guys, or whatever it is

or it might be a little four-man team
going off.

It was a first opportunity to see war
in a bigger scale

and it is what we had trained for.

It was inevitable that we would see
some sort of action

but on the scale that
the Gulf War was, it was immense.

Yeah, we all wanted to be there.

My job in the first Gulf War
was to take an eight-man foot patrol

to the northwest of Baghdad

to find and destroy
a fibre optic cable,

that was running
to the Scud missile teams

that were in the western desert.

If Andy's patrol can
sabotage the scud missile launches,

they will neutralise
Saddam Hussein's deadliest weapon.

A good, classic, Special Air Service,
Special Forces job.

Destroy the line of communication.
What could be better?

Andy's patrol,
codenamed "Bravo Two Zero,"

has been dropped by helicopter
deep inside Iraq.

Straight ahead, this way.

They're making their way
on foot to their target,

twenty kilometres away.

But instead of hunting down
an enemy target,

Bravo Two Zero
will become hunted themselves.

It will test them to the limit

and reveal how the SAS survive
against all odds.

We got into our hide position.

And our biggest weapon
is concealment.

So we're in a small sort of dip
in a head of a wadi,

where the water had come down
and it's carved out some areas.

By the early hours
of the first morning,

Bravo Two Zero are in position close
to their target.

After all of the
rushing around, the helicopters,

dumping all the gear
and then, "Shh". Total silence.

Nothing.

It's quite nice.
Because you're left on your own.

So it's just you lot and that's it.
It's just us and that's it.

- It's not working, mate.
- Hang on give me a...

We try to give out our first
what we call "Sit Rep,"

situation report.

Basically, all they want to know
is that we're existing.

So where we are, what we've done,
what we're gonna do and that's it.

Go UVC. Nothing.

But we weren't being received,
the system didn't work.

Channel two.

But that doesn't matter,
we've still got to get on

because the Mission Statement

is to find and destroy
the fibre optic cable

that runs from, you know, Baghdad

along the main MSR.
Main Supply Route.

Before they can attack
the cable, they must recce the area.

It's not what they are expecting.

There was a brigade of heavy
armour on this main supply route.

Lots of heavy armour
coming up and down

and a bit further down,
about 200 or 300 meters,

was a S60 anti-aircraft gun.

That was set up

to protect this brigade
as they're moving through.

So there was clearly far more
Iraqi movement than we thought.

The eight men are right on
top of a larger, better armed enemy.

They have a decision to make.

Abort the mission,

head for the pre-arranged
emergency evacuation point

and wait for a helicopter...

...or go ahead
with the odds stacked against them.

I've had feelings where I've thought,

this is going to be a tough one.
Do you know what I mean?

But, no, I've looked at my
particular part within that mission

and thought to myself,
Yeah. I can do that.

You know, if that means

that you do overtake
harsh odds sometimes,

well, so be it.

I think it's the mentality
of the bloke in the regiment.

Even when the odds
are particularly bad,

you'd still rather have those odds
and be part of something

than not have those odds
and not be part of it.

I think there is a certain breed
and there's a certain mentality,

a certain mental resilience.

If you don't have that mentality

when you're going up
against all odds,

when you're going up
against ten to one,

odds against you,
then you ain't going to survive.

The patrol decides to
continue with their mission.

They hide up and wait for nightfall.

I don't know, about half four
or whatever,

we start to hear some goats.

The lead goat had a little bell on,
and we were in our dip

and it sort of come
to the edge of the dip

and, like, looking down at us.

Because the goat turns up,
more goats turned up

and they're looking at us.

So we're hoping that the goats
would just move on.

And then we heard this young lad.

At first, we could just hear him.

So that was all right.
That was no big deal.

And then we saw the top of his head

and as he got closer and closer,
obviously, the body's appearing.

We've got camouflage clothing on
and all that sort of stuff

so he clearly didn't see us
immediately

because he's concentrating
on getting the animals moving.

And then he sort of looked
down at us.

And he saw us.

Shit.

And then he started to run.

Go, go, go, go, go!

He ran towards
the anti-aircraft guns, the S60s.

Fuck!

At that point, we're compromised.

