Ghost Patrol: A History of the Long Range Desert Group, 1940–1945
Page 4
To an outsider like Alan Moorehead coming upon Cairo early in the summer of 1940, a world of Edwardian privilege seemed to define the city’s ambience. “We had French wines, grapes, melons, steaks, cigarettes, beer, whisky and an abundance of all things that seemed to belong to rich, idle peace. Officers were taking modern flats in Gezira’s big buildings looking out over the golf course and the Nile. Polo continued with the same extraordinary frenzy in the roasting afternoon heat. No one worked from one till five-thirty or six, and even then work trickled through the comfortable officers borne along in a tide of gossip and Turkish coffee and pungent cigarettes.”29
Though Cairo might be a cushy billet, some at least were very much aware of what awaited me preparing to deploy ‘up the Blue’ or on leave. The Countess of Ranfurly was one: It is always the same. These young men come on leave or for courses in Cairo or Palestine, or for a while they are on the staff. They take you out to dinner and talk of their families and what they are going to do after the war; they laugh and wisecrack and spend all their money in the short time they can be sure they are alive. Then they go down to the desert leaving their letters, photographs and presents to be posted home. So often they never come back.30 If the beauties of the desert could move this generation of war poets then even the simple army convenience could raise an ode:
Of all the Desert flowers known
For you no seed is ever sown.
Yet you are the one that has most fame,
O Desert Rose – for that’s your name.
There’s thousands of you scattered around,
O’ Desert Rose, some square, some round,
Though different in variety,
At night you’re all damned hard to see.
Although you’re watered very well
You have a most unfragrant small;
And just in case you do not know,
O’ Desert Rose, you’ll never grow.
For you are not a Desert Flower,
Growing wilder every hour;
You’re just a bloomin’ petrol tin,
Used for doing most things in.
—Ode to a Desert Flower31
The Pendulum
It could be argued that the fall of France and the evacuation at Dunkirk, apparently catastrophic, did in fact confer an element of strategic advantage upon Britain. Freed from the dire attrition of obligations to continental allies, such as had enmeshed Imperial forces during the Great War, Britain could fall back upon her traditional strengths. These were an all-powerful navy and a resolute air force that had, in the summer of 1940, successfully defied the Luftwaffe’s best efforts.
Germany’s failure to crush Britain presented the Nazi high command with a limited range of strategic options. To all intents and purposes the war in the West was won. As Hitler intimated when writing to Mussolini, all that remained was the final push against a moribund and defeated England. The key question for Berlin was whether they could afford to turn the swollen and victorious Wehrmacht east to settle with Russia whilst the British Empire, technically at least, was still in the ring.
There was also the question of the oil, which in war, as Clemenceau pronounced, is as necessary as blood.32 Without an adequate and continuous supply of crude oil no state could meet the huge demands of modern warfare. In 1939 Britain was importing some nine million tons of crude, the bulk of which flowed from Iran, Iraq and the USA. By early 1941 oil reserves had fallen to alarmingly low levels. A failure of supply would force Britain to seek terms as surely as a renewed and successful air offensive.
It was estimated by the Petroleum Board that between the spring of 1940 and 1941 some 14 million tons of oil would be required. The USA could be counted on to supply less than half of this, and oil producers were not swayed by Anglophile considerations. They wanted cash on the barrel. Precious dollars that Britain could ill afford to disburse. The Shah of Iran had seized on the urgency to extort fresh concessions. Supplies from the USA were subject to sickening wastage through U-Boat attacks. As the Vichy administration in Syria stood adjacent to the vital oilfields in the Middle East and the key but vulnerable refinery at Haifa, their sympathies were of some concern.
If French naval power, based in the North African ports, was to be added to that of the formidable Italian fleet then the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean would be upset, dangerously so. Oil tankers sailing from Iran would be vulnerable, and Britain’s entire position in the Middle East under serious threat. Already Mussolini was massing troops in Cyrenaica for a thrust into Egypt, their numbers vastly exceeding those of the defenders. In November 1940 the Fleet Air Arm sallied against Italian capital ships sheltering in Taranto and scored a signal success. A further engagement off Cape Spartivento on the 27th of that month reinforced British superiority, but the threat from a compliant Vichy remained.
