X PLATOON - STEVE HEANEY IN SOUTH AFRICA

2015 paperback with 356 pages in very good condition. R65 postage in SA. For three decades one of the most secretive units in the British military has not been the SAS or SBS: it has been a mystery force known variously as the Shadow Wing, the Black Unit or X Platoon. Officially there was no X Platoon. The sixty men in its elite number were culled from units across the Armed Forces, at which point they simply ceased to exist. X Platoon had no budget, no weaponry, no vehicles and no kit - apart from what its men could beg, borrow or steal from other military units. For the first time ever a highly decorated veteran of this shadow force - who served as its Platoon Sergeant - reveals its history. From anti-narcotics operations in the Guatemalan jungles, to hunting war criminals in the war-torn hills of the Balkans, from being sent to war against the Russian military to calling in the largest parachute-borne force since the Second World War, Steve Heaney was at the cutting edge of X Platoon operations. The first non-officer in the British Army ever to win the Military Cross, he reveals the extraordinary missions undertaken by this tiny force of elite operators.