Reynolds was awarded a Military Cross for his role in what had been a very fruitful operation. The citation ran as follows:
At great risk valuable intelligence relating to coastal and other defences was collected, and quick action by Reynolds resulted in at least five medium-sized enemy vessels being bombed and sunk. At the same time he provided the Royal Navy with quick and valuable information about the movement of enemy shipping and the laying of minefields … in this, as in previous operations, Reynolds showed complete disregard for his personal safety in the execution of the tasks entrusted to him. His courage, determination, initiative and leadership were at all times an inspiration to his own and to other patrols.20
The Venetian Gate in Zadar with the Lion of Saint Mark, a symbol of the Republic of Venice, above it. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
The treatment of Reynolds resulted in Lloyd Owen’s decision – taken after much discussion with Allied Force Headquarters – to withdraw all LRDG and SBS patrols from Istria. On 21 April he sent a signal from Zara to the LRDG base in Rodi, in which he ‘recommended the withdrawal of everyone except [Stan] Eastwood and [John] Olivey. The latter [was] playing idiot boy with great success and undoubted charm’. In fact Eastwood withdrew with the rest of the British special forces a few days later, leaving only John Olivey and his patrol in Istria, who had been warned to be on their guard against the partisans’ duplicity.
Olivey didn’t have long to wait until the partisans arrived to detain them. He complied with all their demands but insisted the partisans carry not just the LRDG weapons, but also their rucksacks during their hike to the partisan HQ. Once there, Olivey and his patrol were handed back their weapons after the intervention of a political commissar.
Olivey’s patrol continued with their road watch north of Fiume, observing an adversary in its death throes. ‘I remember seeing the retreating Jerries and what a pitiful sight they were too,’ recalled Alf Page, who had joined the patrol. On 3 May the Germans were heading north in droves. Olivey reported ‘head-to-tail as far as the eye could see were horses and carts, the enemy having strong flank guards of infantry and artillery. This went on all day through much snow that fell at intervals.’21 On 4 May Olivey considered it safe enough to radio in a resupply by air, and two days later a mouth-watering array of delicacies floated down from the sky on the end of white canopies: tea, sugar, milk, chocolate and several bottles of whisky. ‘We gave the food to the partisans and their thanks was to disarm us and lock us up in a machine shop in a village down the mountain,’ said Alf Page, who recalled that Olivey, denied access to a lavatory by the guard, ‘peed on his candle!’22
Olivey was now at his wits’ end, but so, fortunately, was the European war. In the early hours of 7 May at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) headquarters in France, General Alfred Jodl, the chief of staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, surrendered unconditionally. The document he signed authorized ‘All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European Time on May 8, 1945’. On 9 May Olivey and his patrol were brought before the local partisan commander, ‘who released them with many apologies and much wine’.
A group of LRDG soldiers celebrate VE Day with a dip in the Adriatic. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
The war was over in Europe, but the conflict in the Pacific still raged, and David Lloyd Owen believed that the LRDG would be deployed to the Far East to help in the fight against the Japanese. Since July 1944 he had ‘been trying to get the authorities interested’ in deploying the unit to that theatre, compiling a series of papers that were well received from Combined Operations in London. But to Lloyd Owen’s immense frustration none of his recommendations were acted upon. He had even flown to London in March 1945 to put his case in person to the Combined Operations, informing them that SEAC (South East Asia Command) had asked for the unit in November. Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) in the Mediterranean had turned down the request, however, refusing on the grounds that the LRDG were required in their sphere of operations. Lloyd Owen returned to the LRDG from London no nearer to knowing if the unit would be sent to the Far East at the conclusion of the European war. He continued to press Combined Operations for an answer, but it was not until 19 May that AFHQ finally discussed the future of the LRDG. The result of the conference looked encouraging for Lloyd Owen, and on 25 May he told the 300 LRDG personnel who had volunteered for deployment to the Far East that the War Office was studying a proposal to transfer the unit.
