Peter Ratcliffe (RSM at the time) on his book Eye of the Storm also mentions the first patrol as "Bravo One Nine" and the only patrol that used vehicles with Bravo Three Zero aborting their mission immediately on seeing the terrain they had to operate in. However they are very different stories, Bravo Two Zero focuses on the patrol’s fight for survival after being compromised. Though overshadowed by the fate of Bravo Two Zero, the achievements of this highly-decorated patrol are the stuff of elite forces legend. And just get used to the environment because the most challenging thing is the elements, the wind, the rain, the cold, the snow and you’ve got to have the right equipment. Patrol commander Steven Mitchell wrote an account of the patrol in a book titled Bravo Two Zero ( ISBN 0-440-21880-2) under the pseudonym Andy McNab.

When we met it, Damien said that the story was interesting because he didn’t know that there were three patrols, Bravo One, Two and Three. The account also levelled damning accusations against the army, and the Ministry of Defence went to great lengths to attempt to prevent its publication, which they failed to do, although they were granted all of the book's profits.

He was injured, and was hospitalised with bizarre tropical diseases – including flesh-eating bacteria, worms that burrow through the skin and septicemia – but survived all that and continued to report. Eventually, Phillips lost contact with the other two somewhere around 2000 hrs, and died a short time later. Anyone expecting a 'hunt 'em down, brass 'em up' story of Scud destruction and fast vehicle borne action is going to be sorely disappointed.

Asher's investigation, based on evidence from the actual driver of the car, supported Ryan's version of events with no reported armed contact and no reported Iraqi casualties. My grandfather had been in the Second World War, so he was quite a disciplined guy and my father had been in national service, so both of those guys had a background of being in the military. In the opening hours of the Gulf War, the SAS were flown deep behind enemy lines to hunt down Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles. Coburn's account suggests that during the planning phase of the mission, Syria had been the agreed-upon destination should an escape plan need to be implemented. According to Chris Ryan's account, the patrol was given the task of gathering intelligence, finding a good lying-up position (LUP), setting up an observation post (OP), and monitoring enemy movements, especially Scud missile launchers [1] :15 on the Iraqi Main Supply Route (MSR) between Baghdad and North-Western Iraq; however, according to Andy McNab's account, the task was to find and destroy Iraqi Scud missile launchers along a 250km (160mi) stretch of the MSR.Both accounts also conflict with SAS's Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) at the time of the patrol, Peter Ratcliffe, in his 2000 memoir, Eye of the Storm. As they continued, Phillips' condition worsened to the point where he mistook his black gloves for the colour of his own hands, and began yelling out loud. They fired not a shot in anger, at times to their own disappointment, and in my reading of the story that should be considered a success for a recce patrol.