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There are just a handful of men and women alive today who served and fought with the Special Forces during the Second World War. They are a dwindling bunch of veterans in their twilight years whose tales of heroism and daring-do will soon be lost in time forever – yet they still regularly get together in a gentleman’s club, right in the heart of London – The Special Forces Club.In ten separate and astonishing accounts of ingenuity and heroism, the Sunday Telegraph defence correspondent Sean Rayment visits this unique group of people, and through their vivid memories, transports the reader back in time to the dark days of the Second World War when Britain was again fighting on multiple fronts across the globe.These incredibly heroic tales are taken from men such as Captain John Campbell, MC and Bar and the last surviving officer of ‘Popski’s Private Army’, whose triumph over being wrongly labelled a coward led him to serve with distinction and bravery behind Rommel’s lines in North Africa. Balancing the heroism in the field of battle is the story of Noreen Riols, who worked under the legendary Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, helping train operatives in the art of counter-espionage and counter-surveillance, who was used to ‘honey trap’ would-be agents. Then there is Mike Sadler, who served with David Stirling in the LRDG and took part in an SAS attack on a German airfield near el-Alamein in 1942 in which 34 aircraft were destroyed; and Harry Verlander, who served with the legendary Jedburghs, a highly secret element of the Special Operations Executive, and recalls his service during D-Day and subsequent operations in Burma. The book covers all theatres of operations and provides a unique glimpse into why the members of the Special Forces Club are truly exceptional.Time is running out to capture the myriad of epic stories WWII threw up over its five-year period. In their twilight years, the Special Forces Club has decided to reveal its identity at last.

'Afghanistan is just like Iraq – hot, dusty and full of people who want to kill you', SSgt Simon Fuller, Royal Engineer Search AdvisorBomb Hunters tells the story of the British army's elite bomb disposal experts, men who face death every day in the most dangerous region of the most lethal country on earth – Helmand Province, Afghanistan.Bomb Hunters are up against the Improvised Explosive Device – the IED – the deadly homemade bombs planted by the Taliban. Hard to detect and easy to trigger, an estimated 10 bombs for every one of the 10,000 British troops have been planted in the region. IEDs are now the main killer of British troops in Afghanistan and the ultimate psychological weapon.Bomb Hunters work in 50-degree heat as they take the 'long walk' into the kill zone, defusing as many as 15 bombs a day. In the past year the casualty rate has soared as the troops have become locked into a deadly game of cat and mouse – to locate and deactivate the deadly bombs before they maim and kill soldiers, police and civilians. Skill, cold courage and inevitably pure luck play a huge part in the survival of these men and as the British public have already seen – a single lapse of concentration can result in instant death.Ex-paratrooper, now defence journalist, Sean Rayment, takes the reader on a journey into the heat and dust of Helmand Province as he meets these courageous soldiers while they put their lives at risk to prevent other British troops falling victim to the IED. He interviews the Bomb Hunters as they perform their duties on the frontline and paints a breathtaking picture of what life is like for the men who play poker with their own lives every day, who live knowing the enemy watches their every move, waiting for a weakness to show itself, a pattern in technique to be exploited, or an error to be made that triggers the device itself.This is as vivid and dramatic as war reporting gets, mixing 'close to the bone' narrative and dead-pan black humour from the Bomb Hunters themselves, some of whom were subsequently killed in action. No punches will be pulled on what these men feel about the war, their place in it, the politicians and generals who send them there, and how they deal with the relentless pressure of the job itself in the heart of the world's most hostile combat environment.