Andy McNab

Andy McNab
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service / branch	British Army
Years of service	1976 - 1993
Rank	Sergeant
Unit	Special Air Service Royal Green Jackets
Battles / wars	The Troubles First Gulf War
Awards	Distinguished Conduct Medal Military Medal
Other work	author

Andy McNab DCM MM (born 28 December 1959) is an English novelist and former soldier.

McNab came into public prominence in 1993, when he published his account of the failed SAS patrol, Bravo Two Zero for which he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal in 1991. McNab was additionally the recipient of the Military Medal in 1980, awarded for an action whilst serving with the Royal Green Jackets in Northern Ireland during 1979. He has subsequently written two other autobiographies and a number of fiction books, including a specially commissioned story for the Quick Reads Initiative to assist in improving adult literacy. "Andy McNab" is a pseudonym, his real name being Steven.

Early life

McNab was born on 28 December 1959, and was abandoned on the steps of Guy's Hospital in Southwark shortly thereafter. He was brought up in Peckham, with his adoptive family, involving himself in petty criminality until being arrested for burglary.

In 1976, shortly after his arrest, he aspired to a career as an army pilot, but failed the entry test. In the same year, he enlisted with the Royal Green Jackets at the age of sixteen.

Military career

After McNab enlisted in the Royal Green Jackets in 1976, he was posted to Kent for his basic training, and boxed for his regimental team. After his basic training, he was posted to the Rifle Depot, in Winchester. In 1977, McNab spent time in Gibraltar as part of his first operational posting, while with 2RGJ. From December 1977 to June 1978, he was posted to South Armagh, Northern Ireland as part of the British Army's intervention in the Northern Ireland Troubles. In 1978 and 1979, he returned to Armagh as a newly promoted Lance Corporal, and claimed to have killed for the first time during a firefight with the PIRA. McNab wrote of the incident: "I remember vividly the first time I had to kill someone to stay alive. I was a 19-year-old soldier in Keady, south Armagh, and my patrol stumbled across six IRA terrorists preparing for an ambush. When the shooting started they were just 20 metres away from my patrol. I was scared, very scared.". McNab was awarded the Military Medal for this incident. However, security sources later claimed that the person McNab shot was only wounded and died as a result of injuries from a separate shootout later that day. In 1982, after spending eight years with the Royal Green Jackets, he decided to attempt SAS selection. Finally passing in 1984, he left RGJ and transferred to the SAS.

While Serving with Air Troop, B Squadron, 22 SAS for ten years, McNab worked on both covert and overt operations worldwide., which included counter terrorism and drug operations in the Middle and Far East, South and Central America, and Northern Ireland. McNab trained as a specialist in counter terrorism, prime target elimination, demolitions, weapons, tactics, covert surveillance roles and information gathering in hostile environments, and VIP protection. He worked on cooperative operations with police forces, prison services, anti-drug forces and Western backed guerilla movements as well as on conventional special operations. In Northern Ireland he spent two years working as an undercover operator with 14 Intelligence Company, going on to become an instructor.

During the First Gulf War, McNab commanded Bravo Two Zero; an eight man SAS patrol that was given the task of destroying underground communication links between Baghdad and north-west Iraq and with tracking Scud missile movements in the region. The patrol was dropped into Iraq on January 22 1991, but was soon compromised, escaping on foot towards Syria, the closest coalition country. Three of the eight men were killed; four were captured (including McNab) after three days on the run and one member, 'Chris Ryan', escaped. The four captured men were held for six weeks before being released on March 5. By the time he was released McNab was suffering from nerve damage to both hands, a dislocated shoulder, kidney and liver damage and Hepatitis B. After six months of medical treatment he was back on active service. In the words of the SAS's commanding officer, the story of the patrol 'will remain in Regimental history forever'. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab claims to have been the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he left the SAS in February 1993.