When you're compromised on a mission,

you've got to think fast,
you've got to make a decision,

can you carry on with the mission?
Can you not?

And it's got to be quick
because if you make that decision

and you make the wrong decision,
you're dead.

SAS Patrol Bravo Two Zero

are operating deep
behind enemy lines in Iraq.

Shit.
Go, go, go, go, go!

They've been spotted
by a young goat herder.

Their cover is blown.

And the whole job is done

because we've got a goat with a bell
who other goats follow.

At that point, everybody knows
they're in the shit.

One of the questions
that's constantly asked is,

"Would you have killed the boy?"

You've got to live with the decisions
you make in life

so you've got to be sure
you make the right decisions.

What the fuck happened there?

The patrol decide
to let the boy live.

...the fucking goat!

It's not on compassionate grounds,

it's, basically, if you kill him,

we'd have to bag him
up and carry him.

Our operation started round
about the same time.

Bravo Two Zero came in
but dropped in a different location.

They had a different
area of responsibility.

We were all on a deniable operation
during Gulf One

which, basically, means
that the British Government

will deny all knowledge of us
being on it.

We couldn't leave a trace of us
being there.

So you make a mess, you clean it up
and you go out with it.

So you take the body with you,

we'd have to bag it up,
take bin liners,

bag it up, you'd scoop up the blood
off the sand, you take it with you.

Andy knows that if they're caught

with the body of an innocent child,

it would prove fatal for the patrol.

It's a different thing
between killing Iraqi soldiers

and killing Iraqi kids.

You're not gonna last five minutes,
that's the reality of it.

But the decision to let
the boy go has consequences.

We had to assume
that he's gone to the guns

because that's the way he ran.
So he's gone to the guns.

He's told them that he's seen
some soldiers down there.

They'll make their own assumptions
on that.

So the longer they take on that,
the better.

That gives us time to make distance

and, hopefully, then use the cover
of darkness

then to get to our ERV,
Emergency Rendezvous Point,

where the helicopter
will come in and we're off.

Sabotage is out of the question.

Their mission now is to get

to the emergency
helicopter rendezvous

without being hunted down,
captured and interrogated

or worse.

They'll always be
some sort of mess ups

or some sort of problem.

But you adapt and overcome.

And I know it's a cliché,
but you do.

And that's what the SAS
are very, very good at.

I think training helps

but I think you've got to have it
from the beginning.

I've never really been worried
about yesterday.

And certainly
not worried about tomorrow.

All what concerns me,
and always have has,

is what's happening now.

And I found it quite confusing,
certainly, when I was young

why people didn't think like that.

Andy was abandoned as a baby.

He was left in a Harrods bag
on the steps of a London hospital.

Aged five, Andy was adopted

and grew up on a succession
of South London housing estates.

Mum and Dad done everything

from working in a chocolate factory
to window cleaning,

working in sort of Laundromats.

So I was just left to my own devices.

Getting into gangs
and all that sort of stuff

and, basically,
wanting all the good stuff

without doing the work.

And so, the only way to do that
is to nick it.

Landed up in juvenile detention
at the age of 16.

We tend to blame everybody else
for our own stuff, don't we?

Well, actually I don't give a fuck
whose fault it is.

What is the problem?
How does it affect me?

How do I sort that out?

And that, without realising it,

has come from that abandonment
as a child.

I clearly knew
that if nobody gives a fuck,

well, you know, the only person
who can do that is me.

So I'd better get on with it.

Taking responsibility.
Staying focused.

On the run in the Iraqi desert,

Andy needs these skills
more than ever.

At first, what we could hear
was the track vehicles,

in the distance,
rumbling along the MSR.

Then we heard ones coming
more close.

And it's like, "What we gonna do?"

- Contact! Get down!
- Get down! Get down!

You can't run
because there's nowhere to run.

All you'd do
is get killed out of breath.

What you've got to do
is face the threat

and see what happens.

Because you're working on the basis
that you're fucked anyway,

you're dead anyway.

It's eight men on foot
versus armoured vehicles,

heavy weapons
and countless troops.

Bravo Two Zero are out-numbered
and out-gunned.

