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

by Sadler, John

  Finally, the break-out which Monty saw as successful as it was aimed at the weakest link in the crumbling Axis chain, the juncture between Italian and German units. Rommel had taken the gamble of drawing his remaining strength into the northern sector where he was misled into thinking the final blow would be directed.

  For Rommel, the scale of this defeat was enormous. Assessments differ, but the Axis lost something in the order of 30,000 prisoners, two thirds Italian, and perhaps as many as 20,000 dead and wounded. Most of his Italian formations had been decimated, and such transport as could be found was reserved for German survivors. Out of nearly 250 tanks DAK could barely field three dozen after the fight, and though the Italians had more runners these were inferior and no match for Shermans. Well might the marching soldiers have lamented, those who would never see Rome or Naples, Milan or Bologna again.

  Despite the failure of the major September raids, the indefatigable Stirling saw his fiefdom swell to become a full SAS regiment with him as Lieutenant-Colonel. A further re-ordering of roles was laid down by GHQ on 22nd September. All reconnaissance and intelligence gathering remained LRDG’s responsibility, but when it came to raids, the ‘turf’ was divided into short distance (SAS) and long (LRDG). The dividing line between these respective kingdoms was drawn north-south through Jedabia.1 However, the speed of the Allied advance following the Axis collapse at El Alamein forestalled any significant raiding activity.

  Monty wrote that he was determined to have done with ‘that sort of thing’, the constant swings of the desert pendulum. Egypt would be made absolutely secure for the duration of the war. In the wake of the Alamein fighting, he defined his continuing objectives:

  (a) To capture the Agheila position, and hold securely the approaches to it from the west.

  (b) To locate a corps strong in armour in the Jebel about Mekili, trained to operate southwards against any enemy force that managed to break through the Agheila position and make towards Egypt.

  (c) To get the A.O.C. to establish the Desert Air Force on the Martuba group of airfields, and to the south of Benghazi.

  For LRDG, this heady period as the pendulum entered its final decisive swing was largely spent in the same old way – road watch. Watching the coast highway to Tripoli continued from 30th October to 22nd December. Victory might be in sight at long last but maintaining watch on this sector was both difficult and dangerous. It was during this period that S2, whilst patrolling around El Agheila, discovered a hitherto unknown east/west passage through the Harudi Hills. This would prove rather valuable.2

  As the Axis attempted to disengage from the shambles of Alamein, vehicle traffic heading westwards increased exponentially. By early November over 3,500 vehicles a day were piling past Marble Arch.3 On 13th November Indian (3) Patrol, was able to confirm that the enemy had abandoned both Siwa and Jarabub. The pendulum was swinging inexorably westwards again. G2, on road watch near Tripoli early in November, was able to confirm that far more traffic was headed west than east and a third of vehicles were still comprised of plundered Allied stock. The enemy hadn’t lost the will to fight. R1 was strafed by Italian fighters near Wadi Tamet on 18th November. The planes were eventually seen off but not before Captain Pilkington and Lance-Corporal O’Malley were both killed, Private Fogden was shot through both legs.4 Y2 was also bounced on the same day but sustained no casualties.

  Jalo Oasis was the next target. Ken Lazarus with S1 and Lieutenant Crammond with T2 went up to investigate on 13th November. Local Bedouins confirmed that the Italians still kept a toehold. Lazarus went on to beat up an Italian convoy travelling on the Marada–El Agheila road. T2 was able to enter Jalo unopposed on the 22nd, neatly capturing the last two defenders and a whole cornucopia of assorted booty. The Tripoli road watch was doubled up at this time as the Axis flight continued. Despite the ingenuity and stealth of the watchers, the watched knew they were being observed, and they had sown mines liberally and increased their own counter-patrolling. T1 lost one of its vehicles to a mine in November.

  Alastair Timpson with GI found his patrol up against armoured cars. Dodging around the opposition to reach the coast he ran into another detachment and had to fight his way out. Four out of seven LRDG trucks were lost in this scrap with superior enemy firepower and their crews were captured.5 Rommel wasn’t ready to throw the towel in just yet. In spite of these losses Timpson forged on to the coast road and resumed the watch recently vacated by G2. Their circumstances were much reduced; only two officers and eight troopers still standing, two of their three remaining vehicles were in states of disrepair, and fuel and food were running short.

