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

by Sadler, John

  He reinstated McCreery whom Auchinleck had dismissed, and this proved a most judicious appointment. It is hard not to feel that the historical record has been unfair to Auchinleck. Much of what was subsequently achieved was due to his and Dorman-Smith’s solid preparation. He had, above all, kept Eighth Army in being. Without this, neither Alexander nor Montgomery could have succeeded in their designated roles. Of course ‘Monty’, it has to be said, was not one to share the limelight.

  Monty was nevertheless very much the new broom. Unlike his predecessor he was definitely part of the UK military establishment and knew which officers he wanted – invariably men who he already knew. He was not shy over getting rid of those who did not fit the bill. Alexander had made it plain that there would be no further retreats and that established divisional formations would stay as they were. Both of these pronouncements produced collective sighs of relief. Morale was not low but it was obfuscated by uncertainty.

  As matters improved for Eighth Army the position overall of Panzerarmee Afrika was deteriorating. Rommel continued to suffer supply difficulties. Axis shipping was suffering heavily from the attentions of British planes and warships; the air route from Crete, whilst less risky, was cumbersome. Most supplies, once unloaded at Tobruk, had to be brought forward by road, and the port received unending attention from British night-bombers, roughly fifty aircraft every twenty-four hours. Axis intelligence forecast the arrival of a massive Allied convoy due at Suez in early September. If Rommel was to attack it had to be soon before the disparity became crushing. The full moon was due on 26th August. Clearly this was the moment to strike.

  Alam Halfa was, as both sides saw, the key. If Rommel could get safely past, his planned offensive stood a very good chance of achieving success. If he could not, if the Allies remained in possession, then his position would become untenable. The ridge completely dominated his lines of communication. Though Rommel might have judged his opponent overly cautious, the British attacks in July had clearly indicated that Eighth Army was not yet fully ready for the offensive role.

  Much additional training and preparation was needed. Time, despite any urgings he might receive from Whitehall, was on Montgomery’s side: Although it was clear to General Montgomery that Rommel had shot his bolt, he resisted the temptation to start a general counter-attack. He judged the 8th Army to be unready, and going off at half-cock would only make it harder to prepare for the decisive blow he had in mind.

  In assessing the results of the Battle of Alam Halfa, the O.H. defines the effect on morale as being of greater importance than the material gains which were indeed insignificant: To the Axis the battle seemed to put an end to their hopes of reaching the Delta. To the British it appeared as a clear-cut victory in which Rommel had been defeated at his own game. This must substantively be correct, for Eighth Army had won no new ground nor destroyed the Panzerarmee Afrika, but it had fought Rommel to a standstill and obliged him to withdraw.

  A Raiding We Will Go

  With Siwa now abandoned, LRDG remained under the orders of Eighth Army, a state of affairs which persisted till after the major raids in September. At the end of that month, command reverted to GHQ Middle East. From the end of June, LRDG ‘A’ Squadron HQ was back in the Faiyum district of Cairo along with T1. Y2 with GI and G2 were ‘up the road’ by Alexandria and the rest fairly dispersed mainly on road watch. During these summer months the humdrum of surveillance was enlivened by yet more raiding with SAS, particularly Stirling and ‘L’ Detachment. The desert buccaneers were getting a reputation and were now equipped with jeeps of their own – the iconic image. The partnership flourished though with LRDG still regarded as the master navigators.2

  It has to be stressed that the psychological value of the Special Forces worked on two levels: demoralising the Axis while boosting Eighth Army. The constant allure and glamour attaching to Special Forces is largely a post WWII phenomenon, but even in the dark, terrible days of the Western Front, T.E. Lawrence and his brilliant, asymmetric war in Arabia fired the imagination. Lawrence’s exploits harked back to Doughty, Burton and the elite company of 19th-century gentlemen-adventurers, who filled in many of the vast blank spaces left on contemporary maps of Africa and Arabia.

  R1 was watching near the coast road in late June–early July, and it’s interesting to note that Alastair Gould was reporting the Italians were getting more proficient at camouflaging their MT. Clearly they’d twigged we had ‘eyes’ on their convoys.3 Comms were proving tricky at the time and troopers were plagued by desert sores and prone to ‘cafard’. T2 set out from Kufra on 12th July, initially as watchers, but orders were changed to favour aggressive action. They successfully shot up a small convoy travelling twenty miles northwest of Marble Arch on 22nd July.