Numbers or weapon systems
or how big you are

doesn't decide the factor
in who's going to win the fight.

Sometimes, it's just
who's the more aggressive.

Speed, aggression and surprise.

The enemy are not expecting you
to turn up when you turn up.

They're not expecting you
to have that fire power.

They're not expecting you to do it
that quickly.

You've got to have
an element of control about you.

But you've also got to be aggressive
and quick.

Both in how you are physically
and how you think mentally.

So you've got to make
very important decisions quickly.

On the day of the race,

if someone maybe hasn't had
the right training

or hasn't-- Isn't as game

or isn't as up for the fight
as you are.

You know? You see a lot of these guys
just leaning over

and tipping their rifle
all over the place,

hoping to hit something.

Well, don't blame me
if I drop down to one knee

and put one straight
through the centre of your forehead.

And that's the whole ethos there.
To have control

but when it's necessary,
and only when it's necessary,

act with extreme violence.

The application of violence,
I find quite easy.

But I'm able to switch that
on and off,

which has been a fantastic advantage
for me.

Certainly in the life
in the military.

It's roughly about one percent
of the general population

register very high
on the psychopathic scale.

We always think of them as,
you know, like hatchets,

chopping people's heads off.
And clearly there are those groups.

But there's a small subgroup

that actually function
quite well in society.

And I'm one of them.

I'm a good functional psychopath.

What I'm able to do

is adjust different
sort of emotions and feelings

depending on the situation

so if you think
of a music mixing desk,

bass, treble, all that sort of stuff.

If you have, sort of, fearlessness,
empathy, commitment,

all these different things,

what I'm able to do
is turn the knobs,

depending on the situation.

From the special forces point
of view, they are there to do a role.

While they should understand

the consequences
of what they're doing,

do they really want to empathise

with the people they're dealing with?
Probably not.

When you're shooting the enemy,

what goes through your mind?

Erm... Getting through them
and to the next one.

It's almost like a game,
you've got to go through it

as if was the ranges,
as if it was an exercise.

We're not all psychopaths

but we are trained to be able
to handle our emotions.

The eight-man patrol survives.

But now,
they know they're hunted men.

With the enemy in pursuit,

it's too dangerous to head directly
to the helicopter rendezvous.

We still had daylight.

There's been a contact.
There's been noise.

There's been smoke.
All that sort of stuff.

If you keep on a straight line,
they're going to follow us up,

without a doubt,
we're going to get caught.

Andy decides to get his
patrol out under their own steam.

It's something all SAS soldiers train
and prepare for

but few experience in combat.

It's called, "Escape and evasion."

What we got to do now is go
to the nearest country of safety.

And for us at that time,

the American
or British Embassy in Syria,

that was our E&E plan.

Move at night time, hide at daytime,
get to the border, over the border

and then sort ourselves out and try
and get to one of the embassies.

Escape and Evasion

is a crucial part
of the SAS selection process

that all candidates must complete.

Escape and evasion during selection

teaches you what it's like
to be behind enemy lines

with very little back up

having to think for yourself,
on the run

and it puts you through
in that scenario,

so that if and when it comes to that,
you're prepared,

it's a place you've been before,

and you're more likely
to manage it better.

Working in small teams,
SAS hopefuls must survive for a week

in the harsh terrain
of the Welsh hills.

So you're given a checkpoint
that you have to meet every 24 hours.

You'll have a set distance to cover.

And all the time
there's a hunter force

who are chasing you,
who probably have helicopters,

bikes, Land Rovers and dogs.

You have a combat survival
tin, which is an old tobacco tin.

Inside that tin
you would have a OXO cube,

a button compass, a blade, a--

Maybe a couple of needles,
some fish hooks,

some fishing wire, all in that,
and you've got to live off that.

We headed off over this hill,

and we were coming up
to this reservoir

and there was a house.

And one of the guys went down
and knocked on the door.

So about an hour later
he comes back up

and says, "It's all right, guys.
We're sorted."

They're going to feed us.

They've got a load of drink
for us as well.

They're waiting
for the rest of their friends

to turn up for this party.

And in the morning,
they'll give us a lift

to the next general area
of the next check point.

