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

by Sadler, John

  The result was an inevitable compromise. The Germans made initial gains. The Americans, facing these battle-hardened desert veterans, were caught off-guard and suffered losses, but the offensive soon began to run out of steam. Von Arnim had severe doubts and these translated into lukewarm support. Rommel’s assault on the Kasserine Pass, spectacular and rapid, ran into a thin screen of Allied guns and stalled. With resources depleted and the Allies recovering, the attack was abandoned.

  Rommel was next ordered to launch a blow in the east, despite his misgivings, exacerbated by failing health. This attack, hurled at Eighth Army positions at Medenine in early March, ran into a well prepared and concealed gun line; both tanks and infantry were badly shot up as they struggled to come to grips. Rommel’s last attack was a total failure. Very soon after, the Desert Fox took his final leave of North Africa, placed on mandatory sick leave. Despite heavy losses incurred at Medenine, von Arnim felt he could continue to hold the Mareth Line, still formidable and with both flanks secure. The line was, however, less solid than the Germans might have hoped.

  Montgomery had definite ideas about the role of LRDG. The Mareth Line was a major obstacle and battering through would be costly. What he required was a detailed recce of an area of ‘No-Man’s-Land’ ahead of Eighth Army’s left flank and the right wing of Alexander’s group in Algeria and Tunisia. This was roughly bounded by the coast to the north with its western face skimming along the rim of the Erg Oriental. The prime objective was to map the terrain and identify a viable route for outflanking the Mareth Line.

  Lieutenant Henry with S2 set off from Hon on 25th January. They were to carry out reconnaissance while also delivering Captain Grandguillot and a party of spooks up to Tozeur. The patrol was bringing up spares for T2 and Popski. The recce was initially frustrated by the dune belt lining the eastern edge of the Erg. Patrols were fast learning that local Arabs couldn’t be trusted; T2’s woes had probably arisen after they’d been spotted and ‘grassed-up’ by Bedouins. Having finally got across the soft humps of dunes they did pick up a couple of survivors from the wreck of T2. These dunes were hard on vehicles and fuel consumption soared – the 30-cwts were only getting about three miles per gallon.18

  On 5th February, Henry went in to Tozeur with his jeeps to seek fuel where he met up with Ron Tinker and the survivors of his patrol. Sergeant Calder-Potts with the rump of S2 had come across a first class potential airstrip, one already earmarked by the French. By the 9th the patrol was concentrated at Tozeur, though minus the W/T truck which had struck a mine; two men were wounded. After another three days of reconnaissance, they delivered Captain Grandguillot and his miscellaneous group to their RV. Fresh orders awaited them – the recce work was to be discontinued and Henry should report as soon as possible for de-briefing. Moving east along the northerly fringe of the Erg, they were warned by a French irregular of an Italian Camel Corps company close by. This meant another fuel-draining detour over the dunes.

  On the 20th they sighted a convoy which they took to be French, and encountered a camel detachment which they assumed to be of equally Gallic provenance. Lieutenant Henry motored forward in his jeep to speak to one of the cameleers who came down from a small knoll on which the rest were stationed. It soon became horribly obvious that these were enemy, or seemed to be, as they opened up on the exposed jeep. Henry was badly hit and his driver, Private Rezin, killed outright. As the LRDG returned fire, half the guns jammed; they were clogged with fine sand, but the 20-mm Breda cleared the enemy from the knoll. It was only afterwards they learnt that this was a tragic ‘blue on blue’ incident and the supposed ‘enemy’ were indeed French. Lieutenant Henry had been hospitalised but died of his wounds.19 This was, in no small part, a consequence of the loss of wireless comms with the W/T truck.

  Guy Prendergast had quartered the overall area allocated by Eighth Army. Three of the Indian patrols (2), (3) & (4) went out in January and early February, specifically to get an idea about the ground in the Jebel Tebaga sector. As ever, the question was could an all-arms force safely pass across. In fact, the patrols concluded the terrain was unfavourable, but there was good going over a more level belt to the south and this was bare of any enemy presence.