  For ‘A’ Squadron patrols operating westwards out of Faiyum, there was the complication of the front lines, the dense militarised zone stretching south from El Alamein. Nonetheless, at the start of July, both Y2 and G1 passed through. By 6th July both patrols plus an SAS team from Stirling’s ‘L’ Detachment were at Qaret Tartura, some eighty miles south of Mersa Matruh on the rim of the Qattara Depression. They’d be operating along the coastal route some fifty–sixty miles west of Allied lines. Y2 spent some unprofitable time on road watch, then some more productive demolitions with SAS, attacking airstrips around Fuka. A number of enemy aircraft were accounted for and the combined force got back safely despite air attack and the loss of several vehicles.4

  Alastair Timpson with G1, hosting two SAS teams, was seeking targets east of Sidi Barrani. This proved unprofitable as the enemy, disobligingly, provided no aircraft to blow up. Some 3,000 gallons of fuel which the Axis had stashed nearby were gratefully accepted and pressed into service; however, looking for somebody to shoot up on the roads proved fruitless. Meanwhile Robin Gurdon in charge of G2 and accompanied by Stirling in person, drove out of Alexandria on 3rd July. Three days later they rendezvoused with the other two patrols at Qaret Tartura. The SAS would hit the aerodromes at El Daba; G2 would beat up the roads around Fuka.

  During the witching hours on 8th July, Gurdon laid waste an MT park, tanker convoy and enemy camp in quick succession – swift surgical strikes, creating havoc and accomplished without loss. With the raiders re-united, a lying-up place was selected and the men stayed low throughput 10th July. Next day, Robin Gurdon guided a Free French SAS team, led by Lieutenant Martin, to attack an airstrip near Fuka. On the 12th their run of luck ended abruptly when they were strafed by Italian planes. Gurdon had tried the old trick of waving to the pilots but this lot weren’t taken in and opened up. As his truck wouldn’t start, Gurdon made a dash for the next vehicle but he and his driver, Guardsman Murray, were both hit. Despite the severity of his wounds, Gurdon urged his men to continue but the patrol elected to rush the wounded men back. Murray survived but Gurdon died next day, an extremely brave and skilful officer – a very palpable loss to the close-knit brotherhood of LRDG.5

  Stirling didn’t ever give up or let up. He was all about taking the fight to the enemy and killing them. Next to step out with SAS was Nick Wilder leading T1: getting through the lines proved impossible so they drove down through the Depression to RV with Stirling on 12th July. After an unproductive spell of mundane road watch, they reverted to more profitable action amongst enemy planes in the vicinity of the Mersa Matruh–Qara Road. This was on the night of 26th July and much sport was had – fully three dozen Axis planes were wrecked. Enemy aircraft were quick to seek revenge but at least one was shot down and a follow-up attack by truck-mounted infantry seen off after a running fight.

  Stirling wasn’t the only Special Forces celebrity being taxied at this point. Both ‘Popski’ and a party from the Inter-service Liaison department (“ISLD”) were ferried to and from the Benghazi area. The Group’s supply section was kept busy in its unsung labour, without which neither LRDG nor SAS could have functioned behind the lines. Stirling, in mid-July, was summoned to Cairo and received fresh orders both for himself and
Prendergast.

  They were to set up an FOB at Qara on the northwest shoulder of the Depression as a lair for further raiding. This time their prime targets were to be enemy logistics, fuel, supplies and workshops. More specific missions would be comprised of forming a block on the coast road at Sollum, which would have to be held for forty-eight hours till the raiders were relieved by Royal Marines. Halfaya (‘Hellfire’) Pass was also to be barricaded. The Allies had suffered here during the ill-fated ‘Brevity’ and ‘Battleaxe’ episodes. Further action against the coast road southeast of Mersa Matruh was in contemplation. GHQ Middle East didn’t much like any of these ideas. Qara was felt to be insecure and the projected attacks too difficult to coordinate. In the light of what was to follow in September, this was sage advice.

