The Last Gentleman of the SAS

In 1945, John Randall was the first Allied officer to enter Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp that revealed the horrors of the Holocaust to the world. Randall was one of the men handpicked for suicidally dangerous missions behind enemy lines in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany throughout World War II. He hated the Germans, liked the French, and was unimpressed by the Americans and Arabs. He played rugby with Paddy Mayne, the larger-than-life colonel of the SAS and winner of four DSOs. He pushed Randolph Churchill, son of the Prime Minister, out of an airplane. He wined and dined in nightclubs as part of the generation that lived for each day because they might not see another. This extraordinary true story, partly based on previously unpublished diaries, presents a different slant on that mighty war through the eyes of a young man eager for action and adventure.

John Randall ran a highly successful business training school after his military career. M J Trow is a military historian who has recently ghostwritten Survivor, the story of Holocaust survivor Sam Pivnik, and Survivor on the River Kwai.