The Phantom Major: The Story of David Stirling and His Desert Command
About this audiobook
In the dark and uncertain days of 1941 and 1942, when Rommel's tanks were sweeping toward Suez, a handful of daring raiders were making history for the Allies. They operated deep behind the German lines, often driving hundreds of miles through the deserts of North Africa. They hid by day and struck by night, destroying aircraft, blowing up ammunition dumps, derailing trains, and killing many times their own number.
These were the SAS—Stirling's desert raiders, the brainchild of a deceptively mild-mannered man with a brilliant idea. Small teams of resourceful, highly trained men would penetrate beyond the front lines of the opposing armies and wreak havoc where the Germans least expected it.
The Phantom Major is the classic account of these desert raids, an amazing tale of courage, impudence, and daring, packed with action and high adventure. An intimate record based on eyewitness accounts, this book still stands as the definitive history of the early years of the SAS.
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About the author
Virginia Cowles is a journalist and a biographer. In the 1930s, she moved to London, where she became a correspondent for the Hearst papers. Her work took her to Spain during their Civil War, to Prague to see the fall of Czechoslovakia, to Moscow, Italy and Paris just before the Nazis took the city, and to London during the Battle of Britain. Her bestselling book, Looking for Trouble, gives a human interest and first-hand account of events in Europe during those tumultuous years.
Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over eight hundred audiobooks and has earned fifty-seven Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. A multiple Audie finalist, Simon has won Audie Awards for The King's Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan, and The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Winner of the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award, Simon has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.
