In the company of heroes - Michael J Durant

In the summer of 1993, American special forces were dispatched to the famine stricken land of Somalia. Their intervention in this war-torn country was the most dramatic US military action since Vietnam - and it went horribly wrong.

Michael Durant became the focus for these events when his Black Hawk helicopter was shot down over the city of Mogadishu. He crash landed in enemy ground, breaking his spine and both legs. His helicopter was quickly surrounded by merciless Somali troops. After a sustained gun battle in which his co-pilot and two passengers were killed, Durant was taken captive. His battered face appeared on the cover of magazines around the globe and the horrific torture he underwent was made all too clear in his coerced statements broadcast live to the world. This is his story, in his own words.

Durant's ordeal is at the heart of Mark Bowden's international bestseller Black Hawk Down, and the film version made by Ridley Scott (2001). But this is not a journalistic view or Hollywood action movie. This is the true story of one soldier, on the ground and fighting for survival.