It was, like, awesome.
This is absolutely sorted.

Cheating is not a crime,
getting caught is the crime.

You've got to find some food

so one night, we broke into a barn
on one of the farms,

nicked a big bag of dog biscuits.

So we stayed there,
eating fabulous food

for several days.

Erm... One of the guys ended up
sleeping with one of the women.

Which was interesting.

We lived off dog biscuits
for a couple of days,

and I don't think
I went to the toilet

for probably about five
or six days afterwards,

because I was that bunged up.

On the second to last night,

erm, I went out with a wig on
and a lady's top

and we drove out into the car park
where the hunter force were.

And we sat there
and wound the windows down

and listened to all of the guys
coming out of the pub

and talking about
where they were going next

to hunt the guys down.

So we had a fair idea now

that we were actually behind
the search line.

So there was no chance
of getting caught.

I had one particular close shave.

I remember where we were funnelled
into a checkpoint,

and before we got down
to the crossroads,

the lights all came on
and it was almost a kind of ambush.

They were waiting at the junction.

And they chased us
uphill up the road

and I kind of did a flip
over the hedge,

and as they came through the gate,
they had motorbikes and dogs.

And I knew I couldn't outrun them,
so I just ran and dived into a river.

So it comes down
to the very last night

and the guys are really sorry
to see us go,

so they cook this awesome lasagne.
Best lasagne I've ever had.

The next morning,
we bundle ourselves into this car

and go out to the side
of the mountain

opposite the final checkpoint.

And the lights
just started to come up

and the four or five or us just stop
and turn to each other

and start laughing.

And we just fall over.
We're besides ourselves laughing.

The excitement's going

but you want to keep control
of your heart rate.

You want to be able
to keep a steady mind,

to give you clear thoughts in terms
of what to do.

And then I realised what's happened.

They've spiked the lasagne
with a load of marijuana,

so we're absolutely off
of our faces on top of this hill.

So we got ourselves together,
went down the other side

and we had a couple hours' march
to final checkpoint,

gets into the final check point

and... we're hearing
all of these stories of woe,

absolute... licking moisture off
of puff balls and all sorts

and we was in absolute hysterics.

And the hunter force turn up,

they turn around and offer me
a Mars Bar and a cup of tea,

at which point,
I turn around with a little wry smile

and say, "I can't. I'm stuffed."

During selection if you're caught,

you're caught once,
like, the first time

you'll go in the bag,

so that's basically stress positions,
interrogation for a few hours.

Then they'll release you again.

Um, if you're caught again
then you'll be off the course.

But for Bravo Two Zero,
the stakes are far higher.

The Iraqi army are the hunters.
The patrol are the prey.

During combat, if you're caught,
then obviously, the...

Well, one of the better situations
is if you're killed,

one of the worst situations
would be tortured, raped,

seeing your colleagues
killed in front of you

and then probably finally killed.

The patrol need to make ground. Fast.

We were cracking on the first night.

And then the weather started
to really, really change.

The patrol is equipped
for mild weather.

But this will be
Iraq's coldest winter in decades.

And then we started to have snow.

SAS patrol Bravo Two Zero
are being hunted by enemy troops.

Facing capture,
imprisonment or worse.

They're trying to reach
the Syrian border,

a hundred kilometres away.

We was expecting European type
temperate climate at night.

So it's going to be cold,

but the first night,
the weather was horrendous.

Hundreds of miles south,

another SAS patrol
is experiencing the same weather.

It was winter, we accepted that,

but we didn't ever envisage
how cold it was going to get.

It was the coldest winter
in that region for decades.

Being ill-equipped clothing-wise
was the biggest problem.

It's real pain in the fucking arse

when you're actually freezing
your tits off,

because somebody's told you
about an environment

and they've got it completely wrong.

In the snow and darkness,

three men become separated
from the patrol.

We were split.

There's not a lot you can do.
You're not going to shout out.

You're not gonna,
you know, shine torches

and all that sort of stuff.

So you think, okay, right.

They're big and ugly enough
to sort themselves out.

They know where they're going,
they know what they're doing.

We just get on with it.

