Ghost Patrol: A History of the Long Range Desert Group, 1940–1945

by Sadler, John

  Alongside the W/O, the patrol navigator was a key player. For the Axis, the desert was generally a place of terror, a surreal and threatening wilderness of seemingly infinite size. Operations were mainly confined to the coastal strip and, in the case of the Italians, isolated outposts at strategically vital locations. Many have likened the Western desert to an ocean. If so, then it was the British who were the sailors and LRDG the real pathfinders. Maps were either primitive or non-existent. The exploration undertaken by Bagnold and Clayton was, naturally, invaluable, not just because of the topography charted but on account of the specialist kit that they created. This wasn’t confined to the simple genius of the condenser; Bagnold had also developed the sun-compass.

  Without going into details of exactly how the sun-compass worked, the principle can be briefly described as keeping the shadow from the sun of a vertical needle (which projected from the centre of a small circular table graduated into 360 degrees) on to the appropriate reading in order to maintain the direction required. If one was forced off this bearing it was still possible to read the direction in which the truck was then travelling. There were problems connected with the sun’s azimuth at various times of day and seasons of the year, but these too were overcome by the inventive genius of Bagnold.14

  On a day-to-day basis the patrol commander, at break of day, would decide upon the direction of travel and would set his compass accordingly. The navigator, riding in the second truck behind the C/O, would adopt the same setting. The compass itself was fixed between driver and front passenger so the former could steer to match his bearing. At the same time the navigator would take a speedometer reading and, should there be any deviation from the right bearing, he’d note the speedometer reading and the fresh bearing. As a basic form of dead-reckoning, this proved very robust, especially if augmented by the use of a theodolite to take an astrofix at night. The only difficulty here was getting hold of the instrument itself, which was in very short supply with Middle East Command.

  Navigators needed skill and stamina, and like the W/O, theirs was not a nine to five job. When qualified as a Land Navigator, the War Office test of approval, the trooper was entitled to an extra shilling a day in pay. Needless to add, retail opportunities were not abundant during LRDG patrols.

  Into the Air

  Both Bagnold and Guy Prendergast had recognized the immense value of aircraft in desert exploration. The Italians had established their Auto-Saharan units (see Appendix 6), whose unit commanders were all trained pilots and actually had aircraft as an essential part of their overall establishment.

  Guy Prendergast and a Kiwi NCO, Trevor Barker, were both qualified, as long as they had planes available to bridge the enormous gaps between HQ and forward patrols. Kufra to Siwa was a distance of some four hundred miles. Essential supplies, spare parts, radio gear, ammunition and mail could all be delivered by air.

  Resourceful and determined as ever, Bagnold worked his contacts in Cairo to procure two small biplanes from local businessmen. The planes were essentially commercially produced WACO’s (as in ‘Weaver Aircraft Company of Ohio’). These aircraft were acquired from private, wealthy individuals and soon found themselves working in a more rugged environment. The better known of the two planes was a ZGC-7 (RAF Serial No.AX695). The other was a YKC (RAF Serial No. AX697). The main difference between them was the capacity of the motor. The ZGC-7 used a 285 hp engine while the YKC employed a less powerful 225 hp. The YKC dated from 1934, the ZGC-7 from 1937.15

  Though the Desert Air Force had been unwilling to provide aircraft from its admittedly exceedingly slender resources, they took a very dim few of LRDG setting up in competition. Prendergast and Barker both flew and maintained the planes, assisted by a brace of trained-up navigators. Each of the aircraft could carry two, maybe three men and could be used to evacuate those seriously wounded. Flying both in tandem was something of a feat in itself as they had different cruising speeds, one at 115 mph, the other faster at 140 mph.

  The WACO was a tough little plane with a typical short take off and landing distance, common to biplanes, ideally suited to the rigours of LRDG. They also bore a slight resemblance to the Fiat CR42 Falco (Falcon), one of the last Italian Fighter biplanes which may have provided a handy if unintentional element of disguise. (In any event the RAF had somewhat spitefully refused permission to paint roundels!)

  Training

  Being trained as a soldier and being trained as LRDG were two separate phases. Those who joined were already in khaki, they were simply not experienced in the Spartan rigours and tricky technicalities of surviving in and moving over the limitless, lunar wastes of the desert. Much of the training they did receive was very much ‘on the job’. The unique proposition of LRDG was that the unit had a cadre of highly experienced desert explorers – Bagnold, Clayton, Lloyd Owen and Kennedy Shaw, who were also very good, if demanding teachers. They had to be. The cult of detail was never more valid than in an environment as harsh and remote, where you lived on what you could carry and how well you could navigate.