McNab's Adequacy For Command

Again, in the fact-finding novel The Real Bravo Two Zero, Asher identifies several descrepancies in the decision-making processes of McNab as patrol commander. Asher indicates from McNab's details from his novel that the patrol was to conduct engagements on targets of opportunity along an indicated main supply route. McNab chose that the patrol was to be inserted by helicopter, and was to progress on foot in the desert. McNab disregarded the experiences and teaching of T.E. Lawrence, the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS by not preparing for the mission appropriately. The decision to not take any form of mobile transport severely hampered the patrol's ability to strike swiftly against their objectives and exfiltrate rapidly. It also determined that the patrol would be heavily burdened with equipment in their bergen packs, McNab claiming each man carried a 95 kilogram bergen pack, along with their weapon and belt kit. This would have significantly reduced the patrol's ability to maneouvre, make distance or function as they had trained. Had McNab opted to utilise Land Rover 90 or 110 vehicles on the patrol, the personal carry weight for each patrolman would have been significantly reduced, and actions on compromise would have allowed them to evacuate the area of operations rapidly. Furthermore, McNab claimed that the patrol was ordered not to carry cold weather gear or sleeping materials, claiming that they 'are luxury items'. The Special Air Service instructs that anything that may maintain the personal morale of a trooper is not neglected. Had the patrol carried such items, they would not have nearly been as badly affected by hypothermia as they were. Instead, McNab opted for the patrol to carry equipment that would have little or no use at all, such as full-sized spades. Had McNab correctly utilised the intelligence information provided, he would have known that the desert that they were patrolling was arid, dry and hard earth, not sand.

Inconsistencies in Bravo Two Zero

In 2002, author Michael Asher (a former paratrooper, former member of the police Special Patrol Group anti-terrorism squad in Northern Ireland and former member of 23 SAS Regiment (V)) wrote the book The Real Bravo Two Zero, that explored McNab's and Chris Ryan's story The One That Got Away to identify if the fault of compromising the patrol was indeed the fault of fellow patrolman Vince Phillips, who was killed in action. Asher was able to track down several eyewitnesses to the true story of the ill-fated patrol Bravo Two Zero, who provided evidence that is contrary to both stories. Also, Asher, with his experience as an SAS trooper and his experience living with Bedouin tribes in Sudan and desert exploration, Asher was able to locate the Lay-Up Point that Bravo Two Zero initially used as an observation point for a Main Supply Route and was able to track Bravo Two Zero's progress.

McNab claims in his accounts that Bravo Two Zero was engaged in heavy fighting against a force approximately the size of two brigades of Iraqi forces, when in fact there was not that many forces in the region let alone in the patrol area. Furthermore, McNab goes on to claim that Bravo Two Zero destroyed two armored personnel carriers and several wheeled vehicles, however no wreckage of such vehicles ever existed on the route that Bravo Two Zero took.

Later on, McNab claims that the five remaining members of the patrol hijacked a cab that appeared like a 1950's New York yellow taxi, complete with chromework. The taxi that was actually hijacked was in fact a Toyota Crown. McNab also claims that the patrol fought at a permanent vehicle checkpoint, which would undoubtedly be controlled by heavily armed Iraqi police bristling with fixed weapon emplacements that would have emaciated any opposition quickly and thoroughly. McNab claims that the patrol was able to fight their way out and disappear into the desert.

Post military career

McNab has written about his experiences in the SAS in three bestselling books, Bravo Two Zero (1993), Immediate Action (1995) and Seven Troop (2008). "Bravo Two Zero" is the highest selling war book of all time, and sold over 1.7 million copies, with Immediate Action selling 1.4 Million in the UK. To date it has been published in 17 countries and translated into 16 languages. The CD spoken word version of Bravo Two Zero, narrated by McNab, sold over 60,000 copies and earned a silver disc. A BBC film of Bravo Two Zero, starring Sean Bean, was shown on primetime BBC One television in 1999 and released on DVD in 2000. Immediate Action, McNab's autobiography, spent 18 weeks at the top of the best-seller lists following the lifting of an ex-parte injunction granted to the Ministry of Defence in September 1995.