  Meanwhile for LRDG, it was very much a case of business as usual. Lloyd Owen attempted road watch between Bardia and Tobruk but the ground was bare of any cover and this proved abortive. Bill Kennedy Shaw took Y2 and G2 Patrols to Qara to seek local intelligence and establish contact with the inhabitants. There was more cloak and dagger work, as several ISLD personnel were to be ferried in and dropped off, cash for Popski as bribes and agents to taxi back. These various tasks were accomplished without mishap or interference from the enemy. Lieutenant Talbot took another group of spooks, Captain Grandguillot and a team from the LAF, to Bir Gahau, and this mission too passed without incident.6

  Alastair Guild was yet another on taxi duty. With R1 he drove out of Kufra on 29th August. His assignment was even more taxing as he had to ferry an officer and three soldiers of the ISLD up to Tarhuna, a mere forty miles southeast of Tripoli. This was, in part uncharted territory so Guild mapped as he motored. Most patrols at this time were constantly plagued by duff tyres. These gave out constantly, a major headache when operating at long distances from re-supply.

  A week earlier, Brigadier George Davy had summoned a conference at GHQ aimed at establishing the best means of coordinating the activities of all the disparate bodies operating in the desert. This included not just LRDG and SAS but ISLD & LAF. Brigadier Davy proposed that a GHQ staff officer should be detailed as coordinator or, alternatively, a single controller should be appointed. Prendergast wasn’t particularly keen on either notion but he did accept that having a designated planning officer within GHQ might be sensible.

  Finally it was agreed that LRDG would keep up reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and taxi services much as before. SAS, also much as before, would deal with sabotage and avoid reconnaissance.7 LRDG lost Gus Holliman at this time; he went back to his original home with RTR. Ken Lazarus took over command of S1. Lieutenant Sweeting now led G2 after Gurdon’s death. Dick Croucher would run the office setup in Cairo. Another lost sheep, the lesser WACO, returned after a full and lengthy refit. It promised to be a very busy autumn.

  Operation Agreement

  There’s a principle in Special Forces Operations – ‘K.I.S.S.’ or keep it simple stupid. This is a very sound concept. The greater the complexity of covert missions the wider the scope for evil consequences to intervene. And so to ‘Operation Agreement’, a bold and brilliant idea on paper but doomed to failure almost from the start. Of all the layers of participation, only LRDG achieved their allotted tasks with a mix of steadiness and élan.

  The idea of further exacerbating Rommel’s weak supply position by more spoiling raids was solid enough in theory. The joint Commanders in Chief were mainly enthusiastic, though Air Marshal Tedder less so, as he wouldn’t be able to provide fighter cover. For once Montgomery, who as Eighth Army commander was not directly involved, agreed with Tedder, an unusual occurrence in itself as there was no love lost between them.8

  Tobruk would be the main objective. SAS, guided in the usual way by LRDG, would cross the desert from Kufra, get through the defence cordon, and seize and hold the inlet of Mersa Sciausc which lies east of the main harbour. This detachment, Force ‘B’, would be joined by an amphibious group, Force ‘C’, brought from the Delta in fast MTB’s. This combined unit would then fight its way westwards, taking out coastal defences. Meanwhile Force ‘A’, a seaborne battle group of marines, would be landed north and west of the port at Mersa Mreira from the destroyers HMS Sikh and HMS Zulu. They would seal off the tongue of land separating the cove from the main harbour and penetrate into the town itself.9

  Bombing raids would cover the noise of the landings, soften up the target and fully occupy the enemy’s attention. The plan was predicated on the basis that opposition would be provided by Italian and not German defenders. This was clearly important, as the former would be as sure to surrender as the latter could be relied upon to doggedly fight. Once the harbour guns had been silenced, the MTB’s would play havoc with enemy vessels in the eastern portion of the port whilst the two destroyers would land sappers to undertake selective demolition of facilities. Job done, the ships would take off the regulars whilst the raiders drove off westwards seeking yet more mayhem.10

  Whilst Tobruk was being biffed, a second raid would target Benghazi. This group, dubbed Force ‘X’, would be comprised of Stirling himself leading L Detachment of 1st SAS, supported by two LRDG patrols (S1 & S2), with a further detachment of Royal Marines. Their objectives were substantial – to block the inner harbour, sink ships and blast port installations. Mission accomplished, Force ‘X’ would retire only as far as Jalo and launch more raids over an intense, three-week period.11

  Another LRDG patrol would guide a unit of the SDF to Jalo Oasis (then in enemy hands) on the night of 15th/16th September. The RAF would bomb Benghazi as well as Tobruk; planes would sow a harvest of dummy parashots over Siwa, which would be ostensibly threatened by a dummy feint mounted by SDF. LRDG would also beat up Barce, purely their affair and destined to become the stuff of desert lore.