  Survival skills, even as basic as correct water conservation, were building blocks of the curriculum. Navigation was the holy grail of desert travel, as discussed above. You had, like Hawkeye, to be able to read the spoor of Axis vehicle tracks, to recognise friendly and enemy, aircraft, tanks, armoured vehicles and transport. You had to know how to use and service the arsenal you carried on patrol. In a contact, firepower was the code for survival. If a gun jammed, as Clayton’s did at the critical moment during the assault on Murzuk, fatal consequences could rapidly follow.

  Patrols were not just small bodies of soldiers, they were teams of specialists. To be a good driver you not only had to learn how to move over soft and hard desert, to climb steep-sided wadis and tackle the forbidding expanses of sand sea, but you had to be your own mechanic and fitter. Every task required care, energy and judgement. There was no one to pass the buck to and nowhere to hide.

  Once Group HQ was set up, training became more structured; detailed sets of training procedures were codified. Inevitably, not all would make the grade, ‘returned to unit’ or ‘RTU’d’ was code for not good enough. There was never a shortage of volunteers. Thousands of fit young men were stuck in tedious routines, in very out of the way places, mired in ‘bull’ and much ‘mucked-about’. Being in the LRDG was a badge of elitism, and a chance for adventure with a hint of glamour. As one officer tersely observed when speaking of training, there was only one way to learn, and that was to get on with the job.16

  Logistics

  LRDG could only function with adequate supplies. Based in far-flung oases, hundreds of miles from the nearest depot, logistics were a constant headache. Unsung was the Supply and Transport Section. Their vehicles were heavy, lumbering trucks, wildebeests of the desert war, never as dashing as the sleek panthers of 30-cwts’ or the leopard jeeps, but without which the predators would stall for lack of fuel. As patrols dashed out on daring missions, the convoys of 3-tonners and a scattering of heavier Macks would grind along the supply routes on their own regular and unsung epics.

  Philip Arnold commanded the section for much of the desert war. He’d been a vehicle and transport manager in Civvy Street. Half French, half-English, naturally perfect in both tongues and a good Arabic speaker too, there was little he did not know about getting trucks across the Middle Eastern deserts. 17 A born adventurer, he’d seen service with the Foreign Legion and had fought in Somaliland before joining LRDG in summer 1942. He was finally killed by a land mine just outside Hon.

  Lieutenant ‘Shorty’ Barrett, a forty-year-old Kiwi and a lawyer in peacetime, was the LRDG Quartermaster. He was a founder member, returned to his unit for the abortive Greek expedition, then returned to LRDG in autumn 1941. Although troopers generally ate well, the job of getting rations in was Herculean. In the regulars, even up in the front line, the QM drew rations for his unit on a daily basis, collected from the Detail Issue Depot (“DID”). Shorty had a rather longer travel and had to
plan ahead for a period of weeks, if not months. Whichever base LRDG was operating from would be a week at least away from any sizeable depot, and then patrols would be ranging over great distances beyond. Cairo would be at least a thousand miles off.

  Shorty would be beset by demands way beyond the remit of the regular QM – a month’s food and rations for two patrols; fuel for a thousand miles or more. A long-ranging patrol would require a series of dumps set up, needed thousands of gallons of fuel, hundreds of water. The list of stores was endless, food, fuel and ammunition for the whole diverse arsenal of weapons patrols might be packing, navigational instruments, clothing, tents and all manner of incidental gear.18

  Medical treatment was always going to present problems. In addition to the normal fear of wounds from enemy action, LRDG troopers faced the threats of routine injuries, desert sores and a host of medical conditions, plus the unwelcome and hostile intent of local fauna. Just because LRDG took the scorpion as its cap badge didn’t impress the real thing in the slightest. All these ills were compounded as ever by distance. Travelling over rock-strewn desert would be purgatory for an injured man, exposed to relentless heat and numbing cold in turn.

  LRDG had its own MO, usually based at HQ, and a medical orderly/ paramedic for each patrol. Kufra could boast a semi-decent hospital; most other places couldn’t. The paramedics did wonders and became, like all LRDG masters of improvisation – the use of a grease gun for an enema might find a place in the pages of the ‘Lancet’.19 Dick Lawson, the MO in North Africa, was a remarkable character; his loss on Leros was a serious blow.

  Notes

  1 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/70000266 – retrieved 20th January 2015.

  2 http://lrdg.hegewisch.net/lrdgvehicles.hmtl – retrieved 20th January 2015.