McNab is the author of ten action thrillers, highly acclaimed for their authenticity. Remote Control was published in 1997, and was hailed as the most authentic thriller ever written selling over half a million copies in the UK. McNab's subsequent thrillers, Crisis Four, Firewall, Last Light, Liberation Day, Dark Winter, Deep Black, Aggressor, Recoil and Crossfire have all gone on to sell equally well . The central character in all the books is Nick Stone, an ex-SAS soldier working as a 'K' on deniable operations for British intelligence. McNab's fiction draws extensively on his experiences and knowledge of Special Forces soldiering. He has been officially registered by Nielsen BookScan as a bestselling British thriller writer.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        While writing Bravo Two Zero, McNab assumed his pseudonym. When he appears on television to promote his books or to act as a special services expert, his face is shadowed to prevent identification. As Larry King put it when McNab appeared on the Larry King Live show on CNN: "He's in shadow for his security, as he is wanted dead by some terrorist groups." According to the book The Big Breach, by Richard Tomlinson, a renegade MI6 spy, McNab was part of a special training team after the Iraq war, training MI6 recruits in sabotage and guerrilla warfare techniques.

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of his work while serving with the SAS, McNab has a legally binding contract obliging him to submit his fiction to the British Ministry of Defence for review. He is still believed to be wanted by a number of the world's terrorist organisations; he therefore chooses not to reveal either his face or his current location.

After leaving the Army, McNab developed and maintained a specialist training course for news crews, journalists and members of non-governmental organisations working in hostile environments. He spent time in Hollywood as technical weapons advisor, and trainer on the Michael Mann film Heat helping to engineer how master-thief De Niro would go about pulling off robberies on an armoured car and a bank, and how cop Al Pacino would go about tracking him down and stopping him. He was also the technical advisor on the 2005 crime film Dirty.

In February 2007, McNab returned to Iraq for seven days as The Sun newspaper's security advisor with his old regiment the Royal Green Jackets. Here he researched the background for his new book, Crossfire.

After working on the Miramax film, "Heat", Miramax has acquired the film rights to the first four of McNab's novels, and Crisis Four is currently in production, co-produced by McNab himself. He was also a director of a Hereford-based security company. In conjunction with Spoken Group Ltd, Andy McNab is pioneering spoken drama for download from the Internet and to Mobile phones. These stories include real battle field sound effects. 'McNab' took part in E4's Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack on 13 January 2008.

He now lives in Norfolk and lectures on security and military related topics, in both the USA and the UK.

Books

Non-fiction

• Bravo Two Zero (1993)
• Immediate Action (1995)
• Seven Troop (2008)
• Spoken From The Front (2009)

Fiction

Nick Stone Missions

• Remote Control (17 February 1998)
• Crisis Four (22 August 2000)
• Firewall (5 October 2000)
• Last Light (1 October 2001)
• Liberation Day (1 October 2002)
• Dark Winter (3 November 2003)
• Deep Black (1 November 2004)
• Aggressor (1 November 2005)
• Recoil (6 November 2006)
• Crossfire (12 November 2007)
• Brute Force (3 November 2008)
• Exit Wound (November 2009)

Boy Soldier Series (written with Robert Rigby)

• Boy Soldier (US title Traitor, 5 May 2005)
• Payback (6 October 2005)
• Avenger (4 May 2006)
• Meltdown (3 May 2007)

Quick Reads project

• The Grey Man (8 May 2006)

Audio Stories

• Iraq Ambush (May 2007)
• Royal Kidnap (June 2007)
• Roadside Bomb (September 2007)
• Sniper (TBA 2008)

Television

• Andy McNab's Tour of Duty

References

• Peter, Ratcliffe (2000). Eye of the Storm: Twenty-Five Years in Action with the SAS. Michael O'Mara Books. ISBN 978-1854798091.

• Asher, Michael (2002). The Real Bravo Two Zero: The Truth Behind Bravo Two Zero. Cassell Military. ISBN 978-0304365548.

• Coburn, Mike (2004). Soldier Five: The Real Truth About The Bravo Two Zero Mission. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 978-1840189070.

External links

• Andy McNab Official Website
• Essay for BBC's This Week programme
• Unofficial Andy McNab website
• Andy McNab at IMDb
• Full booklist