With one explosive mission at the heart of each episode we will interlace filmic first-person testimony (from those who served, the politicians who gave orders, the journalists who reported on the ground, and historians who will contextualise the jeopardy) with high-adrenaline, stylised recon and carefully chosen archive.
Special Forces: Most Daring Missions will put the viewer on the front line of the action, whipping us through the operations minute by minute as they happened, from the heart-stopping first phone call from Westminster to the triumphant return to home soil.
The action develops like a dramatic thriller, as we ride alongside the troops into life or death situations, reliving each incredible mission through the eyes of these elite soldiers and inviting every viewer to strap in for an intense ride.
EPISODE 1: Operation Nimrod
The first episode of this series covers an iconic, defining moment for public perception of UK Special Forces. The siege of the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980 gripped the watching world for six long days, culminating in a stunning assault and rescue of all but one of twenty-six hostages.
EPISODE 2: Operation Barras
Episode two tells the story of what many consider to be UK special forces ’greatest’ mission of all time: unofficially “operation certain death”, officially “Operation Barras”. By the summer of 2000, the civil war in Sierra Leone is in its 9th year. The British connection to the turmoil in Sierra Leone is complex. Fraught with poor governance, poverty, corruption, and political oppression – not to mention the “resource curse” of an abundance of alluvial diamonds and gold reserves – this former British colony and its 8 million people are exhausted by war. In addition to the presence of UN peace keeping forces, by May of that year, British forces had arrived in Freetown on a special mission to secure the main airport at Lungi, safely manage the evacuation of foreign nationals from the theatre of conflict, and provide training support to the Sierra Leonian army.
EPISODE 3: The Gambian Coup
The final episode of this series explores a lesser known mission carried out in signature SAS style. In the shadow of Charles and Diana’s wedding, two SAS men are deployed to Gambia to intervene in a coup that is unfolding.