  Captain Spicer took Y2 from Hon at the end of January. He was to search for a possible route over the escarpment which rises from Tripolitania, northeast of El Genein towards the Dehibat region. Any such passage to the right of the Mareth Line would offer scope for an outflanking manoeuvre by Eighth Army. Spicer was also to check out which enemy outposts were still manned. A ‘tanker’ accompanied the patrol to judge the going for heavy armour. On the march, the patrol encountered Ken Lazarus with R2. Next day Spicer forged on alone, reaching the location of what was to become known as ‘Wilder’s Gap’. This area was to prove to be of considerable interest. By 21st February, both Spicer and Lazarus were being de-briefed by General Freyberg, at that point based some fifteen miles south of Tripoli. The Gap could take any vehicle and was around three miles wide.

  Ken Lazarus was ordered to make a more thorough reconnaissance and to set up a further fuel reserve at Wilder’s Dump. He pushed west and north, finding that there was a continuously viable route, wide enough and firm enough for heavy vehicles and armour, the only chokepoints being wadi crossings. On 3rd February, Lieutenant Bruce leading ‘G’ Patrol, and with an officer from 7th Armoured attached, recce’d the salt marsh south from the Shott Djerid.

  His findings were not encouraging. The difficult, unforgiving ground took a toll of specialist desert-worthy LRDG vehicles; more conventional and heaver traffic would get nowhere.20 The earlier maps proved useless and the natives very far from friendly – two troopers were wounded in a skirmish with them. The French garrisons they encountered were much more welcoming, extending to a brace of puppies donated by the Foreign Legion at Fort Flatters!

  It would be Ron Tinker who’d lead the Kiwis around the right flank of the Mareth Line. On 9th March his detachment joined up with HQ NZ Division, then at Medenine. On the 12th the Kiwis moved up towards Wilder’s gap where they halted. Tinker and his patrol then recce’d both north and northwest. The LRDG now marked out a potential line of advance as far as the Jebel Tebaga, an extended range of hills running east to west from Gabes to the Shott Djerid.

  By the 19th of March, the NZ Division had pushed on to the Wadi el Aredj, and next day, they’d moved up to within thirty odd miles of Gabes. By now the Kiwis were meeting scattered opposition and didn’t take Gabes till the 29th. Monty had begun battering the Mareth Line on 20th March and it proved as formidable as anticipated. Fearing they were about to be outflanked, the Germans slipped westwards on the night of 27th/28th.

  As March gave way to April and the intense desert spring, LRDG moved back from Hon to Alexandria – ‘Alex’, the fabled city of antiquity. Lieutenant J.M. Sutherland had recently taken over command of R2 and suffered the misfortune of losing one truck to a mine 1,000 miles east of the area of active operations. This loss, happily bloodless, proved to be the last one sustained in Africa, and as Guy Prendergast drily observed, a fitting curtain to the Desert activities of the unit.21 Monty, not one to offer praise unless it was earned, wrote to him on 2nd April noting: 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 operations could be planned with some certainly, and as you know, went off without a hitch.22

  As ever, the Fox had lived to fight another day, but the end was now in sight. Relentlessly, the Allies tightened the vice. General Patton, with the US 2nd Corps, displayed his customary bullish energy. Von Arnim was threatened with encirclement. The Italian General Messe commanded a strongly posted Axis line which was to be assaulted using both First and Eighth Armies. Montgomery was to punch though at Gabes Gap to break out onto the coastal plain where his superior armour would deploy to best advantage. Ghurkhas led the assault in a classic night attack to secure vital high ground, but 51st Divisi
on ran into heavy fire, losing many casualties and the Germans again avoided encirclement. Finally, Indian soldiers from Eighth Army shook hands with Americans from Patton’s 2nd Corps. By 10th April Sfax had fallen, Sousse two days later.

  Despite these expanding triumphs, Alexander had decided the final blow must fall further north and thus be delivered by First Army, though Eighth Army was to assault the remaining Axis bastion at Enfidaville. This was essentially a sideshow. In part this was due to recognition that the Enfidaville position was an extremely strong one. Nonetheless, the orders were subsequently modified, perhaps in consequence of matters in the north proving more strenuous than anticipated. Several army commanders had grave doubts over the attack on the Enfidaville defences, fearing the price paid in casualties would be exorbitant. Montgomery, as ever, was aggressive and fully confident.

