I wonder which is more accurate? Of course, there are always three versions of what happens: What you say....What I say....And what really happened.
Bravo Two Zero showed a good relationship between Ryan and McNab. All seemed competent and they were just victims of circumstance.
The One That Got Away showed McNab as an incompetent boob.
I dare say no one here knows the truth, but.......
After watching this, I can only conclude that Ryan is either jealous of McNabb, or just didn't like him.
The main point is B20 showed only McNabb's point of view, which is all that can be shown in this type of situation. He can't comment on what other people are doing or going through, because he isn't there. In the Book he gave Ryan a fair few pages on Ryan's account and stated that it was what Ryan had told him. There was no bitterness in it at all.
In TOTGA Ryan is trying to tell everyone's story, although in reality he can only give accurate details on his own ordeal, he'll never really know what the others went through after they got separated. And my, doesn't he make himself out to be a hero! If only he had lead the mission....Rubbish!
His story only seems to exist to rubbish the careers of McNabb and Vince Phillips. In fact the rest of the surviving members of the patrol wrote to Phillip's family to exonerate him from Ryan’s comments.
Ryan made McNabb out to be an incompetent, medal chasing coward. Do the SAS really allow these people into their forces?
Mr. Ryan is just suffering from a severe case of the, above stated, Sour Grapes.
Well, that's what I got from it anyway.
"NEWSFLASH!! You Guys can't drink then come to work, You'r not Airline pilots!!" - Dr Cox
Read the book, do not take this tv program at face value, Chris does critize McNab a little in the book but he doesn't go into much about what happened to the others after they split up, whoever adapted this for screen play made the changes to McNabs character
shareI doubt if either account is even half-way accurate as both McNab and Ryan would appear to have invented and inflated events in their accounts.
Read The Real Bravo Two Zero by Michael Asher for an impartial look at the events.
I have yet to read the third book Soldier Five.
Can anyone say how that differs?
...now I do it just to watch their f----n' expression change.
"I have yet to read the third book Soldier Five.
Can anyone say how that differs?"
Just read it. Coburn puts a lot of the blame for the patrols doom down to bad things pre-mission, i.e. rushed planning, no gear, non or bad intel, bad decisions, there were also errors and such like.
Vince didn't give away the patrol, the 'cave' they all had to hide in was shallow and could only conceal 4, plus the boy would still have seen the 'claymores' and communication gear and wires from.
If you read between the lines, McNab gets stick for bad decisions or mistakes. Some of them a consequence of allowing themselves to be in a situation where there is no other decision to make. I.e. their choices boiled down to the least worst choice out of no good options!
But the chain of command and higher ups get a fair bit as they were considered expendable assets when they went inb there believing the opposite. Hence the authors scorn.
But his story is basically the same as B20 and TOTGA, but he does iron out the wrinkles somewhat.