The next thing Lloyd Owen remembered was being dragged under cover by two of his men. He was in dreadful pain, shot in the back and left arm, the most serious casualty of the sudden air strike. It was a suitably dispiriting end to what had been for the LRDG an ill-conceived if gallantly executed operation. ‘The British suffered considerable losses in killed and prisoners,’ noted Rommel, who personally flew to Tobruk to congratulate his men on repelling the raiders. He was particularly pleased to discover the SAS and LRDG were involved in the raids, soldiers who have ‘caused considerable havoc and seriously disquieted the Italians’.18
C HAPTER 12
THE EYES OF THE ALAMEIN OFFENSIVE
The failure of the SAS raid on Benghazi didn’t detract from what they had achieved in the year since their formation. Far from it. Not long after his appointment as commander-in-chief of Middle East Command, General Harold Alexander received a memo from General McCreery, his chief of staff. It was about a small unit operating in the desert that had enjoyed ‘conspicuous success in the past’. He continued:
The personality of the present commander, L Detachment S.A.S. Brigade, is such that he could be given command of the whole force with appropriate rank. In view of this I make the following suggestion. That L Detachment S.A.S. Brigade, 1 S.S. [Special Service] Regiment, Special Boat Section should all be amalgamated under L Detachment S.A.S. Brigade and commanded by Major D Stirling with the rank of lieutenant colonel.1
A bust of Mussolini makes an ideal footrest for this LRDG soldier as the Allies begin liberating western Libya from Italian rule. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
Alexander accepted the recommendation and on 28 September 1942 GHQ, Middle East Forces, issued an order promoting the 26-year-old David Stirling and authorizing him to expand his unit into a regiment.
While Stirling embarked on a recruitment campaign to fill what he envisaged would be a regiment of five squadrons of 29 officers and 572 other ranks, the Long Range Desert Group was also on the hunt for new blood. As well as the men captured during the raids on Barce and Jalo, David Lloyd Owen, Nick Wilder and Alastair Timpson were recovering from their wounds in Egyptian hospitals. On a more positive note for Lieutenant Colonel Prendergast, now that the SAS was able to stand on its own two feet, no longer requiring the LRDG to act as its ‘aunt’, the unit was able to revert to Bagnold’s original idea: a small reconnaissance force exploiting its mastery of the desert. To clarify the roles of the LRDG and SAS during the launch of the impending offensive by the Eighth Army, Lieutenant Colonel John Hackett, in charge of supervising light raiding forces in North Africa, called Stirling and Prendergast into his office and ‘drew a line down the map like a medieval pope separating out the Italians from the Portuguese in the Atlantic. And I said, “West of this line LRDG only, east of this [line] SAS only”, and that kept them more or less out of each other’s hair.’2 The line designated by Hackett was the 20th meridian of longitude east, a line that ran north to south through Jedabia. For the LRDG, that meant a move from their base at Fayoum back to Kufra.
For the next two months the LRDG, comprising 25 officers and 278 other ranks, was the eyes and ears for the Eighth Army as the great battle of El Alamein that had begun on 23 October gathered an inexorable momentum.
Yeomanry Patrol, now under the command of Captain Ken Spicer, left Kufra on the same day as the offensive began, and headed north, 700 miles west of El Alamein. Spicer’s orders were to conduct a census of the vehicles using the Benghazi-Tripoli road, just east of Marble Arch. From 1900 hours on 30 October until relieved by the New Zealand R2 Patrol at 1900 hours on 8 November, the Yeomanry Patrol watched the road, recording every vehicle that passed in either direction.
