MIKE MORGAN

Stanley Hollis won the Victoria Cross when, on the 6th of June 1944, he single-handedly stormed a German pillbox before going on to save the lives of two comrades.D-Days only Victoria Cross winner, Hollis was uniquely recommended for this coveted award twice on 6 June. A tough, working-class rebel, Hollis was no model soldier: he was forever being busted to corporal for various misdeameanours, only to win his stripes back again.Few soldiers can have seen as much close combat action as Stanley Hollis. He fought with the Green Howards at Dunkirk, in the Western Desert, in Italy, on D-Day and through France and Germany to the end of the war. Seriously wounded and taken prisoner by the Afrika Korps, Hollis was personally congratulated by Rommel, then made a daring escape.In Italy, he was recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal and was later mentioned in despatches, going on to undertake a dangerous undercover reconnaissance of the Normandy invasion beaches. On 6 June 1944 Stanley Hollis was involved in two actions that led to his award. During the primary assault, Hollis single-handedly stormed a German pillbox, saving his company from certain injury and death and enabling them to open the main beach exit. Later that day he saved the lives of two comrades trapped by heavy gunfire in a collapsing house.Fully illustrated with archive photographs and ephemera, this unique biography of a little-known British Second World War hero shows the real man behind the heroic image. Mike Morgan has received the Hollis familys full co-operation and draws exclusively on personal diaries, letters and other memorabilia.

Mike Morgan presents 25 stories about the larger-than-life exploits of the SAS and SBS in World War II, supported by a selection of rare archive and action shots.These vivid stories, including some new and previously unpublished, supported by an updated selection of rare archive and action photographs, explore the larger-than-life escapades of the Special Air Service in the Second World War. From an SAS Jeep patrol in France, outnumbered fifty-to-one, who shot their way out to safety in their bullet-riddled vehicle and killed a quarter of their SS opposition, to an SAS soldier who talked his way through enemy roadblocks in North Africa in full British uniform and tore a strip off the guard for neglecting to check his papers, this is the first comprehensive collection of all the best stories in one book.

Geordie Doran ranks as one of the most remarkable fighting soldiers of the twentieth century. Growing up in Jarrow during the Depression years of the 1930s, Geordie signed up as a private soldier in 1946 and embarked on a career spanning 40 years. He saw active service in Germany, Cyprus, the Korean War and Suez; he became an expert in jungle warfare in Malaya and in Borneo, as well as on key special operations in the deserts of Oman and Yemen, and Colonel Gaddafis Libya. After returning to England in the early 1970s, a serious road accident curtailed his frontline soldiering career; however, he found a new and vital role as a permanent staff instructor with 23 SAS (TA) training the cream of recruits. He left the SAS in 1972, but could not settle into civilian life and found himself a job as a storeman in the SAS Quartermasters stores a job which lasted another 12 years, during which time he equipped many famous SAS characters for their famous clandestine missions.