We Were Warriors

Summer 2006, Afghanistan: an apparently deserted village, and a rapidly ticking clock... The relentless Taliban ambush which followed saw several British soldiers dead, two armoured vehicles destroyed - and Corporal of Horse Michael Flynn awarded an MC to go alongside his Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. Mick Flynn has never backed away from a challenge.

In Helmand province in July 2006, Major Adam Jowett was given command of Easy Company, a hastily assembled and understrength unit of Paras and Royal Irish rangers. Their mission was to hold the District Centre of Musa Qala at any cost. Easy Company found themselves in a ramshackle compound, cut off and heavily outnumbered by the Taliban in the town.

Kim Hughes is the most highly decorated bomb disposal operator serving in the British Army. He was awarded the George Cross in 2009 following a gruelling six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, during which he defused 119 improvised explosive devices, survived numerous Taliban ambushes and endured a close encounter with the Secretary of State for Defence.

3 PARA was the first unit into Helmand in 2006. Sent on a peace mission, it became engaged in a level of combat that had not been experienced by the British Army since the end of the Korean War. Undermanned and suffering from equipment shortages, 3 PARA fought doggedly to win the break in battle. Numerous gallantry decorations were awarded, but they were not without cost. This is a dramatic, and often moving, insight into the leadership of soldiers at the sharp end of war.

SAS Ghost Patrol is the explosive true story of the day in 1942 when the SAS donned Nazi uniforms to perpetrate the most audacious and daring mission of the war. Beyond top secret, deniable in the extreme (and of course enjoying Churchill's enthusiastic blessing), this is one of the most remarkable stories of wartime lawlessness, eccentricity and raw courage in the face of impossible odds - a thoroughly British undertaking.

The Normandy landings that took place on D-day involved by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. The scale of the undertaking was simply awesome. What followed them was some of the most cunning and ferocious fighting of the war, at times as savage as anything seen on the Eastern Front. As casualties mounted, so, too, did the tensions between the principal commanders on both sides. Meanwhile, French civilians caught in the middle of these battlefields or under Allied bombing endured terrible suffering.

Among You is the gripping real-life story of a soldier serving on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an unforgettable, unflinching account of the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Jake Wood lives parallel lives: encased in the glass tower of an international investment bank by day, he is also a dedicated TA soldier who serves on the front line during the invasion of Iraq, later returning to the war zone to conduct surveillance on insurgents.

It takes a tough mind-set to be a successful sniper, to be able to dig in for days on your own as you wait for your target, to stay calm on a battlefield when you yourself have become the target the enemy most wants to take out. Craig Harrison has what it takes, and in November 2009 in Afghanistan, under intense pressure, he saved the lives of his comrades with the longest confirmed sniper kill - 2,475 metres, the length of 25 football pitches.

April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers flew into Southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained firefight British troops had faced for over 50 years.

In April 2006, the elite 3 Para battlegroup was dispatched to Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. They were tasked with providing security to reconstruction efforts, a deployment it was hoped would pass off without a shot being fired. In fact, over the six months they were there, the 3 Para battle group saw near continuous combat, one gruelling battle after another, in what would become one of the most extraordinary campaigns ever fought by British troops.

In the summer of 2006, Colour-Sargeant Kailash Limbu's platoon was sent to relieve and occupy a police compound in the town of Now Zad in Helmand. He was told to prepare for a 48-hour operation. In the end he and his men were under siege for 31 days - one of the longest such sieges in the whole of the Afghan campaign.

From his cage in a putrid, overcrowded Indian jail, Paul Jordan reflects on a life lived on the edge. His childhood, marred by the loss of his father and brother, produces a young man hell-bent on being the best of the best - an ambition he achieves by being selected to join the elite SAS. The Easy Day Was Yesterday is fast paced, brutally honest, raw and laced with dark humour. The core of Paul Jordan's eventful life, it shows the ability of the human spirit to survive even in the direst adversity.

The No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling modern classic: A Bravo Two Zero for the Second Gulf War. They were branded as cowards and accused of being the British Special Forces Squadron that ran away from the Iraqis. But nothing could be further from the truth. Ten years on, the story of these sixty men can finally be told. In March 2003 M Squadron - an SBS unit with SAS embeds - was sent 1,000 kilometres behind enemy lines on a true mission impossible, to take the surrender of the 100,000-strong Iraqi Army 5th Corps.

Michael Asher served in Northern Ireland with the Paras at the height of the IRA campaigns of the 1970s. He witnessed the result of using highly motivated assault troops in 'peacekeeping operations'. His depiction of the strengths and weaknesses of the British Army's elite airborne forces comes from his personal experience of what it was like for ordinary soldiers. From the Paras to the SAS and then service with the Special Patrol Group in Northern Ireland, Michael Asher's military odyssey eventually led him to leave the forces for a new life in the Sudanese desert. 

The story of one of the Afghanistan war's most decorated units and their 15-month ordeal, culminating in the Battle of Wanat, the deadliest battle of the war. A single company of US paratroopers - calling themselves the "Chosen Few" - arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next 15 months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters.