SAS Survival Handbook

This comprehensive survival manual draws on author John "Lofty" Wiseman's 26 years of service in the British Special Air Service (SAS), where he served as the regiment's survival instructor. He argues that survival training has become more urgent than ever, citing expanded global travel, increased leisure adventurism, and post-9/11 instability. He frames survival readiness through a "pyramid of learning": The foundation is the Will to Live, the mental resolve never to give in; the middle layer is Knowledge, which dispels fear; and the top is Kit, kept to a minimum but thoroughly understood.

Wiseman opens with practical preparation, introducing the acronym PLAN to prioritize needs: Protection from danger and the elements, Location through signalling for rescue, Acquisition of water and food, and Navigation. He stresses pre-expedition research, proper equipment, and contingency planning, and describes a pocket-sized survival kit containing items such as matches, a flint, fish hooks, a compass, snare wire, and basic medical supplies. A knife, he argues, is the most important survival tool. He devotes extensive attention to water, noting a person can survive three weeks without food but only three days without water, and covers methods including rain collection, solar stills (devices that use sunlight to condense water vapor from soil into drinkable liquid), distillation, and extracting moisture from plants and animals.

The book then turns to emergency strategy. Wiseman provides procedures for car accidents, including brake failure, submerged vehicles, and cars stalled on railway tracks. For air disasters, he covers crash-landing preparation, post-crash evacuation, and the strong case for staying near wreckage, which is far more visible to rescuers than individual survivors. He addresses group survival dynamics, discussing leadership, cultural differences, and morale.

A substantial portion of the book addresses survival across major climate zones. Wiseman's foundational principle is that nature is neutral: Survivors must work with each environment rather than fight it. For polar regions, he covers extreme cold, the C.O.L.D. mnemonic for clothing (Clean, avoid Overheating, Loose, Dry), snow shelters, and food from seals and tundra plants, while warning that polar bear liver contains lethal concentrations of vitamin A. Mountain survival covers climbing techniques, avalanche hazards, and crevasse rescue. Seashore sections address tidal patterns, food resources from molluscs to seabirds, and dangers such as jellyfish and sharks. For arid regions, water is paramount, and Wiseman calculates life expectancy based on temperature and supply. Tropical regions offer abundant resources but present hazards from insects, leeches, and venomous snakes. A personal case study from the mid-1960s in Kenya illustrates these principles: When a trainee drained the group's shared water supply during an exercise in extreme heat, creating a crisis for more than 30 remaining men, strict rationing and sending the strongest for help saved everyone.

The food chapter covers nutrition, foraging, and procurement. Wiseman warns of "rabbit starvation," a condition in which eating only lean rabbit meat without supplementary vegetation leads to death from vitamin and fat deficiency. He presents a systematic plant edibility test and includes illustrated guides to edible and poisonous plants by region. Animal food coverage spans tracking, trapping principles organized around four methods (mangle or deadfall traps, strangle or snares, dangle or spring-loaded traps, and tangle or nets), and hunting with improvised weapons. Wiseman details butchering procedures and fishing methods from angling to gill nets and plant-derived substances used to stun fish. A 1963 Borneo case study recounts how monsoon floods destroyed his base camp, leaving his team stranded with meager rations for five days; they survived largely on snails, reinforcing the lesson to eat anything available.

Camp craft covers shelter construction from hasty bough shelters to igloos, with specialized guidance for tropical raised platforms and Arctic snow structures. Fire-making receives detailed treatment, covering multiple ignition methods and specific fire types for warmth, cooking, or signalling. Cooking methods range from boiling and roasting to the Hangi method of using heated stones in a pit. Food preservation includes smoke drying, making biltong (sun-dried meat) and pemmican (a concentrated mixture of dried meat and fat), pickling, and salting. Wiseman also covers camp organization, tool-making, rope-making from natural fibers, and an extensive catalog of knots and lashings.

Navigation and weather reading cover map interpretation, direction-finding methods including shadow sticks (a technique that tracks the movement of a stick's shadow to determine compass direction), watch-based compasses, improvised magnetic compasses, and celestial navigation using the Pole Star and the Southern Cross. Weather prediction draws on cloud identification, wildlife behavior, and atmospheric conditions.

The chapter on movement addresses traveling versus staying put, generally favoring the latter unless resources are exhausted or rescue seems unlikely. Wiseman provides instructions for building rafts and details river-crossing techniques including group wading, rope-assisted crossings, and swimming with flotation aids.

The health section, one of the book's longest, establishes first aid priorities and details cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for adults, children, and babies. Wiseman covers wound management, fracture treatment, burn care (cooling with water for at least ten minutes), shock treatment, and bleeding control. Disease coverage spans warm-climate conditions such as malaria and dysentery and cold-climate hazards including hypothermia and frostbite. A natural medicine section catalogs plant-based remedies, and illustrated guides identify dangerous creatures from poisonous snakes to venomous sea life.

Sea survival addresses what Wiseman considers the most difficult environment. He covers abandoning ship, water rationing, rainwater collection, fishing with improvised equipment, and shark defense strategies. A case study from a documented 1950s incident describes a family of three who crashed in California's Trinity Mountains after failing to file a flight plan. Though they survived the initial crash for ten days, they left the wreckage without adequate navigation skills and died only 50 kilometers from the nearest road, reinforcing the importance of filing route plans and staying near wreckage.

The rescue chapter details signalling methods, from three fires in a triangle as a distress signal to heliograph (signalling by reflecting sunlight with a mirror), ground-to-air panel codes, and Morse code. Wiseman explains search patterns and provides helicopter rescue guidance, including landing site preparation. A case study of the 1994 Lows Gully expedition on Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia, illustrates failures in planning: A group that split into two parties became stranded for weeks with only three days' rations before being rescued 31 days after setting out.

The urban survival chapter extends wilderness principles to city life, addressing home security, electronic surveillance countermeasures, and self-defense, including legal limits on force and techniques for breaking holds and using improvised weapons. Terrorism coverage includes bomb detection, hijack and kidnap response, and protective measures such as bulletproofing and blastproofing.

The final chapter addresses disasters both natural and man-made: drought, fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and chemical and biological threats. Nuclear explosion guidance covers shelter construction, decontamination, and timed schedules for venturing outside. A "Home Front" section addresses survival when services are cut off, covering food storage, water purification, and hygiene.

Wiseman concludes by restating that survival is as much a mental attitude as physical endurance. Reading the book alone does not make someone a survivor; one must practice the skills and develop them through training. The will to live remains the pyramid's unshakable foundation.