  3 http://lrdg.hegewisch.net/lrdgvehicles.hmtl – retrieved 20th January 2015.

  4 http://lrdg.hegewisch.net/lrdgvehicles.hmtl – retrieved 20th January 2015.

  5 Quoted in Lloyd Owen, p. 22.

  6 Grenades were the No. 36 Mills bomb, created by the inventor of that name, a native of Sunderland and introduced in 1915. The no. 36 was adopted in 1932.

  7 Lloyd Owen, p. 18.

  8 A Swedish pre-war design, the gun was used extensively in the early stages of the war and manufactured under licence in a number of European countries.

  9 The Cannone-Mitragliera da 20/65 Modello 35 (Breda), also known as Breda Model 35, was a 20 mm anti-aircraft gun manufactured by the Società Italiana Ernesto Breda, designed in 1932 and adopted by the Italian armed forces in 1935.

  10 The No. 11 Set comprised a radio transceiver featuring a single tuning unit and was designed in 1938 to replace the 1933 No. 1 Wireless Set. Originally intended to be used in tanks for short to medium range communications, it nonetheless served LRDG well.

  11 Sky-wave refers to the propagation of radio waves reflected or refracted back toward Earth from the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Since it is not limited by the curvature of the Earth, sky-wave propagation can be used to communicate beyond the horizon, at intercontinental distances. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave, retrieved 22nd January 2014.

  12 Lloyd Owen, p. 20.

  13 Technically this refers to an off-centre-fed Di-pole antenna fed by symmetrical open ladder line and co-axial cable via a balun – http://hamwaves.com/cl-ocfd/history.html, retrieved 22nd January, 2014.

  14 Lloyd Owen, p. 19.

  15 http://lrdg.hegewisch.net/lrdgvehicles.hmtl – retrieved 20th January 2015.

  16 Quoted in Moreman T., & R. Ruggeri: Long Range Desert Group Patrolman (Osprey ‘Warrior’ Series no. 148), p. 17.

  17 Kennedy Shaw, p. 138.

  18 Ibid., p. 140.

  19 Ibid., p. 214.

  APPENDIX 2

  LRDG Commanders and Patrol Designations*

  LRP Commander

  June 1940 – November 1940: Lt. Col. Ralph Bagnold

  LRDG Commanders

  November 1940 – August 1941: Lt. Col. Ralph Bagnold

  August 1941 – October 1942: Lt. Col. Guy Prendergast

  October 1943 – November 1943: Lt. Col. Jake Easonsmith

  November 1943 – July 1945: Lt. Col. David Lloyd Owen

  Patrol Designations

  In the beginning R, T and W Patrols, all comprised of New Zealanders, operated as the LRP. With the formation of LRDG towards the end of 1940, the following patrols were operating through the war in the Desert and in subsequent campaigns:

  G1 & G2 Patrols – Guards

  Y1 & Y2 Patrols – Yeomanry

  R1 & R2; T1 & T2 Patrols – New Zealand

  S1 & S2 Patrols – Rhodesians

  M1 & M2 Patrols – British and Commonwealth

  X Patrol – Italian Campaign

  Heavy Section – supply and sustenance (mainly 3-tonners, delivering to desert drops and the principal oases)

  * Based on information contained in Morgan’s Sting of the Scorpion, Appendix I.

  APPENDIX 3

  Patrol Commanders*

  LRP Patrols

  R (New Zealand) – Captain D.G. Steele

  T (New Zealand) – Captain P.A. Clayton, Captain L.B. Ballantyne

  W (New Zealand) – Captain E.C. Mitford

  LRDG

  G1 (Guards) – Captains M.D.D Crichton Stuart, A.M. Hay & J.A.L. Timpson

  G2 (Guards) – Captain J.A.L. Timpson, Lieutenants the Honourable R.B. Gurdon, K.H. Sweeting & B. Bruce

  R1 (New Zealand – Captains J.R. Easonsmith, A.I. Guild & L.H. Browne, Lieutenant K.F. McLauchlan

  R2 (New Zealand) – Lieutenants C.H. Croucher & J.R. Talbot, Captain K.H. Lazarus

  S1 (Rhodesian) – Captains C.A. Holliman, J.R. Olivey & K.H. Lazarus

  S2 (Rhodesian) – Captain J.R. Olivey, Lieutenant J. Henry

  T1 (New Zealand) – Captains L.B. Ballantyne, N.P. Wilder & Lieutenant J. Crisp

  T2 (New Zealand) – Captains C.S Morris, N.P. Wilder, R.A. Tinker & Lieutenant R.A. Crammond

  Y1 (Yeomanry & others) – Captains P.J.D. McCraith, F.C. Simms, D. Lloyd Owen

  Y2 (Yeomanry & others) – Captains D. Lloyd Owen, A.D.N. Hunter & E.F. Spicer

  Indian Long Range Squadron

  Indian 1 – Lieutenant J.E. Cantlay

  Indian 2 – Captain T.J.D. Birdwood

  Indian 2 – Captain A.B. Rand

  Indian 4 – Lieutenant G.W. Nangle

  * Based on Morgan, Appendix IV.