Sunset in the Haruj, a range of hills in Libya reconnoitred by the LRDG in October 1942. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
LRDG ROAD WATCH
Taken in central Libya in 1942, this series photographs an LRDG patrol on its way to a road watch. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
It was during their reconnaissance in October 1942 that S2 Patrol discovered a new route for the advancing Allied army. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
The LRDG didn’t just note the weight of traffic on the road, they broke their surveillance down into motor cycles, staff cars, 15cwt trucks, 30cwt trucks, oil tankers. They even described – if they could see it through their binoculars – what the trucks were carrying: barrels, rations, barbed wire, tents and poles. On one occasion, there was an ‘Italian girl inside’. In the ten days of the Y1 Patrol road watch, the average number of vehicles in both directions was just under 100. Yet within three days of the New Zealanders relieving their British colleagues, they were reporting to Kufra that enemy transport was streaming westward at a rate of 3,500 vehicles a day.
By the second half of November the LRDG was ordered to a new observation area, 40 miles west of Marble Arch, where they remained for the next eight days. The huge numbers of enemy troops heading west made the task of the LRDG all the more dangerous; the Afrika Korps were retreating, but they were doing so in a disciplined and orderly manner.
The survivors of Nick Wilder’s T1 Patrol had spent much of October resting and refitting in Cairo. On the penultimate day of the month they left the Egyptian capital for Kufra, arriving a week later to find the place hadn’t changed much. It had been 18 months since Lance Corporal Jack Davis had last been at the oasis. A 28-year-old from Stratford, a town in New Zealand’s North Island, Davis was one of the original members of the LRDG, what he referred to as ‘the pioneer days of the L.R.P.’.3 When T1 Patrol – commanded by Captain Ron Tinker in the absence of Wilder – started out on a road watch west of Nofilia, Davis noted that ‘our old spot is now a German camp so a new one had to be found’. They found a new camp to the north-east of the oasis of Zella, but on the first day of their road watch, 25 November, Ron Tinker’s truck drove over a mine in a wadi. Fortunately only one trooper was wounded – a broken ankle – but it meant the patrol had to return to Kufra, as it wasn’t possible to evacuate the casualty by air because of the proximity of the enemy.
To Davis’s delight the patrol was welcomed on its return by Nick Wilder, fully recovered from the wounds received at Barce. He led T1 Patrol on their next assignment, a road watch on the Hon branch of the Tripoli road. They rendezvoused with Captain Tony Hunter’s Y2 Patrol, got caught in a fierce desert storm that turned the wadis into rivers of raging water, and blazed a trail west in country that had hitherto been out of the LRDG’s reach. ‘Passed through unexplored country,’ wrote Davis in his journal, ‘thus finding many prominent features – wadis and basins – not marked on our maps.’4
The two patrols continued west, mining roads as they went. Wilder, never one to pass up the opportunity to attack the enemy, waylaid an Italian truck, killing one soldier and capturing two others. On 23 December Y2 Patrol was recalled to Kufra, and they took the pair of Italians with them, leaving T1 Patrol to celebrate Christmas alone. It was, recorded Davis, ‘an unforgettable one – a double issue of rum gave us the stimulus to sing all the popular melodies and parodies, and we had a merry time’.5
Come Christmas Day, the patrol was ready to give the enemy their own unforgettable experience, as Davis described in his journal:
[At] 0950 hours, two trucks and trailers approached. They were ammunition trucks – a good haul. Once again a few surprise shots. They do not stop, so they ‘get it!!’. Three were killed and three were wounded. They were on their way to Tripoli for supplies of ammo. We made a good job of destroying the trucks, and they were blazing merrily when we left. We moved off the road for a few miles and attended to the enemy wounded.6
Although a road watch could be excruciatingly tedious, the information provided by the LRDG was of immense value, particularly in the weeks after the El Alamein offensive. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
T1 Patrol arrived at Zella, now being used as an LRDG base, on 28 December, and a sackful of mail from New Zeala
nd was given to them, a welcome late Christmas present. Zella was an oasis in the Fezzan region of south-west Libya, described in the journal of Richard Lawson, the medical officer, as lying ‘in very broken country and oases lie between the tongues of limestone’.7
Winter in the desert brought bitter temperatures and required the LRDG, like Bill Lothian, seen here, to wear their greatcoats. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
