Immediate Response - Major Mark Hammond

Location : Nearly in Cambridgeshire

If the weathers getting you down and you want something to to carry you off to warmer climes then you would do worse than to read the new book by Major Mark Hammond - Immediate Response.

If Hollywood came up with the story of a Royal Marine Major flying an RAF Chinook and getting the DFC I guess most of us would walk on by as it would seem just to far fetched, but that is the reality contained in this book.

Running to 304 pages, including the glossary, a cutaway diagram of a Chinook, and including 8 pages of colour photos, in the main from the authors collection, Immediate Response gives the full on story of what operating the Chinook in support of ground forces in Afghanistan is really like. The reader joins Hammond as he flies in the heat of a Chinook cockpit learning how to land the machine in 'Brown Out' conditions, sand storms caused by the huge rotors of the aircraft. He clearly demonstrates the lengths that the crews go to to ensure they support the boots on the ground, and they share their sorrow in the loss of those who will not go home to their loved ones as they will at the end of their tour.

To say more would give away the richness of the story, but the last line on the inside of the dust jacket just about sums it all up -

'Its a visceral, unputdownable combination of hi-tec and old fashioned grit; an action packed story shot through with a mix of aviation fuel and cordite.....................'

The only word I would add to that sentence would be Heroism.

The book is available on line and at all good bookshops ISBN 978071815474-5, and 5% of the proceeds of the book will go to Help for Heroes.