  APPENDIX 4

  Daily LRDG Ration Scale*

  Bacon, tinned – 9 ½ ounces

  Bread – 16 ounces

  Biscuits – 12 ounces

  Cheese – 1 ½ ounces

  Chocolate – 2 ounces

  Curry powder – 1/8th ounces

  Fruit, dried – 4/7th ounces

  Fruit, tinned – 4 ounces

  Herrings – 1 ¼ ounces

  Jam, marmalade or golden syrup – 1 ½ ounces

  Lime juice – 1/16th bottle

  Margarine – 1 ½ ounces

  Meat, preserved – 6 ounces

  Pickles – 1 ounce

  Chutney – ¼ ounces

  Meat loaf or ham and tongue – 1 ¼ ounces

  Meat and vegetable ration – 2 ounces

  Milk, tinned – 2 ounces

  Mustard – 1/100th ounce

  Oatmeal or flour – 2 ounces

  Onions – 2 ounces

  Pepper – 1/100th ounce

  Salt – ¾ ounce

  Salmon, tinned – 1 ounce

  Sardines – 1 ounce

  Sausages – 1 ounce

  Sugar – 3 ½ ounces

  Tea – ¾ ounce

  Vegetables, tinned – 4 ounces

  Ascorbic tablets – 1 tablet

  Marmite – 3/28th ounce

  Rum – 1 ounce; as a rule the issue of a rum ration depended on the orders of a divisional commander, thus a Major-General. Obviously, in the course of LRDG missions there was a dearth of such high-ranking office
rs so it was normally on the patrol commander’s say-so.

  Tobacco or cigarettes – 2 ounces (per week)

  Matches – 2 boxes (per week)

  Total daily weight without containers – 4 pounds, 2 ounces

  And with containers – 5 pounds

  * Based on information contained in Appendix 5 of W.B. Kennedy-Shaw’s Long Range Desert Group.

  APPENDIX 5

  LRDG Roll of Honour*

  P.L. Arnold; L.C. Ashby; F.R. Beech; J. Botha; J.T. Bowler; W.H. Burton; D. Davison; E.J. Dobson; J.R. Easonsmith; J. Easton; S. Federman; S. Fleming; K. Foley; M. Gravil; R.B. Gurdon; J. Henderson; J. Henry; C.D. Hewson; A. Hopton; B. Jordan; H.L. Mallet; G. Matthews; L.A. McIver; L. Oelofse; N. O’Malley; A.J. Penhall; A. Redfern; G. Rezin; C. Richardson; R. Riggs; L. Roderick; R. Savage; D. Dinger; K. Smith; A. Tighe; H. Todman; J. Vanrensberg; P. Wheeldon; G.F. Yates & R. Young.

  * Based on Morgan, Appendix V.

  APPENDIX 6

  A View from the Other Side – Axis Units

  The Italians

  Whilst it is fair to say that neither Italy nor Germany was ever able to field a unit comparable to the LRDG, they were not completely blind to the potential of desert raiders. And the Italians did have some form, having in the twenties created five combat units, the Compagnie Sahariane. In 1931, these units succeeded in taking Kufra Oasis. Seven years later Marshal Balbo moulded the separate columns into a single formation with substantial firepower, creating probably the most effective unit from among the Libyan colonial forces.1

  O’Connor’s tremendous successes following the start of Operation Compass meant that the newly designated Comando de Sahara Libico was denuded of many of its soldiers and much kit. The seemingly unstoppable advance of Western Desert Force and the fall of Kufra spurred a rapid reorganisation. In part, this was a largely defensive reflex, though in March 1941 General Dal Pozzo set up five new mobile columns to give the defence some teeth. This was still not an LRDG-type unit, beset as it was by supply problems and the questionable reliability of the predominantly Libyan troops. It remained equivalent to a weak brigade in strength with artillery, 20 mm guns and vehicles.2