First into Action

The SBS was first into battle a month before the SAS in the Falklands War and again in the Gulf War, yet hitherto it is the SAS that has had by far the higher profile. The SBS draws its man-power solely from the Marine Commando Units and the Royal Marines are the oldest and most battle-honoured regiment in the world. This volume is a Special Boat Services memoir written from the inside. It tells how Duncan Falconer trained with the Royal Marines in Deal before being recruited into the SBS at Poole in Dorset. The regimen of ruthless training is graphically described and the book also includes accounts of SBS operations in Ulster, Bosnia and the Gulf War, and the intense rivalry between the SAS's individualist mentality and the more team-based, marine ethos of the SBS.