A great book but I can't escape the feeling that the author, whilst researching the subject became to emotionally attached and sympathetic to the SAS, which I imagine is ready to do given the nature of their stories. Not something you want from a historic record but makes for a gripping read. ( )

SAS Italian Job is an astonishing account of behind enemy lines operations in northern Italy towards the end of the Second World War. It’s a breathless read, and really should be a tale of courageous derring-do as well known as the Dambusters or Telemark raids. Damien Lewis recounts in impressively researched detail how a small British led force of SAS commandos, together with their comrades in arms - Italian partisans and escaped Russian POWs - raiding the German enemy from behind the previously impregnable ‘Gothic Line’*, managed to swoop down out of the Apennine mountains to carry out an audacious demolition job on the German HQ that controlled half of the front across the Italian peninsular.

*Those German forces in northern Italy, early 1945, under Hitler’s favourite commander Field Marshal Kesselring, are some million strong, and considered the most formidable remnant of the Reich’s war machine at this stage of the war.

Seriously outnumbered and outgunned, Major Roy Farran (SAS) and Captain Michael Lees (SOE), must first train up their unlikely band of brothers in the arts of guerrilla warfare in the weeks leading up to the raid. Their seemingly ragtag mob includes local priests, former Spanish Civil War veterans, an escaped Dutch intelligence officer POW, and even several Wehrmacht deserters. The Italian partisans consist of several dozen local communists as well as a force of non-communist Christian Democrats; all equally committed to ridding their homeland of the Nazi occupiers.

As other key SAS fighters and equipment are parachuted in to join them behind enemy lines, the ‘Battaglione Alleato’ (Allied Battalion) takes shape and hones its potency. Farran even has the partisans stitch the SAS motto ‘Chi Osera Vincera’ (Who Dares Wins) on their uniforms, and Italian flag coloured hackles (beret feathers) air-dropped in to help galvanise the unit’s espirit de corps!

Without spoiling the particulars of the raid itself, the Allied Battalion is to serve a decisive role in leading to the German collapse on the southern front in the crucial final phase of the war. Away from the heat of the battle, political and British Army Staff HQ considerations will play an extremely cruel part in the betrayal of some of the key actors in this story; some of the aspects of which remain unresolved even today almost 75 years later. This story would be hard to believe if it weren’t for the fact that it’s all 100% true. ‘SAS Italian Job’ is begging to be made into a breathtaking film of epic proportions. A highly recommended and rewarding read. ( )