Dead Men Risen

Product Description

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE 2012. This is the gripping story of the men of the Welsh Guards & their bloody battle for survival in Afghanistan in 2009. Underequipped & overstretched they found themselves in the most intense fighting the British had experienced in a generation. They were led into battle by Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe a passionate believer in the justness of the war who was deeply dismayed by the way it was being resourced & conducted. Thorneloe was killed by an IED during Operation Panther's Claw the biggest operation mounted by the British in Helm&. Dead Men Risen draws on secret documents written by Thorneloe which raise questions from beyond the grave that will unnerve politicians & generals alike. The Welsh Guards also lost Major Sean Birchall commanding officer of IX Company & Lieutenant Mark Evison a platoon commander whose candid personal diary was unnervingly prophetic. Not since the Second World War had a single British battalion lost officers at the three key levels of leadership. Harnden transports the reader into the heart of a conflict in which a soldier has to be prepared to kill & die to ward off paralysing fear & watch comrades perish in agony. Given unprecedented access to the Welsh Guards Harnden conducted hundreds of interviews in Afghanistan England & Wales. He weaves the experiences of the guardsmen & the loved ones they left behind into a seamless & unsparing narrative that sits alongside a piercing analysis of the political & military strategy. No other book about modern warfare succeeds on so many levels.