Staff Sergeant Stan Andrews, a popular member of the Rhodesian Patrol, celebrates VE Day. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive) Three weeks later, on 16 June, Lloyd Owen learned from AFHQ that ‘the War Office had definitely asked for us … to regroup and have some leave before going on to Asia’.
Within a week, however, the War Office reneged on its promise and it was Lloyd Owen’s gloomy duty to inform the men that the Long Range Desert Group was to be disbanded. The news devastated Lloyd Owen, who had invested so much of himself, physically, spiritually and emotionally, in the unit over the preceding four years. Suffering the understandable pangs of self-pity, he wrote a plaintive letter to Field Marshal the Hon Sir Harold Alexander bemoaning their disbandment of the LRDG. The reply came on 26 June:
Dear Lloyd Owen
The news of the war office decision to disband the Long Range Desert Group must have come to you as a great shock – as it did to me. Long before I first went to the Middle East I had heard of the exploits of the LRDG in your original hunting grounds in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and it was with great pride that I first took you under my command in August 1942.
Since then you have continued your fine work with undiminished skill and enthusiasm and it is indeed with great reluctance that I say farewell and good luck to you all.23
Two members of the LRDG in Italy, May 1945, when many expected to be posted to the Far East only to be informed that the unit was to be disbanded. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
This photo, taken in Istria in April 1945, is captioned: ‘After 1st night’s march’. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
It was a noble tribute from the field marshal, a crumb of comfort for Lloyd Owen during the six melancholic weeks it took him and his faithful adjutant, Captain Leo Capel, to disband the unit and organize the transportation home of men, paperwork and equipment. ‘By the 1st of August, 1945, no more of anything remained,’ reflected Lloyd Owen, ‘only the vivid, wild and happy memories.’
The British LRDG headed north, the Rhodesians south, the air full of promises to keep in touch. The Rhodesians sailed on a troopship to Alexandria, and then on to Cairo, where they disembarked. They would make the final stage of their journey home by air, but until flights could be arranged they were billeted back where it had all started, in the Citadel, and the bed bugs were as bad as ever.
One of the first acts of the Long Range Desert Group on learning of its disbandment was to form an Association. An inaugural newsletter soon followed, a brief affair, admittedly, just two typed pages of A4 in which it was boasted that membership of the LRDG Association was already running at 381. It was hoped, stated the newsletter, that an annual dinner would be held, but the first wouldn’t take place ‘until possibly 1947 at the earliest’. With that in mind, ‘until then the only link will be the News Letter or private correspondence. The question in point is this: we have started well … it is is up to us to keep our interest in the Association alive until such time as we can really get together and from then on there is no telling what further history may be made’.24
In fact, the editor of that newsletter had under-estimated the determination of the LRDG Association. The inaugural Annual Dinner was held on Saturday 13 July 1946 at the Connaught Rooms in central London, and 80 members were present. Apologies came from Brigadier Guy Prendergast and Lieutenant Colonel David Lloyd Owen, and particularly Brigadier Ralph Bagnold, ‘who at the last minute was prevented from attending’. None
theless, there were plenty of men who were able to show their support in person. Gordon Broderick, who had been on Leros with John Olivey’s patrol, was one, as was Spud Murphy, released after nearly a year in a POW camp. David Skipworth and Fred Leach were also able to regale their dining guests about life as a prisoner, while Bill Kennedy Shaw, Michael Crichton-Stuart and Richard ‘Doc’ Lawson were three of the officers from the days in the desert.
The 1946 Newsletter, by now a much more impressively designed journal with professional typesetting and binding, reported on the dinner, commenting: ‘After the meeting and the speeches, members got down to the real business of the reunion – quaffing beer.’