Aside from possible British aggression, the other factor that alarmed Hitler was the likely intentions of his Italian ally. Il Duce was steadily becoming disaffected with the relegation of his country’s role in the war. Where were the great gains he had hoped for, the triumphal marches of Fascist armies through captured Allied dependencies? Now very much the junior partner in the Axis alliance, Mussolini was hungry for spoils.
The relationship between the two states was further strained by a clear element of mistrust. The Germans, or at least some in the high command, were deeply suspicious of their ally’s competence in the intelligence war, to the extent that outright treachery was mooted.33 Aware that Italy was looking covetously at Greece, Hitler took pains to ensure that his fellow dictator was aware that Germany was steadfastly opposed to any military adventure.
Mussolini, however, was hungry for laurels. At the same time Sir Archibald Wavell, C-in-C Middle East, and General O’Connor, commanding Western Desert Force (from September 1941 this became the legendary Eighth Army), scented an opportunity. In December 1940 Wavell unleashed Operation Compass. This offensive achieved prodigies. By the time it was ended Il Duce’s legions had been significantly trashed: 3,000 were dead and a staggering 115,000 captured. British & Commonwealth fatalities were in the order of five hundred. The Italians also lost vast quantities of materiel.
By the time the dust had settled over Bardia on 5th January, Hitler had taken the momentous if inevitable decision to intervene on behalf of his crumbling ally. He could not countenance a total collapse of the Italian position in North Africa. Major-General Hans von Funck was sent to carry out an analysis, and gloomily reported that the proposed injection of German forces would not suffice to stem the rot. Hitler had already issued Directive no. 22 of 11th January determining that Tripolitania must be held and that a special military ‘blocking force’ would be deployed: Operation ‘Sunflower’.
This infusion of German troops would enjoy air support from Fliegerkorps X34 which was to be moved to Sicily. This formation was already trained in air attack upon shipping and quickly made its presence felt, inflicting considerable damage on the aircraft carrier Illustrious. These Luftwaffe squadrons could also strike at British depots and targets in North Africa. If the British could strike at the Axis in the Eastern Mediterranean, then deprived of any other opportunities in the West, Hitler could riposte. In February, the Fuhrer appointed Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel to command his African contingent. The ‘Desert Fox’ thus enters the stage, a player who would tax the hounds rather more sorely than his Italian predecessors.
Logistics were the determinant of success in the desert war. Life and campaigning in the arid expanses were only possible because of mechanisation and a supply chain that could move, deliver and maintain the vast stocks of every element that was needed to keep a modern, mobile force in the field. The further an army advanced the more tenuous the supply chain, and rapid advance brought a risk that the army might completely outrun its own supply, thus severing that vital umbilical cord and grinding to a fatal halt.
Clausewitz observed, and this long before mechanised warfare, that the advantages accruing to an
attacking forced diminished over time. Surprise, morale, concentration of resources and initiative cannot be maintained indefinitely. Those advantages enjoyed by the defender are not so susceptible to attrition, and the closer he is forced back upon his own base areas the easier his re-supply becomes. This ‘seesaw’ or ‘pendulum’ effect was never more apparent than in the desert where the armies fought over such vast, sterile areas, habitually never more than fifty miles inland from the coast. Troops dubbed such violent swings of fortune the ‘Benghazi Stakes’.
Wavell was a brilliant leader and Compass became the first successful British offensive of the war. It would be some time before the Allies scored another. Rommel’s arrival in the theatre should have sounded louder than it did, but Churchill and Eden were then much perplexed by matters in the Balkans. Greece had successfully blunted an Italian invasion, fighting the attackers to a standstill, even taking the offensive. A decision to intervene in Greece was taken wholly on political grounds. Churchill did not like Wavell, who lacked flamboyance, and the C-in-C, despite deep misgivings, felt he had no choice but to comply with his Whitehall masters. As predicted, the Greek campaign was a costly fiasco. As truculent Aussies caustically observed:
We marched and groaned beneath our load,
Whilst Jerry bombed us off the road,
He chased us here, he chased us there,
The bastards chased us everywhere.