With T Patrol safely returned, the LRDG threw a belated Christmas party at Zella on 1 January. Menus were published with the LRDG scorpion insignia at the top and at the foot the message: ‘Enjoy yourself Boys’. Sandwiched between was the menu:
Potage pomme d’amour
Croquettes d’homade à Keeler
Venison au E.T.A roti
Plum pudding
Coffee, cigars, port and cherry brandy
The New Year brought a new role for the unit, one that adapted to the fluidity of the Allies’ advance. Tony Brown and his patrol had guided the New Zealand Division and the 4th Armoured Brigade round Rommel’s defensive line at El Agheila in late December, the Kiwis outwitting the Desert Fox so that he was compelled to withdraw to the Mareth Line, approximately 170 miles west of Tripoli. Bernard Montgomery informed Lieutenant Colonel Prendergast that the Eighth Army would launch a ‘holding frontal attack on the Mareth position, while his main effort would be swung round to the south to outflank it’. The task of reconnoitring the country over which this ‘left hook’ into Tunisia would be delivered fell to Wilder’s T1 Patrol. They left Zella on 3 January in a terrific sandstorm and two days later rendezvoused with Tony Hunter’s Y2 Patrol. ‘We travelled together, refuelled and spent the rest of the day cleaning our guns in preparation for crossing the Hon-Dun’Gem Road,’ wrote Davis.
An LRDG patrol prepares to begin a road watch near El Agheila in October 1942. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
On 8 January the LRDG unexpectedly encountered a unit of SAS. They were surprised to meet the SAS so far west, but this was a party commanded by David Stirling, who, with his customary audacity, had secured permission from MEHQ for one final scheme before the end of the war in North Africa. He was intent on attacking the Germans as they retreated into Tunisia while also reconnoitring the Mareth Line to see if the Afrika Korps were preparing for a final stand. That was the role of the LRDG, but Stirling’s overriding objective was to seize the glory of being the first unit from the Eighth Army to link up with the First Army, which was advancing east from Algiers.*
9 January was Davis’s 29th birthday and his present came in the form of two German Heinkel bombers, which passed overhead without noticing them. A similar thing happened the next day and Davis attributed it to either poor eyesight on the part of the pilots, or more likely the fact that they assumed the vehicles below were theirs, as no Allied units were believed to be so far west.
Getting stuck on a dune was an occupational hazard for the LRDG. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
The next few days were tough going. The country was very rough and the vehicles were taking a hammering. A couple of springs had to be repaired and the petrol consumption was greater than Wilder had envisaged. On 15 January the terrain was so bad the patrol had to continue the reconnaissance on foot in three parties. ‘All parties found the mountains impassable,’ wrote Davis on 16 January. ‘They discovered signs of recent gun pits, and small blockhouses were seen all along the escarpment. At that time they were not manned.’8 They returned to their vehicles the following day and on 19 January finally encountered a ‘clear gap through the escarpment, passable for MT [Motor Transport]’, which was 25 miles south-west of Foum Tatahouine. Wilder radioed HQ with the news and, with their mission accomplished, they turned south for the long journey back to base. On their return they saw overhead dozens of American Flying Fortresses on their way to bomb the retreating Germans. Wilder’s T1 Patrol encountered T2 Patrol on 24 January, the latter heading in the opposite direction on the route pioneered by their comrades. Also travelling north was Indian (3) Patrol of the LRDG, one of four Indian patrols that had been raised a few weeks earlier with British officers commanding Indian soldiers.
The LRDG exchange pleasantries at Bezema with some natives, the majority of whom favoured the Allies because of Italian barbarity during colonization. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
Gordon Rezin was killed in February 1943 in Tunisia when his LRDG patrol was mistaken for Germans by a unit of Free French. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
The gap discovered by T1 Patrol was named after its officer, Wilder, and proved of great value when Montgomery launched his attack on the Mareth Line. By this time Nick Wilder had been recalled to the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry, much to the regret of Jack Davis. ‘Nick is a grand chap and a great soldier,’ he wrote on 29 January on learning of Wilder’s recall. For the next few weeks the men of T1 Patrol amused themselves at their new base at Hon. There were lectures, rugby matches and reunions with former comrades from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who passed through en route to Tunisia.