EPILOGUE
By the time of the inaugural LRDG dinner in 1946, the unit had been disbanded for nearly a year, as had the Special Air Service and Special Boat Squadron. There had been an attempt by Brigadier Michael Calvert, commander of the SAS Brigade, to convince the powers that be to retain at least some kind of special force in the uncertain world they now faced. On 12 October 1945, Calvert sent a memo entitled ‘Future of SAS Troops’ to the 12 most senior officers of the three defunct units, including David Lloyd Owen and Guy Prendergast. Calvert had been instructed by the War Office to ‘investigate all the operations of the Special Air Service with a view to giving recommendations for the future of SAS in the next war and its composition in the peace-time army’.1 Calvert, who had made his name as a guerrilla fighter par excellence while serving with the Chindits in Burma, believed unequivocally that the special forces were now more important than ever. ‘We all have the future of SAS at heart,’ Calvert wrote in the memo, ‘not merely because we wish to see its particular survival as a unit but because we have believed in the principles of its method of operations.’ Therefore he asked the 12 recipients of the memo to co-operate fully with Major General Rowell, the Director of Tactical Investigation [DTI], and emphasize why special forces should be maintained. In particular, Calvert wanted the men to have answers to the following concerns of the War Office: ‘Volunteer units skim the regular units of their best officers and men’, ‘Expense per man is greater than any other formation and is not worthwhile’, and ‘Any normal battalion could do the same job’. But despite Calvert’s best efforts, the Director of Tactical Investigation concluded that Britain no longer required its special forces. The Soviet Union had yet to emerge as the threat it would become, while the British Empire had yet to fragment under the strain of countries clamouring for independence, either through diplomacy or violence.
The LRDG signal section, who performed sterling work for the unit, pose for the camera at Casa Rosa on 3 July 1945, shortly before they were disbanded. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
An LRDG soldier writes home in the days after the Armistice. Many of the men hadn’t seen their homelands for years. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
Though the Special Air Service was resurrected in the summer of 1947 as a result of a rethink by the Director of Tactical Investigation (of the first 200 recruits 59 had fought with the SAS in the war), the Long Range Desert Group was not. Nonetheless, the LRDG veterans regarded the SAS as their kith and kin, taking pride in their exploits in subsequent years. ‘What a wonderful operation that was by the SAS!’ commented the LRDG Association magazine in 1980, referring to the recent ending of the Iranian Embassy siege in London. ‘I am sure all LRDG men would like to congratulate the SAS on showing the world how to deal with terrorists and demonstrating that the old magic is still there.’
HMS Colombo leaving Zara harbour in May 1945 with its work attacking German shipping in the Arsa Channel at an end. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
Twenty years later, the LRDG Association met for the final time in London in October 2000. It was a good turnout, and those veterans unable to attend for whatever reasons sent their best wishes by letter. There was one message which aroused particular pride, a telegram read to the veterans and their families by Jim Patch, for 24 years the secretary of the LRDG Association. It was from Elizabeth R:
I have received with much pleasure the message of loyalty and goodwill from the LRDG Association, meeting today at your final reunion. Your Association has since its foundation kept alive the memories of those who served with such courage and distinction in the LRDG during the last war. I send my warmest good wishes to you all as you gather together for the last time and wish to express my confidence that the remarkable exploits of the LRDG will never be forgotten.2
Stan Eastwood finds a shady spot to enjoy his lunch on the Hon to Misurata road. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
In December 2013, a memorial to the Long Range Desert Group was dedicated in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey, alongside similar monuments commemorating officers and men of the Submarine Service of the Royal Navy, the Commandos, and all ranks of the airborne forces and Special Air Service. Then, in October of the following year, another memorial was unveiled, this time in Doune, Scotland, in the shadow of David Stirling’s statue. The SAS Regimental Association, who since 2000 have looked after the welfare of the LRDG veterans, organized the tribute that comprises a main recumbent stone and two flanking stones. The recumbent stone of Scottish whin evokes the desert, with lines cut to suggest LRDG vehicle tracks. The first flanking stone is engraved with the names of the LRDG’s fallen and the second bears the inscription to the LRDG, with the words underneath, ‘They Showed the Way’. As the SAS regimental website explains: ‘This refers to the LRDG’s provenance and their vital role as advance forces to the Eighth Army and British forces deployed in the Western Desert. It also refers to the part they played in the early days of the SAS, a part that enabled the SAS quickly to become established and to go on to become what it is today.’
