Awards

• Commended for British Book Design & Production Awards: Limited Edition and Fine Binding 2012.

Overview

Signed by all three post war SAS VC holders. Corporal Willie Apiata VC Corporal (then Lance Corporal) Willie Apiata, of the New Zealand SAS, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his conduct in an engagement in Afghanistan in 2004. Apiata was in a NZSAS troop that was attacked by about 20 enemy fighters while laid up for the night. Apiata was one of three men some 70 metres away from the main group when they came under attack from rocket propelled grenades, machine gun and automatic rifle fire from close range. Apiata was blown off the bonnet of his vehicles by an RPG but was uninjured. The other two were wounded. One, Corporal D, had serious arterial bleeding and began passing in and out of consciousness. Apiata concluded that Corporal D needed urgent medical attention or would die. Pinned down by the enemy and in direct line of fire between the enemy and the main group, he judged there was almost no chance of help. He ordered his other colleague to make his own way back to the rear. Apiata knew the risk involved in moving to open ground. Part of the citation reads: In total disregard for his own safety, Lance Corporal Apiata stood up and lifted (Corporal D) bodily. He then carried him across the seventy metres of broken, rocky and fire-swept ground, fully exposed in the glare of battle to heavy enemy fire and into the face of returning fire from the main Troop position. That neither he nor his colleague were hurt is scarcely possible. Having delivered his wounded companion to relative shelter with the remainder of the patrol, Lance Corporal Apiata re-armed himself and re-joined the fight in counter-attack. Corporal Mark Donaldson VC Corporal Mark Donaldson VC [previously Trooper], of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia for his actions during a prolonged gun battle with the Taliban in Uruzgan province, in southern Afghanistan, in September 2008. Donaldson was a member of a combined (Australian, American, and Afghan) Special Forces patrol ambushed by the Taliban and pinned down by machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades. The contact lasted more than two hours, during which several of the SF soldiers were wounded. On numerous occasions, to draw fire away from the wounded men, Donaldson broke cover and exposed himself to attack from the well dug-in Taliban positions, darting from cover to cover, firing as he went. Part of his Victoria Cross citation reads: This selfless act alone bought enough time for those wounded to be moved to relative safety. As the wounded soldiers were being evacuated in armoured Humvees, Donaldson ran alongside the vehicles, as there was no room for him. As he did this, he spotted a severely wounded Afghan interpreter who had been left behind. Donaldson ran across approximately 80 metres of open ground, lifted the injured man, and carried him to safety, all the time under heavy, constant fire from the Taliban. During the withdrawal, Donaldson gave first aid to the wounded as he continued to fire on the Taliban. All the men he helped rescue survived. Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith VC, MG, of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia for his conduct in a Special Operations Task Force helicopter assault into Tizak, Kandahar Province, Southern Afghanistan, in June 2010. The mission was to capture or kill a senior Taliban commander Immediately after insertion, the troop was engaged by heavy machine gun and rocket propelled grenade fire from multiple dominating positions. Two soldiers were wounded. Roberts-Smith and his patrol managed to get to within 40 metres of the enemy positions, until the weight of enemy fire pinned them down. Still under fire, Roberts-Smith managed to reach a small structure giving (minimal) cover, and killed an insurgent at close range, as he was about to attack the patrol. With the members of his patrol still pinned down by the three enemy machine gun positions, Roberts-Smith then exposed his own position, to draw fire away from his patrol, which enabled them to bring fire to bear against the enemy. His actions enabled his Patrol Commander to throw a grenade and silence one of the machine guns. Seizing the advantage, Roberts-Smith, with total disregard for his own safety, stormed the enemy position, killing the other two machine gunners. His act of valour enabled his patrol to break-in to the enemy position and to lift the weight of fire from the remainder of the troops still pinned down by the machine gun fire. He then continued to assault enemy positions in depth, during which he and another patrol member engaged and killed further enemy. Bound over extra thick boards and with a leather closing flap replicating the one on the original Diary, this version comes in a sandblasted presentation ammunition box which converts to a lectern for reading and display purposes [illustrated] Limited to 150 copies at GBP2500 each. There are four different signed versions of the War Diary available for collectors. The SAS War Diary is released in a special limited Anniversary Edition to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the birth of the Special Air Service and to raise funds for the welfare work of the Regimental Association. Based on the original Diary held by the Regimental Association, The SAS War Diary is augmented with material from their archive, very little of which has ever been seen before. The SAS War Diary is extremely impressive, measuring some 17 x 12 x 4 inches and weighing over 28lbs. Each copy is bound by hand in full leather over wood composite boards in the style of the original, with three brass posts and finished with a new blocking design featuring the Regimental badge and wings. The individual copies are then numbered and the limitation page is embossed with the seal of the Regimental Association, as are the signature pages on the signed copies. The Diary is produced using traditional materials in the traditional manner and is designed to last for generations

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