  These tribulations and the need to laager well back, thirty miles back in fact, added fresh hazards. Annoyingly, the enemy at various times insisted on pitching his own camps all around, and at least one watch party was captured as they blundered into the wrong group of tents.6 Alastair Timpson had a close shave while he and the other observer, Guardsman Welsh, suddenly found the Germans setting up all round, having macaroni and goulash for lunch. Bluffing their way out failed to convince an alert sentry and they were constrained to take smartly to their heels. Both Timpson and Welsh had a strenuous time and became separated. The Guardsman had to walk for a score of miles before being picked up, having thrice been shot at from the enemy’s camps.

  Road watch was clearly more high risk than ever, but the need for intelligence stayed critical so the job went on. Ken Lazarus with S1 and Captain Cantley with Indian (1) Patrol took over from the Guards. They pushed further west than before and reached the shore on 11th December. Again their work was hampered by intense enemy activity, stirred up by the SAS who were poking the hornet’s nest in their usual inimitable manner. Indian (1) Patrol was diverted to ease the plight of Timpson’s survivors who were by now desperately short of everything. Ron Tinker, leading S2, was next into the fray, taking over the watch on 20th December. Two days later they were discovered and another running battle with Axis armoured cars erupted. At the end of the brawl six men were found to be missing. As December 1942 drew to a close, and the main battle line moved forward to El Agheila, road watch was finally abandoned.

  A few weeks earlier, on 8th November, a joint Anglo-American fleet had made several landings on the coast of French North Africa – the long-heralded liberation of Vichy provinces had begun. The Allies came ashore at Algiers, Oran and Casablanca. If Eisenhower, as C-in-C, was expecting a rapturous welcome he was sadly deluded. The French in fact resisted, treating the landings more as a hostile invasion than liberation. Memories of the sinking of French ships and the fight for Syria rankled.

  Even the presence of the Americans, who might have been expected to be less tainted than the British, did not prevent stiff fighting. Admiral Darlan, who commanded all Vichy forces, was a rabid Anglophobe and had to be bribed with residual power as ‘supreme civil authority’. This angered supporters of De Gaulle and the Free French who regarded the Admiral with loathing. Compromises were needed as speed was of the essence. The Axis had to be caught and crushed between a swift advance from the west and Montgomery closing in from the east.

  Despite the mounting odds, Axis reinforcements were arriving in Tunisia and an active defence was underway. The country was mountainous, and winter rains barely a month away. General Anderson, commanding British First Army, made good progress, despite renewed activity from the Luftwaffe. Rommel continued to fall back, ignoring all and any pleas to make a stand. By the end of November Anderson’s forces appeared to be closing in upon Tunis, but deteriorating weather imposed its own check.

  Anderson’s planned swoop down from the hills was met with determined resistance, the formidable Tigers (PzKw VI) making their first appearance. Fighting hard and utilising interior lines, the German defenders could not be budged, Allied losses were mounting steadily and Axis forces were able to mount a series of sharp, local counter-attacks. Then the rains began to fall in earnest, turning ground into quagmire, bogging men and vehicles in a viscous sea of impotent mis
ery. Tunis was not about to fall, and Eisenhower wisely decided to suspend further major operations.

  Back to the Fezzan

  Operations planned by the Free French striking up from Chad had been overtaken by Rommel’s earlier and spectacular advances. By November 1942, with the Axis fully in reverse gear, the timing once again became propitious. Leclerc would strike out towards distant Tripoli, marching first on Uigh el Kebir then advancing towards Umm el Araheb and Sebha. On 15th November, GHQ issued orders for LRDG to facilitate this offensive. Five patrols were to be allocated to strike enemy logistics, and beat ups were back on the agenda. As Eighth Army continued its relentless spurt west, LRDG HQ would be moved either to Zella or Hon.7

  It wasn’t possible to provide Leclerc’s forces with air cover, so several patrols were ordered to seek and destroy enemy aircraft on the ground. Y1, Indian (4) Patrol and R2 all attempted beat ups, but their quarry, in each instance, proved elusive. Beat ups of Axis convoys were also on the ‘to-do’ list; Y2 was sent to raid roads passing through the Harudi Hills. Despite filthy weather, they planted mines and, on 29th December shot up a small Italian convoy.8

  For Leclerc and the French, this was the stuff of history. After the humiliation of defeat and the collaborationist contortions of despised Vichy, they were really fighting back. Cooperation with LRDG was already established, and Lieutenant Henry with S2 was the first patrol to link up. The French were due to hit Uigh el Kebir by 14th December but the relative inexperience of their drivers slowed progress and they didn’t in fact arrive till after a week later. Gatrun was their next target, Henry’s patrol driving forward with the vanguard.

