The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Chopper books clash

29.05.08 Graeme Neill

Two books detailing a dramatic helicopter rescue of a British Army soldier in Afghanistan will be going head to head this autumn.

Sphere will be publishing Apache Dawn by Damien Lewis in hardback in August. The following month, HarperCollins will publish Ed Macy's Apache in the same format.

Both books tell the story of the tragic rescue mission in Afghanistan last January when four Royal Marines strapped themselves to the wings of two Apache helicopters to fly back to the heavily fortified Jugroom Fort in southern Afghanistan in a bid to rescue a fallen colleague.
Despite their efforts, the marines were too late to save his life.

Adam Strange at Sphere said Apache Dawn was the "first big helicopter book since Black Hawk Down".

The crews featured in the book were at the military training centre in Salisbury Plain when the Jugroom Fort operation occurred. Other parts of the book describe their subsequent Afghan deployment.

Strange said: "The Jugroom Fort rescue is an amazing story but it's one of 18 chapters of action. The crews get involved in numerous missions which have been untold until now."

HarperPress publishing director Arabella Pike said Apache was the only eyewitness account of the Jugroom Fort operation.

"The Apache machines are quite extraordinary and Ed was top of the game of the Apache crews who flew them," she said. "It was his idea to fly that rescue mission, and he was awarded the Military Cross because of it. The focus is on Ed because he is the hero of the story, and he's the one who did the mission."

Book Graeme Neill