  In the third week of April, fighting in this sector reached an intensity and fury easily the equal of the worst which had gone before. Men scrambled, fought and died on scarred and rock-strewn slopes, pounded by artillery and small arms, a soldier’s battle of rifle and bayonet. As this attack stalled, similar difficulties were experienced in the north, where Axis formations bitterly contested each foot of mountainous ground. Montgomery, not to be denied a victor’s crown, renewed his attack on 25th April. Both sides fought with great skill and valour, losses again were high with every inch of ground contested. The result was a temporary stalemate.

  On 6th May, Alexander planned a final, overwhelming blow in the north. Von Arnim knew that the plight of his exhausted survivors, some 135,000 Germans and nearer 200,000 Italians, was desperate. Despite the odds, Axis defenders continued to fight long and hard as the onslaught began. After intensive bombardment and a successful break-in, dusk found the leading British units some fifteen miles from Tunis.

  Out of Africa

  On 12th May 1943, General von Armin and General Messe each formally surrendered their commands. At 14.15 hrs on the 13th Churchill finally received the telegram from Alexander he had waited so long to read: Sir, it is my duty to report that the Tunisian campaign is over. All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shores. The War in the Desert was indeed over but the bones of some 220,000 British and Imperial soldiers would remain. Final victory was still a long way distant in the spring of 1943, but the era of continuous defeat was over and the men of Eighth Army became the stuff of legend, perhaps none more so than the men of the LRDG.

  It wasn’t all grim of course. Shooting gazelles not only honed marksman’s skills but could reap an unexpected cash dividend. Bill Johnson, who served with the Rhodesians, shot and butchered stags – then we would dig a shallow slit trench, soak the sand with petrol, place over a well-polished sand tray and set fire to the petrol – a desert barbecue. Bill’s comrades complained about the smell from the uncured hides which he stashed in his truck. In Cairo, however, we found a handbag factory and, after lots of bartering, I finished up with £150.00 in cash, a sheikh’s ransom.23

  John Olivey with S1 nearly earned notoriety when they came close to shooting Harry Secombe. The future goon and TV star was serving as a dispatch rider in June 1942 and became lost. The Rhodesians, hearing the beat of the bike engine, decided he must be Boche and prepared the appropriate introduction. Thankfully, Bill Johnson recognised the distinctive note of a BSA or Matchless, and the patrol held its fire. Rider and posterity were spared – here today, goon tomorrow.24

  Born in the desert, LRDG was a specific and very individual response to a clearly perceived tactical problem. The Group’s bespoke nature endowed its patrols with their unique status. All of LRDG’s tactics, command and control structures, vehicles, weapons, comms, training, et al were tailored to the needs of their environment. In the desert, LRDG had no equal. Its creators were men who had already traversed the great vastness of the empty sands. They knew their trade and their mission. The final Axis collapse and surrender in North Africa changed everything. Did the victorious Allies need a Long Range Desert Group when there were no more open deserts to fight over?

  All involved passionately hoped that they did; if not for desert warfare then for fighting in forests and mountains. Prendergast, Easonsmith and Lloyd Owen all saw how LRDG tradecraft could be adapted to clandestine intelligence gathering in Europe. Right across the Axis’ sprawling, oppressed empire, resistance movements had sprung up. These had been very low key and small scale to begin with, but as the Allies’ successes multiplied, as the myth of German invincibility was dented and fractured, they grew.

  If LRDG was to respond then new tricks would have to be learnt: parachuting, fighting in snow and ice, working with disparate and often unreliable partisans. For the moment, victory brought release, leave and pay arrears, and the dizzying fleshpots of fabled Alexandria: Guns, equipment and vehicles had to be cleaned and overhauled, clothes to be mended and replaced and time found to enjoy good meals taken off plates on a table and beer drunk from a glass.25

  Guy Prendergast spent his time constructively in defining a new role for the Group. This was to be a variation on the familiar theme. LRDG would re-organise, forming smaller, ever more specialist patrols, capable of subsisting for significant periods behind enemy lines. Prendergast remained as C/O with Jake Easonsmith as 2I/C. Alastair Guild would command one Kiwi Squadron of six patrols, Lloyd Owen the other with an equal number of UK and Rhodesian squads.