And whilst he dropped his load of death,
We cursed the bloody RAF,
And when we heard the wireless news,
When portly Winston aired his views –
The RAF was now in Greece
Fighting hard to win the peace;
We scratched our heads and said ‘Pig’s arse’,
For this to us was just a farce,
For if in Greece the air force be –
Then where the Bloody Hell are we?35
Operation Marita, the Axis intervention, cost the Allies just under a thousand dead but fourteen times that number became prisoners. Vast numbers of guns and vehicles were also lost. Next, the action shifted to Crete. Paratroop General Kurt Student’s grand concept of ‘aerial envelopment’36 led to a pyrrhic victory. The battle raged between 20th May–1st June 1941, and though costly to the German airborne arm, the Allies again lost heavily. Nearly 7,000 were left dead or wounded with a further 17,000 as prisoners. Such dire losses in personnel and equipment weakened Wavell, just as ‘the Desert Fox’ prepared to bite.
Rommel owed his appointment to a personal relationship with the Fuhrer and the perceived charisma observed by Josef Goebbels. The exploits of his ‘Ghost’ Division in France and his own fondness for self-promotion had contributed to the general’s rise. His tactical abilities, relentless and ruthless energy, boldness and decisiveness were qualities that would ensure his desert legend. In addition to being hampered by the fact he was outside the patrician loop of staff-college generals, his unwillingness to tolerate fools or abide by orders he considered incorrect won him few friends at OKW. As the Official History correctly observes:
The [Axis] chain of command creaked from time to time, but the firm hand of General Rommel made up for its many weaknesses. He was not the C-in-C, it is true, but he was emphatically the man whose views mattered, for he did what he felt to be militarily right in spite of the frequent protests of his superior, General Bastico. And then, having made up his own mind on the policy, he had a habit of becoming a tactical leader, and by taking command personally at the most important spot, ensuring that his ideas were carried out.37
Both Von Brauchitsch38 and Halder39 had made it perfectly plain to Rommel that his role was defensive and subordinate to the Italian C-in-C, General Gariboldi.40 The forces he had were all that he would get. There would be no more and he must not consider plans for an offensive until 15th Panzer was deployed in theatre. His superiors, unlike Rommel himself, were privy to the plans for Barbarossa – the invasion of Russia, compared to which North Africa was the merest of sideshows. The deployment was strictly a blocking move, sperrverband. Despite these stern admonitions the Fox was keen to make his gambit and had already determined to depart from my instructions to confine myself to a reconnaissance and to take the command at the front into my own hands as soon as possible.41
Weakened by the pointless and immensely costly diversion to Greece and with his forces strung out, Wavell was caught wrong-footed by Rommel’s first lightning strike. In the middle of May a British response, Operation Brevity, despite an encouraging start, fizzled out. Its bigger brother Battleaxe, launched the next month, fared little better. Tobruk was heavily besieged and remained leaguered for an epic span of 240 days. Its Australian defenders became legend.
The failure of Battleaxe proved the final nail in Wavell’s coffin. Churchill reacted ruthlessly and he was replaced by Auchinleck. The ‘Auk’ found himself under immense political pressure. Churchill and the war cabinet needed signs of victory to bolster lukewarm US confidence. The new C-in-C’s offensive, ‘Crusader’, did not sally forth till 18th November and blazed till the year’s end. British and Axis tanks brawled in the dust-shrouded melee of Sidi Rezegh. Rommel did well overall but was eventually forced back, first to Gazala then all the way to El Agheila.
