Bear Grylls knows what it takes to survive. But he’s not the first.
Take the American bombardier Louis Zamperini, who survived 47 days stranded at sea by catching and killing hungry sharks and drinking the warm blood of albatrosses — only to be captured by the Japanese and horrifically tortured for years in their most brutal POW camps…
Or Marcus Luttrell, a Navy SEAL who single-handedly took on a Taliban regiment before dragging his bleeding, bullet-ridden body for days through the harsh mountains of Afghanistan…
Or Nando Parrado, one of the survivors of a horrific air-crash high in the ice-bound Andes, who only lived because he was willing to eat the flesh of his dead companions…
In this gripping new book, Bear tells the stories of the adventurers, explorers, soldiers and spies whose refusal to quit in the most extreme situations has inspired him throughout his life. Some of them make uncomfortable reading – survival is rarely pretty. But all of them are tales of eye-watering bravery, death-defying resilience and extraordinary mental toughness by men and women who have one thing in common: true grit.
the sun, cooking the sailor-slave from the outside in. Riley could do nothing to help the dying man. Williams’s master just led him away into the desert – never to be seen again. * Riley was bought and sold among the nomadic tribe. Each master was as cruel as the last. They poked at their slaves’ raw skin, and laughed when they howled. And, of course, the slaves were kept on the brink of starvation and thirst. Whenever Riley saw a camel urinating he would rush to cup his hands under the
doing something ‘right’. Without doubt, Tommy had pitted himself against some of the most ruthless and violent men of the modern era. That he came out on top is a testament to his remarkable persistence, his refusal to bow down in the face of superior numbers and firepower. Above all, Tommy Macpherson showed an almost superhuman amount of sheer old-fashioned bottle, and, to me, he embodies everything that is best about the courageous men and women who fought for our liberty during the Second
in the British, after all. Captain Scott and Captain Oates have shown us that.’ We all need examples and inspirations in our lives, to make us better and stronger. And for me, it is not Scott’s successes, failures or flaws that move me. Rather, it’s the courage of his final weeks which, as an example of grit, valour and dignity, is hard to surpass. ROALD AMUNDSEN: THE GREATEST ANTARCTIC EXPLORER EVER ‘Victory awaits him who has everything in order – people call it luck. Defeat is certain for
no Endurance. They modified it to make it a little stronger, and made an improvised deck out of a sheet of canvas that would give them some scant protection from the Antarctic sea and storms. They would need fresh water, so they loaded 250 pounds of ice on to the boat that they could melt as they went along. But as Shackleton and five of his crew prepared to leave the main party and set sail once more, they knew, deep down, that the little James Caird could not survive the harsh Southern Ocean
296 bombs, ‘Fat Man’ 129–30 Bonatti Pillar 225–6 Bonney, Professor 177 Bowers, Lieutenant Henry 293, 302 The Bridge on the River Kwai 123 British Antarctic Expedition (1907-09) 321–2, 336–7 British Antarctic Expedition (1911-12) 297–304, 322 British Army 121–2, 126, 239 British Limbless Ex-Service Men’s Association (BLESMA) 248 British National Antarctic Expedition (1901–04) 335–6, 337 British Officers Club, Paris 133 British Reconnaissance 190 Brooke, Rupert 189, 190 Broughty Ferry