  Force ‘B’ left Cairo on 22nd August on a truly epic mission. The journey to Tobruk covered some 1,700 miles, much of it through enemy territory. After a halt at Kufra, they struck north for the coast on 5th September. Haselden’s plan was a brilliant bluff. Bertie Buck with a handful of his SIG stormtroopers, fluent in German (for most it was their native language), uniformed, armed and equipped as DAK, provided the ‘guards’ – the rest posing as POWs. Their trucks carried Axis markings and the whole party comprised eighty-three officers and men.12 By the 13th of the month, having dodged around Jalo, they were on the target.

  Continuing their charade, the ‘POWs’ were driven through an Italian checkpoint without a second glance. Safely, or as safely as it was likely to become, the raiders were inside the enemy’s defensive ring. The SIG’s changed into British uniform, though none could have been in any doubt as to their eventual fate if captured. As being both German and Jewish, they were doubly damned. As bombs began to fall – the RAF would be overhead from 22.25–03.30 hours – they seized their first objective, the inlet at Mersa Sciausc. Force ‘C’ had become somewhat dispersed during their approach and were fired on as they entered the creek. Only a single machine-gun detachment was successfully landed.

  Force ‘A’ had meantime run into serious difficulties. Attempting to get the parties ashore from 03.00, the swell had prevented pathfinders from marking the landing cove, and the assault-craft themselves, backstairs children of improvisation, functioned badly if at all. After two hours, less than a single company of marines was ashore, and two miles or so too far west. They never got into the town; the German defenders – and Boche they were, not Italians – responded with customary vigour and blocked the approaches.13 Looking for salvageable landing craft to put more troops onto the beach, the two destroyers steamed within a mile of the coast. Both ships now had to endure a well directed barrage from the coastal batteries.14

  Sikh was the first to suffer a palpable hit, her steering gear wrecked. Though Zulu took her under tow, this was soon severed and both ships suffered extensive damage. Finally Zulu had to make a run for it. Sikh was scuttled. The surviving marines and sailors were all taken prisoner. Force ‘B’, though they’d k
nocked out the coastal guns by the inlet, came increasingly under pressure from mounting odds. Haselden was amongst the casualties.

  It got worse. Axis planes relentlessly stalked Zulu. HMS Coventry, an anti-aircraft cruiser coming up in support, was herself bombed and sunk. This sacrifice failed to save the destroyer, which also went down. Five of the assorted small boats were sent to the bottom and another left abandoned at Mersa Sciausc. Eight Allied aircraft were shot down. In total, some 280 naval personnel, 300 marines and 160 infantry & support troops were killed, wounded or captured. The raid achieved nothing of significance.15

  It was no better at Benghazi. Possibly, it was the air raid but the defenders were fully alert and at their guns. Stirling and Force ‘X’ met stiff resistance at the first roadblock, long before the town. There was no point in going on. Force ‘Z’ received a similarly warm reception from a well prepared garrison at Jalo and abandoned their brief siege on 19th September. The demonstrations towards Siwa aroused no interest or reaction.16 It was failure all round, except at Barce. Here LRDG conjured a very different story.

  The Barce Raid

  ‘Operation Caravan’ was, from the outset, purely an LRDG affair. Jake Easonsmith led a force of two Patrols, T1 (Nick Wilder) and G1 (Alastair Timpson). Some support personnel including, providentially, Dick Lawson the MO, were along from ‘B’ Squadron’s HQ detachment. ‘Popski’ and two Senussi drawn from the LAF provided the intelligence cell. There were a total of forty-seven raiders in twelve trucks and five jeeps. They had some heavyweight company from a brace of Mack 10-tonners as far as Ain Dalla. The group drove out of Faiyum on 1st September, with their target 1,150 miles away in Gebel Akhdar. Dick Lawson, as MO, was in demand from the start. As they traversed the Egyptian Sand Sea, Timpson was injured as his vehicle careered over a razorback dune, the old perennial hazard. Another trooper was paralysed. Both were evacuated by air from Big Cairn.17