The No1 Ethical retailer for Books, CD’s, DVD’s & Games
30 Day Refund Guarantee

Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History

Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History

by SaulDavid (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2015

    $4.31
Synopsis

'Totally thrilling, totally poignant. Bringing the greatest special forces operation of modern times blazingly to life' Simon Sebag Montefiore

At 15.40 hours on 3 July 1976, four Hercules C-130 transport planes carrying a secret Israeli special forces unit take off from an air force base in the Sinai Desert and fly south down the Red Sea.

Codenamed Thunderbolt, the operation carries huge risks. The flight is a challenge: 2,000 miles with total radio silence over hostile territory to land in darkness at Entebbe Airport in Idi Amin's Uganda. On the ground, the Israeli commandos have just three minutes to carry out their mission. They must evade a cordon of elite Ugandan paratroopers, storm the terminal and free more than a hundred Israeli, French and US hostages held by German and Palestinian terrorists. So much can go wrong: the death of the hostages if the terrorists get wind of the assault; or the capture of Israel's finest soldiers if their Hercules planes cannot take off. Both would be a human and a PR catastrophe.

Now, with the mission largely forgotten or even unknown to many, Saul David gives the first comprehensive account of Operation Thunderbolt using classified documents from archives in four countries and interviews with key participants, including Israeli soldiers and politicians, hostages, a member of the Kenyan government and a former terrorist.

General Bill McRaven, architect of the successful US mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, calls Operation Thunderbolt 'the best illustration of the theory of special operations yet presented.' Its legacy is still felt today: rather than give in to terrorist blackmail, western governments prefer to use specialist counter-terrorists units like Britain's SAS and the US Army's Delta Force to rescue hostages; while in Israel the very success of the operation may, ironically, have made it harder for politicians to force through the compromises required for peace.

Both a thrilling page-turner and a major piece of historical detective work, OPERATION THUNDERBOLT shows how the outcome of Israel's most famous military operation depended on secret diplomacy, courage and luck-and was in the balance right up to the very last moment.

$4.31

Save:$12.92 (75%)

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 464
 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 02 Jul 2015
ISBN 10: 1444762532
ISBN 13: 9781444762532

Media Reviews
A brilliant, breathless account that reads like the plot of an action movie. * Sunday Telegraph *
Totally thrilling, totally poignant. Bringing the greatest special forces operation of modern times blazingly to life, David's book, full of new revelations, written with the excitement of an action-movie, the authority of a historian, is great drama, superb storytelling - and yet tells us much about the Middle East today. * Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem *
Long fuse. Slow burn. Big bang. A Krakatoa of a tale. * Damien Lewis, author of Operation Certain Death *
Combining exceptional research with gripping storytelling, Saul David's Operation Thunderbolt is an unputdownable account of perhaps the most extraordinary Special Forces mission in history. I loved it. * Rowland White, author of 'Vulcan 607' *
Better than fiction can ever hope to be and true to Saul David's characteristically authentic style, this breathtakingly tense and incredibly moving account of history's most audacious Special Forces operation is one of the best true stories I've ever read. Gritty, visceral and edge-of-the-seat dramatic, Operation Thunderbolt ticks all the boxes and is destined to be one of the military history classics of the decade. - Major Chris Hunter, author of Broadcaster and Former Special Forces Bomb Disposal Operator. * Major Chris Hunter, author of Eight Lives Down *
Gripping... will introduce a whole new generation of readers to an extraordinary story... The climax of the rescue itself is brilliantly told; nearly 40 years on, you still heave a sigh of relief when the last when the last Hercules lifts off from the Entebbe runway and lumbers off into the night and a new daw for the hostages - and for Israel. * Jewish Chronicle *
It's a brilliantly orchestrated book, wonderfully rich in detail, but at the same time roaring along at a heart-thumping pace... I embarked on this book as someone not particularly interested in the Middle East, or in adventure tales of soldiers in action; I finished it in a state of high tension, buzzing through the pages in the need to know what happened next. -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *
For the first time in my reading life I felt physically thrilled by a book... Wonderful. -- Jonathan Mirsky * Literary Review *
Gripping... As the hours tick down to the threatened bloody denouement, tension mounts and the atmosphere thickens... A page-turner, with its single clear mission, cast of distinct personalities and very filmic scenes. * The Spectator *
Told with the style and pace of TV thrillers such as 24. * The Times *
A meticulously researched, skilfully constructed, carefully balanced and absorbing book. * The Observer *
A ripping read and a meticulously researched work of history. * Evening Standard *
Combines phenomenal research with the paciness of a thriller. * Economist Intelligent Life *
Well-researched and highly readable. * Times Literary Supplement *
This is a minute-by-minute narrative of that week by a scrupulous and thorough historian, who has written what will most likely be the definitive work on the subject and produced a tense and riveting account of what has come to be known as the Entebbe raid. By means of extraordinarily deep research, David essentially lets the characters speak for themselves...This is the achievement of a masterly, first-rate historian. * The New York Times Book Review *
Author Bio
Saul David is a historian and broadcaster and is currently Professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham. His many critically-acclaimed books include Zulu, Victoria's Wars and 100 Days to Victory. He has presented and appeared in history programmes for all the major TV channels. Visit Saul's website at www.sauldavid.co.uk and follow him on Twitter @sauldavid66