There are just
five men left in Andy's patrol.

Now one of them,
Trooper Bob Consiglio,

is suffering from hypothermia.

The men use body heat to try
and warm him up.

Bob, you know, he's laying there,

there's two of us
who are trying to cuddle him,

there's another lad
who's trying to make this brew

and trying to keep the flame down
as much as possible,

so we don't get compromised.

Lighting a fire
is a desperate measure.

Anything that indicates
the men's location

increases their risk of capture.

And Bob started singing.

He's decided to sing
"White Christmas".

You know?
Because the snow's falling down.

At first, because of the noise,
you know, "Shut the fuck up."

And he went, "No". You know?
He's getting-- He kept on singing it.

Because you think
"Well, we've got a flame on anyway".

It was just silly.

He's singing.

You know,
out of adversity comes humour.

That's the SAS's way of dealing
with things, isn't it?

Soldiers inherently
have to have this...

...this sense of dark humour
behind everything.

Because of some of the situations
they're in.

If they just thought, "We're at war
and it's very serious"

and, you know, there are going
to be people killed,

and it can be quite a dark,
depressing, miserable place.

We lost a chap on my selection.

And it was the middle of winter

and there was a gale force
wind blowing.

He'd obviously undid his jacket.

With the wind
and snow hypothermia

had got him almost straightaway.

And we were all gathered
around this guy looking at him,

because we all had breakfast
with him just earlier in the day,

and I think it was a Marine
turned to the Sergeant Major,

he was a huge guy, six foot six
built like a tank and said,

"What happens now, Sergeant Major?"

The Sergeant Major
looked down at him,

"Well, he's failed selection
for a start".

It was a low point for us,

but that kind of black humour
lifted us all up.

Because we had to roll him up
and take his pack off

and roll him up
and carry him down the hill.

It's all about pushing through
past every adversity

and coming out the other side of it
with a smile on your face.

Or at least coming out
the other side of it.

Bob Consiglio's condition
improves enough

for the men to push on.

But Andy knows
that one more night in the cold

and they'll be too weak
to evade the enemy.

...the fucking car now!

He decides to hijack a car
and drive to the Syrian border.

We were hoping for this,
you know, nice cross country vehicle

but instead of it being like a,
you know, four-wheel drive Hilux,

or whatever it was,
it was an old cab.

It was ridiculous.

Instead of fleeing cross country,

the patrol is forced
to drive on the roads

and hope that they're not spotted.

It was warm.
That was the main thing.

And we were making distance.

And we got, I don't know,
about 11 kilometres short

of the border.

Got slowed and caught up in traffic.

One of the lads quickly jumped out
and tried to see what was going on.

And he said, "Well,
there's a vehicle check point,

VCP, further down."

Shit.

They realised that it was
going to rat shit.

They realised that
if they didn't take control, they...

they were gonna all die or whatever.

And that's when you step up
to the plate.

The SAS fight and die
together as one

and that's why they will nine times
out of ten prevail

because, you know, without a doubt

that the man next to you
will be with you right to the end

and you don't want to let him down
and he doesn't want to let you down.

There probably is a special bond
between Special Forces soldiers

just because of the nature
of the environments they are in,

how severe they are
and the nature of the small teams

so if you are working along somebody

that, literally, may have
just saved your life

or your life may be in their hands

that automatically inherently
creates a bond

that you probably wouldn't get in
most other workplaces.

And then we just had to bomb burst.

What happens is
I just keep on shouting out,

as I'm running,
"On me. On me. On me".

So people can hear,
you know, where to go

and you get everybody together.

From then onwards it was just keep
on fighting our way to the border.

Within 12 hours,

three patrol members are captured,
including Andy.

The two others are dead,

one from enemy fire,
one from hypothermia.

We, as soldiers, we live with death.

And I've seen
a lot of my friends killed.

I've been...

I've been in situations
where it could easily have been me

and I've been in that space,
and I'm no longer in that space,

and the person that is in that space
is now dead.

That's happened.
You just have to put it down to fate.

That is the hardest thing
for any soldier, losing somebody.

Especially for special forces...

...because there aren't that many
of you.

You know everybody.