‘Crusader’ was a British victory, in that Tobruk was relieved, the enemy was driven from Cyrenaica with heavy losses, and all Axis troops holding positions on the Egyptian frontier were destroyed or captured. This all took longer than expected, however, and in doing it the British exhausted themselves. Winter quarters in the Western Desert were generally disagreeable:
Flies produced more casualties than the Germans. It is impossible to describe, without suspicion of exaggeration, how thickly they used to surround us. Most of us ate a meal with a handkerchief or piece of paper in one hand and our food in the other. While we tried to get the food to our mouths, free from flies, we waved the other hand about wildly; even so we ate many hundreds of flies. They settled on food like a cloud and no amount of waving about disturbed them. They could clean jam and butter from a slice of bread much quicker than we could eat it … it can be realised how serious the menace of flies was considered when I say that, even in remote parts of the Desert, one came across notices saying ‘Kill that fly, or he will kill you’.42
The pendulum had indeed swung but this placed fresh difficulties in Auchinleck’s path. As a direct result of this strategic shift, Eighth Army was that much further away from its supply base and its communications were that much more attenuated. Conversely, the army which had retreated was so much closer to its base, thus supply and replenishment was that much easier, the ‘pendulum’ effect again.43 Technically, Eighth Army had won the day but it was dearly bought. Allied losses in killed wounded and missing, were in the region of 18,000, whilst the Axis lost 20,000 more. Both lost heavily in tanks and guns.
Barbarossa altered the entire global, strategic position. Hitler’s decision to fight on two fronts was the tipping point of the war. Immediately, this was far from apparent. In the summer and early autumn of 1941, the Wehrmacht stormed through White Russia, the Baltic States and Ukraine. The Red Army suffered defeat after defeat with calamitous casualties. In spite of all these successes the offensive was ultimately a failure as it failed to crush the Soviets. War in the east would continue into 1942 and suck the life blood of Axis resources. Rommel was the poor relation. His victories disguised but could not ultimately conceal the fact that the odds were beginning to stack against him.
None of this was necessarily apparent in the first half of 1942. Rommel bounced back from his retreat at the close of Auchinleck’s offensive and sprang forward like a tiger, driving the British back, often in rather unseemly haste. Tobruk, the totemic bastion, fell. Expressions such as the ‘Msus Stakes’ and ‘Gazala Gallop’ entered Eighth Army’s vocabulary, synonymous with near rout. The Gazala line was outflanked and forced, and the Allies hurled back towards El Alamein, a bare threescore miles west of Alexandria. There could be no further r
etreat, nor was there. In July Rommel came again, pounding the line for almost all of July. He did not break through but British counter-attacks exposed serious flaws. It was a stalemate.
The Long Range Desert Group was a child of opportunity blended with necessity. Britain and its Allies were extremely lucky to have men like Bagnold and Clayton with all their vast knowledge and daring. Alastair Timpson was with the Scots Guards who found himself in an altogether more unconventional unit: The Long Range Desert Group in Africa provided an efficient service behind the enemy lines for the 8th Army (and its predecessor the Western Desert Force) and Middle East headquarters. The main functions were: Intelligence, ‘Taxi-Service’ and ‘beat-ups’. Of these functions intelligence was the most important.44
Intelligence was indeed the key task. Attacking the enemy, however satisfying, was far less important than providing HQ with a clear picture of what was going on ‘over the hill’ and equally vital, were reports on the ‘going’ – the terrain, whether it was good enough to enable a force of all arms to make a left hook around the enemy when on the offensive.45 One of the most famous examples of LRDG opening up strategic possibilities was the discovery by Nick Wilder’s T2 Kiwi Patrol of a backdoor which would enable Eighth Army to outflank the formidable pre-war Mareth Line. Wilder found a narrow gap between the Matmata Hills, which lay to the east, and the sand sea. The passage was named ‘Wilder’s Gap in honour of its finder. So a small reconnaissance patrol actually influenced the overall strategic balance at a critical juncture and saved Eighth Army the heavy casualties which would have certainly been incurred in a grinding battle of attrition46.
Ever since Britons had first ventured into the desert, its vast and lonely expanses of sand had exerted a strong pull. The wartime generation had, in many instances grown up with Lawrence’s classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Ron Hill who served with LRDG was one of these: I had always been fascinated by stories of the desert since reading T.E. Lawrence…. But I had also picked up copies of Bagnold’s ‘Libyan Sands’ and Wilson MacArthur’s Road to the Nile when on leave in Cairo which reinforced my interest.47