David Blakeley

I picked this up to complete a special offer at a chain bookstore earlier this year. I tend to quite enjoy military memoirs and like to read a few every year. I was aware of the Pathfinders as an entity and I knew a little of their history but I hadn't read about any of their military campaigns. The blurb says this is because they are a relatively small fighting force and changes in publishing military books has made this difficult.

David Blakeley was (and perhaps still is, although I doubt it) the second in command of the Pathfinders, the elite fighing arm of the Para's. He says that during the early days of his command things were difficult because a lot of the men looked down on him. There were two primary reasons for this, his lack of pathfinder experience and his age. It would seem that the usual way to leadership in the Pathfinders was by working your way up the ladder whereas he went in earmarked for command. He had his doubts about some of the men he was in charge of and was rightly nervous of going into battle with them.

The first chunk of the book covers what happens during HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) and HAHO (High Altitude, High Opening) parachute jumps. It turns out that they are quite technical activities but that they do have some operational advantages over going in by foot or using vehicles. This part of the book was really good and I looked forward to the part where HALO or HAHO was used in anger against an enemy force. Sadly this doesn't happen, due mainly to politics and lack resources during the second Iraq war. It would seem that this kind of insertion is the main focus of the Pathfinder's training and what they particularly specialise in but since they didn't use it, it felt a little tacked onto the book.

Instead the pathfinders push ahead of the US Marine front line by vehicle in an attempt to capture a key airfield deep in Iraqi territory. There are 2 Pathfinder Landrovers with 3 men each and an additional Landrover containing 3 engineers selected to the mission. I thought this was strange mixture and that it would make more sense to have 2 Pathfinders and 1 engineer in each vehicle but what do I know. The intel available to the military from all countries was very poor and as was to be expected, things go wrong and what follows is a fantastic tale of bravery and daring.

There are some things which let the book down however. The writing style is bit weak and somethings are repeated over and over again. For example Blakeley keeps reminding the reader that he was second in command of the pathfinders, this gets tedious. He also goes into depth about some strange things such as his watch. I couldn't help but wonder if he was paid to do some kind of product placement on behalf of Bvlgari watches. It's very odd and it stands out a mile. There are some colour pictures in the book but I didn't really feel like they added anything of value.

In the end this was a decent read which I enjoyed and I would happily read one of his other books.… (meer)