  The oasis was well defended and the attackers came under fire from a range of assorted guns. After a hurried council of war, Lieutenant Henry suggested LRDG should skirt the northern flank to draw out any mobile detachments and lure them under the French seventy-fives, venerable Great War pieces but still extremely effective. LRDG found themselves under sustained air attack as they came out into open ground and a very lively battle with Italian planes ensued. Honours went to S2, who accounted for one aircraft for sure, possibly a brace.

  Henry was then detailed to motor up towards Magedul Oasis, provoking more fury from the skies. The main Free French column also came under aerial attack and the W/T truck became a casualty, despite the best endeavours of Sergeant Jackson and Signaller du Toit who manned the machine-gun and gave a very good account of themselves, even though both were wounded.9

  By 28th December they were a few miles short of Umm el Araneb where they took on both more Italian planes and one of their Auto-Saharan companies on the ground. Both were seen off with loss, thanks in no small part to those French seventy-fives. After a further bombardment, the garrison at the oasis struck their colours on 4th January 1943. Gatrun, bypassed during the French advance, surrendered two days later. The advance became a triumphal march as the Italians withdrew from their now hopelessly isolated garrisons; by 12th January the Axis had abandoned Hon. Four days later LRDG HQ was fast on their heels and took over the oasis.

  At the start of December, LRDG had been tasked with another mammoth enterprise: the outflanking of Rommel’s defensive line at El Agheila. R1 was to guide the 2nd New Zealand Division, the patrol to be led by Captain Browne. His job was to move the Kiwis around the Axis’ right flank. The Allies marched on 14th December with cavalry to the fore. Swinging out in a desert arc, the attackers emerged some twenty miles south west of Marble Arch. Despite being caught wrong-footed, the Axis forces retreated clear of the trap.

  On 19th December Captain Browne received fresh orders – to recce the terrain westwards to Wadi Zem Zem10 and ascertain if the going was suitable for armour. On the 22nd, however, Browne was injured as his vehicle struck a mine, and Captain le Rou was mortally wounded. Lieutenant MacLauchlan then took over command, and the patrol moved out on Christmas Day, aiming to recce Bu Njem.

  On the 28th McLauchlan received information that the ground he was intending to cover was free of enemy. Not quite true as it turned out. The patrol was motoring along the road between Bu Njem and Gheddahia when they ran into a skilful ambush. Spread out, the LRDG column found themselves being overtaken by several armoured cars. They took these to be a detachment from the King’s Dragoon Guards whom they’d encountered earlier. They weren’t.

  As the lead vehicle pulled alongside MacLauchlan’s, the driver levelled a rifle and advised the LRDG they were now prisoners. MacLauchlan ordered his driver to step on the gas and a movie-style chase ensued, the jeep jinking wildly to avoid the enemy’s 20-mm cannon. Those in the W/T truck were less nimble and went into the bag. Despite the best efforts of the Dragoon Guards, the Italians weren’t caught.11 Nick Wilder meanwhile took T1 to beat up traffic on the road between Hon and Sebha. The same weather as had hampered Y2 also plagued Wilder, but the combined patrols did manage some successful shooting up of convoys, destroying vehicles and taking some prisoners.

  The Final Pursuit

  On 21st December, Eighth Army issued LRDG with a fresh range of instructions:

  Topographical reconnaissance was the number one priority. This was to extend past Tripoli to Gabes and an inland route first to Homs and then west through the Gebel Nefusa.

  Sabotage in partnership with 1st Special Demolitions Squadron. This apocryphal sounding unit represented a re-branding of Popski’s banditti which came under LRDG control on 10th December. Popski’s favoured tactic was to blandly insert his trucks into an unsuspecting convoy, then when a suitable avenue of escape presented itself, open up with all guns; crude perhaps but certainly very effective.