And when you lose somebody,
it is genuinely losing a friend.

I've seen a few friends die.

Probably more than I would want to.

And I guess if anything
those kind of last moments,

if you like, of somebody
either lying there dead

or in the process of dying,

it's hard not to dwell
on those sometimes.

That's the... It's the last moments
of somebody's life.

It's hard not to cherish
and recall that.

Andy and two other patrol members

are taken to a Baghdad prison
for interrogation.

They had the hooks in the ceilings
and all that.

So we were stripped of clothing.
Kept in individual cells.

You've still got a job to do
when you're captured.

And your job, as what we call
"Prone-to-capture troops,"

is to give a window of opportunity
for the Regimental Headquarters,

the command centre,
to work out what to do.

So you go through the system.

The Geneva Convention.
The big four.

Number, rank, name, date of birth.
That sort of thing.

Name, rank, number, blood group type,
religion is only going to last

so long with a proper interrogator.

If they want information,
they're going to move you along

to get the information they want
as quick as they can.

What they want
is what's in your brain.

Or what they think may be
in your brain.

Because that's one
of the processes of interrogation,

to find out if you're of value.

Andy's job now

is to make sure
they don't get what they want.

Like every SAS soldier,
Andy was selected for the regiment

because of his natural ability
to resist intense interrogation.

During interrogation,
you're cuffed, plasti-cuffed

for the duration of the time
that you're in there.

They put hoods over your head,
they put you in stress positions,

so either your hands
are flat out against the wall...

Every 20 minutes they'll be moved
from a sitting position

to a standing position, depending--

They might be put
in a lying position,

but it was an uncomfortable
lying position.

It was like a crucifix,
they have to keep their feet straight

and their arms out straight.

After about two hours of that,
you sometimes don't know

whether you're sitting or standing
after about two hours.

It would break them to such a degree

that they'd rather be in the room
just talking

than be sat, standing or seated

or lying down on the gravel
or the hard concrete.

They play white noise.

Call of prayer,
mosque call of prayer noise.

Plane noise.

Babies crying seems
to affect a few people

because when they start
hearing babies crying

for a prolonged period

it starts to get
a little bit annoying.

Make it quite loud so they have--
It's quite unpleasant.

Sleep deprivation.
It aids sleep deprivation

if they can't actually try
and get their sleep.

And then, they begin to interrogate..

- Soft authoritarian.
- Good cop, bad cop.

- Stand up, shout in your face.
- Male on his own.

"Who are you? What you doing?"

- Female.
- Get them naked.

The female will inevitably get you
to get your cock out.

- Make them feel vulnerable.
- So she can take the piss.

- "What were you doing?"
- And if you say yes, no...

"That's kit's specialised kit,
why are you carrying it?"

- ...shake your head...
- "Who are these people you're with?"

- ...or sign anything.
- "Do you know him? Do you know him?

- Do you know him?"
- ...you've failed the course.

We had guys on selection
that were on the interrogation phase,

having gone the best part
of five months to get to that point

and couldn't hack interrogation.

Started burbling like a burst asshole
and just would not stop yapping.

I even had one guy on mine
that came off due to the noise

during the interrogation phase.
So I think there was a...

It was either a white noise
or it was a maybe Arabic

playing or something
in the background, and that was him.

I just heard, kind of, screaming
and found out at the end

that he'd volunteered
to take himself off.

SAS soldiers are also trained

to cope with prolonged imprisonment.

We're trying to teach these people

how to deal with conduct
after capture.

But none of us
had really been taken hostage.

So we try and use real life talkers.

You sit and you listen
to people's experiences

who've been kept
against their will.

And there was this guy turned up
he was a Phantom pilot

in the US Marine Corps
during the Vietnam War.

And, literally,
he just put his hands out,

just either side of his shoulders
and walked three and a half paces up,

turned round,
three and a half paces back.

And we're looking at him, thinking
"Well, what's going on here?"

And he said, "That was my cell
for six and a half years".

Solitary confinement.

So I used to think
about his experience and think,

do you know what?
If he can do it, I can.

One of the things that I did learn
from this Phantom pilot

was that, that what you've got to do

is just accept
what is happening to you.