On 20 March the Eighth Army launched a frontal attack on the Mareth Line. It was checked initially, but not for long. The New Zealand Division, guided by Ron Tinker’s T2 Patrol on the route pioneered by Nick Wilder, delivered a ‘left hook’ to the Afrika Korps, capturing El Hamma, 18 miles west of Gabes, on 28 March. The Mareth Line had been breached and defeat was now inevitable for Rommel. Their services no longer required, the Long Range Desert Group began to withdraw east, heading all the way back across Libya to Alexandria. Bernard Montgomery took a moment to convey his thanks to the unit’s commander in a letter dated 2 April:
My dear Prendergast
… I would like you to know how much I appreciate the excellent work done by your patrols and by the SAS in reconnoitring the country up to the Gabes Gap. Without your careful and reliable reports the launching of the ‘left hook’ by the NZ Division would have been a leap in the dark; with the information they produced, the operation could be planned with some certainty and as you know, went off without a hitch.
Please give my thanks to all concerned and best wishes from Eighth Army for the new tasks you are undertaking.
B. L. Montgomery9
Scott and Moyes in front of a lake in the Haruj region. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
Once in Alexandria, the men of the LRDG went into camp on the beach, swimming, sunbathing, and sleeping. ‘Letters add to our pleasure at this summer resort,’ wrote Jack Davis. To use the words of the colonel [Prendergast], ‘people in peacetime pay lots of money to experience what we are enjoying’.10
Salt lakes, like this one in Kufra, were a favourite bathing spot because one could float in the water and read a book. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
C HAPTER 13
ADVENTURES IN THE AEGEAN
The weeks in Alexandria were blissful for the Long Range Desert Group. ‘Unfamiliar laziness’, as Ron Hill of Y Patrol called it. ‘Then came the order,’ he recalled, ‘that as we were now back under Army Command all beards were to be shaved off by 0800 hours or some such.’ Most of the LRDG were given leave of varying duration, and when they were all back in Alexandria they learned what the future held. It had been a subject of intense speculation for the men in the preceding weeks, and while many theories were expounded, what they all could say with any certainty was that ‘no longer would we be able to rely on the wide open spaces of the desert wildernesses in which to hide’.1
Ron Low fills up the petrol tank of his vehicle prior to another day’s patrolling. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
Eventually Hill and his comrades were informed by Lieutenant Colonel Prendergast that they were off to the British Army Ski School in the Lebanon. The first squadron to arrive at the school was B, on 20 May, followed on 21 June by A Squadron. The school had been the Cedars hotel in peacetime, boasting among its amenities a ski resort at an altitude of 6,000 feet a few miles above the village of Becharré a
nd named after the small grove of the original cedars of Lebanon nearby. Originally the idea of the Australian Imperial Forces, the ski school opened for business in December 1941 and such was its success it soon expanded to house the Mountaineering Wing of the Middle East Mountain Warfare School based close to Tripoli.
The LRDG medical officer, Captain Richard ‘Doc’ Lawson, awarded a Military Cross for his devotion to duty on the Barce raid, wrote in his journal that the hotel and grounds ‘were dirty after a winter of snow and because of large oil stoves at the end of the building from which the wind came’. Lawson had explicit instructions from Prendergast, which were to ‘find out the best way to change completely motorised patrols into small groups of mountaineers carrying everything they needed from start to the finish of their objective’.2
There was only one practical way to achieve such an aim: weed out the weak. ‘Training began with three hour walks without packs and later with empty packs working up to 40lbs and 2 day trips by the end of the month,’ recalled Lawson. Some men dropped out, most didn’t, and they were soon embarking on 100 mile marches with 80lb packs. ‘The training was tough and tested us to our limits,’ recalled Ron Hill.3
The Long Range Desert Group in World War II Page 14