  Taxiing services for ISLD (an escape network for Allied POWs).

  Further liaison with the Free French.12

  The scent of victory in North Africa could plainly be detected but there was no rest for LRDG. The pace of the Allied advance westwards and the significance of the ‘Torch’ landings in November 1942 began to move the campaign from Libya into Tunisia, a very different environment, far more mountainous. At the end of 1942, Y1, G2 and Indian (2) & (4) Patrols were all active. In January 1943, Indian (2) Patrol staged a beat up some ninety miles south of Esc-Sciuref, a regular drive by, shooting up a column of thirty trucks herded by armoured cars.

  Charging ‘line ahead’ in best Nelsonian style, they inflicted some damage before breaking off. Theirs was an eventful patrol as another fire-fight with a small Italian group, motoring under French colours, occurred on 11th January.13 Hunter with Y2 and Nick Wilder leading T1 were both probing across the Tunisian border in January. The going was frequently tough, and a series of escarpments proved very tricky.

  On 6th January, Ken Lazarus led S1 out of Zella to recce an area further to the northwest; this effectively marked the southern fringes of Tunisia, almost as far as Gabes. On the 15th the patrol was jumped by an Axis convoy near Zem Zem. Ken Lazarus had been scouting ahead and saw that the enemy possessed both AFV’s and well-armed field cars. Several of the LRDG trucks got bogged and their crews captured; only the W/T truck got clear. Meanwhile Indian (1) Patrol was with the Free French, still battering triumphantly northwards.14

  Ron Tinker with T2 left Hon on 16th January. His brief was to escort a section of the heavy mob that was creating a dump along the line of the Esc-Sciuref–Mizda road; to ferry some demolishers to RV with Popski, and at the same time map the terrain. This proved quite an eventful patrol, as Tinker collected, like the Pied Piper, a motley collection of various stragglers, including Free French parashots and two SAS. Getting all of these back to safety proved difficult and time consuming.

  All were, however, successfully rescued. Quite what role LRDG might have in the coming battle for Tunisia hadn’t been decided, so Jake Easonsmith visited Allied HQ in Algiers during the course of January. Despite the considerable successes won by LRDG, there was no particular appetite for their deployment in northern Tunisia, a very different type of terrain.15 Easonsmith’s ideas, eminently sensible, were for LRDG to work along the Allies’
southern flank which was relatively exposed.

  In late January, R2 went to re-join the Free French, catching up with Leclerc at Mizda. They were to carry out further reconnaissance but the job went to an armoured car detachment. From 21st January, Captain Rand with Indian (3) Patrol was sent out to map the ‘Erg Oriental’, the southernmost region of Tunisia extending into Northern Algeria. They were seeking a safe passage for an all-arms conventional force. They recce’d with R1 whom they’d picked up on the first day. Initially the terrain was passable but they soon encountered a nasty belt of dunes which proved hard going for the two-wheeled drive trucks. They were soon joined by Nick Wilder with T1. Rand later found the wreckage of S1’s earlier disaster. The captain was subsequently de-briefed by General Freyberg. The recce had been crucial as it might enable Allied Forces to slip past the southern flank of the ‘Mareth’ Line.16

  A month or so beforehand, in December 1942, the DMI (Director of Military Intelligence) at GHQ had written of LRDG’s achievement that:

  LRDG Road watch provides the only trained road traffic observers. Not only is the standard of accuracy and observation extremely high, but the patrols are familiar with the most recent illustrations of enemy vehicles and weapons…. From the point of view of military intelligence the risks and casualties which the patrols have accepted and are accepting have been more than justified.17

  On 25th January, Allied forces occupied Tripoli, that decisive goal which had proved so elusive for the last two years. Shortly afterwards, on 15th February 1943, Eighth Army moved against Rommel’s positions at Beurat. Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, the Panzerarmee could only continue with a further withdrawal. Rommel thus retired behind the relative security of the Mareth Line (pre-war French fortifications in southern Tunisia constructed to guard against an Italian offensive from Libya), which afforded him a respite and the opportunity of striking a fresh blow in the west. As ever, the Desert Fox chose an ambitious and risky strategy whilst his fellow officers, Sixt von Arnim, commanding 5th Panzerarmee in North Tunisia and, equally predictably, Kesselring favoured a less perilous course.