On Wings of Eagles : The Inspiring True Story of One Man's Patriotic Spirit--and His Heroic Mission to Save His Countrymen

When Ross Perot, millionaire head of the Dallas-based company EDS, discovered that two of his key men had been jailed in Iran, he turned to the one person who could help. Colonel 'Bull' Simons, famed World War II and Vietnam commando, agreed to do what the US government would not - go in and get the men out.On Wings of Eagles is the gripping account of an incredible real-life rescue carried out by a Green Beret colonel and a group of corporate executives who were hastily trained to form a fighting team. In this extraordinary story Ken Follett weaves together a secret penetration of a highly dangerous territory, a dramatic jailbreak, and a harrowing overland escape to the Turkish border - made all the more extraordinary by the fact that it is true. On Wings of Eagles is the account of an incredible rescue by a Green Beret colonel and a group of corporate executives hastily trained into a fighting team. When Ross Perot, millionaire head of the Dallas-based company EDS, discovered that two of his key men in Iran had been jailed, he turned to the one man in America who could help. Colonel 'Bull' Simons, famed World War II and Vietnam commando, agreed to do what the US government could not - go in and get the men out. This is the stuff of Follet's fiction - a secret penetration into a dangerous territory; a dramatic jailbreak; a harrowing overland escape to the Turkish border - and all the more extraordinary because it is fact. #1 bestselling author Ken Follett tells the inspiring true story of the Middle East hostage crisis that began in 1978, and of the unconventional means one American used to save his countrymen. . . . When two of his employees were held hostage in a heavily guarded prison fortress in Iran, one man took matters into his own hands: businessman H. Ross Perot. His team consisted of a group of volunteers from the executive ranks of his corporation, handpicked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer. To free the imprisoned Americans, they would face incalculable odds on a mission that only true heroes would have dared. . . . Overview: Ken Follett was only twenty-seven when he wrote Eye of the Needle, the award-winning novel which became an international bestseller and a distinguished film. Before that, he had been a newspaper reporter and a publishing executive after studying philosophy at University College, London. He has since written eighteen equally successful novels and the bestselling true story based, On Wings of Eagles. Ken Follett lives with his family in London and Stevenage. When two of his American employees were held hostage in a heavily guarded prison fortress in Iran, one man took matters into his own hands: American businessman H. Ross Perot. His team consisted of a group of volunteers from the executive ranks of his corporation, hand-picked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer. To free the imprisoned Americans, they would face incalculable odds on a mission that only true heroes would have dared. (from Amazon) The true story of a former Green Beret commander who led a group of businessmen on a daring rescue mission to free two men from an Iranian jail