Present at the dedication of the memorial in October 2014 were three men who had loyally served the Long Range Desert Group nearly three-quarters of a century earlier: Stuart ‘Lofty’ Carr, Jim Patch and Mike Sadler, a member of the Rhodesian Patrol who later transferred to the SAS. ‘It was a wonderful occasion,’ reflected Carr, who made the trip to Scotland from his home in the north-west of England. ‘I met many relatives of men I’d served with, some of whom, like Jake Easonsmith, never returned home. It was pleasing to be able to pass on what anecdotes I could remember about their fathers and grandfathers.’3
A group of LRDG veterans gather in London in 1958 for the premiere of the film, Sea of Sand, loosely based on the unit’s exploits, which starred Dickie Attenborough. (Courtesy of the SAS Regimental Archive)
As well as Easonsmith, another LRDG officer of Carr’s acquaintance who fell in the war was Anthony Hunter, killed in action in February 1945 in Holland while serving with the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Of the others:
Ralph Bagnold: Retiring from the army in 1944 with the honorary rank of brigadier and an OBE for having formed the LRDG, Bagnold married a year after the war and for the rest of his life devoted himself to his scientific studies. He wrote many papers and received many awards, including an invitation in 1977 to give the keynote address at a NASA conference on the desert landscapes of Earth and Mars, drawing on his experiences in North Africa. He died in 1990 aged 94.
Pat Clayton: Spent the rest of the war in a POW camp and later remained in the army until retirement in 1953. He died in 1962 aged 65.
Michael Crichton-Stuart: Returned to the Scots Guard and was awarded a Military Cross in 1943. After the war he held a number of civic appointments and died in 1981.
Martin Gibbs: After leaving the LRDG in 1941 he served throughout the rest of the Desert War with the Guards and was captured at Tobruk in 1942. Later served as High Sheriff for Wiltshire and died in 1994 aged 78.
Richard Lawson: Resumed his medical practice after the war and kept close contacts with the LRDG Association. In the 1980s he returned to Leros to lay flowers at the grave of Jake Easonsmith. ‘Doc’ Lawson died in 2005 aged 91.
Bill Kennedy Shaw: His service with the LRDG ended in 1943 with victory in North Africa. He spen
t a further year in Tripolitania with the British Military Administration as an advisor to Arab Affairs. He returned to England in 1944 and wrote the first account of the unit in 1945. He continued to work for the civil service in various capacities and died in 1979 aged 77.
Guy Prendergast: Led a quiet life after the war on his estate in Scotland, close to Loch Ness. The father of five children, Prendergast was a devout Catholic after the war who attended mass every day. He died in 1986 aged 81 and in his obituary in the LRDG journal, David Lloyd Owen wrote: ‘We admired his total dedication to the unit, his tenacity of purpose and his resolve never to send a patrol on any operational task unless there was a reasonable chance of it returning safely to base.’
Teddy Mitford: Left the LRDG to command 3 Royal Tank Regiment and remained in the army after the war, retiring in 1966. His last years were spent overseeing the 4,000-acre family estate. Married twice, but with no children, Mitford sold the estate in 1993 and died in 2002 aged 93.
Crosby ‘Bing’ Morris: Summoned back to the NZ Division in 1943, Morris became the chief instructor at NZ AFV School in Waiouru. After the war he became a branch manager and he died in 1974. His granddaughter played hockey for New Zealand in two Olympic Games.
Alastair Timpson: Awarded an MC for his work with the LRDG in 1942, Timpson returned to the Scots Guards in 1943 and served them with distinction for the rest of the war, being wounded twice and twice receiving a mention in despatches. He became a stockbroker in later life and died in 1998 aged 82.
The Long Range Desert Group in World War II Page 21