Andy may be trained

to withstand imprisonment
and interrogation.

But the British Army
can't train for torture.

You know, we were whipped,
we were burnt.

I had my back teeth
pulled out by a guy

who said he was a dentist
from Guy's Hospital before the war.

I felt like I was going to die
at that stage

because the body was starting then
to sort of start to close down.

The biggest threat
to Andy's survival

doesn't come
from the beatings and torture.

It comes from his own side.

There was constantly the fear of

whether we were gonna get killed
by our own bombers.

When you're captured,
you're within the enemy

and you're almost in the cross hairs,
so when they target the enemy

you're almost part of them,
so it's a very real risk.

There was a time
where I was thinking,

okay, where I am
in the interrogation,

clearly I'm gonna be dead
in the next couple of days.

If we get a direct hit,
well, actually fine,

because then it's all over
and done with.

But what you're going to do is fight
until the very last minute.

Because when you're dead,
you're dead.

So if you're still breathing,
you're still winning.

SAS patrol leader, Andy,

has endured six weeks
in an Iraqi prison.

He's been beaten, tortured

and faced the threat of bombing
by his own side.

The way that I was thinking
at that stage,

the way that the interrogations
were going,

I thought, right, I'm starting
to go down now.

So it's gonna be, like,
it's not gonna be long now.

Kuwait is liberated.
Iraq's army is defeated.

Our military objectives are met.

The Gulf War is over.

Five days after the ceasefire,

Andy and the three other
captured patrol members

are handed over to the Red Cross
along with other coalition prisoners.

So there was that elation
that we were with the Red Cross.

And even when we took off,
we're still not free

because we're still
in Iraqi airspace,

we have no idea
what's on the ground.

The moment, for me,
when I knew that I was free

was when I was
on the Red Cross aircraft,

which was a commercial aircraft
that was chartered,

flying out of Baghdad.

And what happened, Tornadoes
and F-16s came up

either side to escort us out.

As the jets came up,
the Tornadoes had these ticker tape,

bits of paper written out.

And it said, like, "Jim, you wanker,"
or whatever it was.

Because they were taking the piss out
of one of the prisoners

that was in there
who got shot down. You know?

So immediately, like, it's all good.

You've got the jets up as support,

and straight away, the piss-taking
is starting to happen.

So that was quite good.

After six weeks in prison,

Andy had nerve damage to both hands,
a dislocated shoulder,

kidney and liver damage,
and hepatitis B.

Endurance-wise, Bravo Two Zero,
you know, it speaks for itself.

They were in a shit position,
you know?

All they could do
was get the fuck out of there.

As it started to get worse for them,

they could only rely on each other
to get themselves out.

There is this whole thing
of "Who Dares Wins,"

all that sort of stuff,

but, actually,
what happens is that you go,

"Fuck it. There is no option.
This is what we're gonna do."

So you get to that first bit,
the major contact,

"Fuck it. There is no option.
We've got to go to Syria".

You get caught,
"Fuck it, there is no option",

but then to go into conduct
under capture."

You know, so what happens

is you almost
sort of put it in sections.

You compartmentalise
what you have to do,

and you do what you--
You do the best you can.

And, you know, if that means

that you do overtake
harsh odds sometimes, well, so be it.

You know, that's the way it was.

And, you know, for the environment,

for the difficulty
of hitting the enemy

and just trying their best
to get out,

you know,
I think they did a great job.

They put everything into practice,
resistance to interrogation,

escape and evasion,
contacted the enemy

and they came home.

But, unfortunately,
three of the lads didn't.

Sergeant Vince Phillips
and Trooper Steve Lane

died of hypothermia.

Trooper Bob Consiglio
was killed by enemy fire.

Out of the eight men patrol,
three were killed.

Four were captured, myself included.

And only one actually made it
over the border.

One of the questions
that's constantly asked is,

if I'd known what was going to happen
once that young boy, the goat herder,

had saw us in our lie up point,

would I have thought
I would have been able to do it.

Bizarrely, I would.

You know, I don't know
how far I'm going to get

when I'm doing it,
but I'm going to do it.

Nothing is impossible.