  Their new role would demand a different kind of stamina, and although jeeps would be retained there’d be far more marching than motoring.26 Egypt was no longer a fit training ground, so Lloyd Owen took his squadron to Lebanon and the high mountains. Here, at the aptly named Cedars Training School run by James Riddell, a noted Olympic skier, they’d learn the art of mountaineering. Happily the unit’s MO, Griffith Pugh, was also an enthusiastic rock-climber.27

  This was an altogether different landscape. Their billets were in a ski resort six thousand feet up, with peaks towering jaggedly above. In the bowl of a vast natural amphitheatre stood some magnificent ancient cedars which lent both beauty and timelessness to the scene. In some ways, this sudden relocation almost had a holiday air. Almost but not quite, for the training was arduous and long; some very tough tabbing with seventy pound packs, and freezing nights on the exposed snowfields, lashed by relentless, ice-laden winds. They worked with obstinate and unlovable mules, and struggled with the intricacies of unfamiliar Greek and German. Old skills were honed and new equipment tested, sometimes rejected. Lloyd Owen had a very long shopping list and GHQ was by no means quick to oblige. Spring passed into summer as they toiled on the slopes.

  Rumours of fresh wars abounded and nobody wanted to miss out. What would be essential would be the ability to jump. Stirling’s early efforts with his parashots in the desert had proved totally unsuccessful. But in Europe, using vehicles for insertion would not be an option. The Sand Sea was being swapped for a real one, the Mediterranean. Teams would go in via small boat or parachute. Most troopers were fully up for this, and only six out of 130 demurred28 – after all parachute wings brought in an extra 2s a day in pay!

  Training would take place at Ramat David in Palestine. There appeared to be no great degree of urgency and Lloyd Owen was given a month’s leave. He intended, providentially as it turned out, to begin his R & R by watching the men’s first attempts at jumping. No sooner had he arrived at Ramat David than Jake Easonsmith announced the whole squadron was under orders for a rapid deployment from Haifa at noon the next day. Half the teams were here in Palestine with little or no kit, the rest were back at the Cedars, some distance away. The signals establishment were all still in Cairo. A frantic night of telephoning, cajoling, bellowing and some alcoholic stimulants followed. By dawn, some semblance of order had been achieved, no mean feat.

  Lloyd Owen had no current idea where the squadron was headed or why the sudden flap. The fateful signal from Lieutenant-General Anderson actually read: Most secret and officer only…. LRDG’s most likely role will be to move into Kos
and Samos, if the situation permits, to stiffen resistance of the Italian garrisons and local guerrillas to German control of the islands. You may however be ordered to operate in Rhodes.29 For Lloyd Owen and the LRDG, this vague and rather vapid instruction would be their introduction to the Dodecanese campaign of autumn 1943. They would, every man, soon have cause to wish it had never been sent.

  Notes

  1 Wynter, pp. 176–177.

  2 Ibid., p. 177.

  3 Ibid.

  4 Ibid., p. 179.

  5 Ibid., p. 181.

  6 Ibid., p. 182.

  7 Ibid., pp. 184–185.

  8 Ibid., pp. 187–188.

  9 Ibid., p. 186.

  10 A place which features in one of wartime poet Keith Douglas’ works: Alamein to Zem Zem edited by Desmond Graham (Oxford, OUP 1979).

  11 Wynter, p. 190.

  12 Ibid., pp. 191–192.

  13 Ibid., p. 194.

  14 Ibid., p. 196.

  15 Ibid., p. 198.

  16 Ibid.

  17 Ibid., p. 201.

  18 Ibid., p. 205.

  19 Ibid., p. 206.

  20 Ibid., p. 209.

  21 Ibid., p. 211.

  22 Ibid., p. 212.

  23 Morgan, p. 94.

  24 Ibid., p. 96.

  25 Lloyd Owen, p. 122.

  26 Ibid., p. 126.

  27 Pugh later accompanied the successful post war climb on Everest.

  28 Lloyd Owen, p. 128.

  29 Ibid., p. 129.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Wine-Dark Sea, 1943