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Sting of the Scorpion

The Inside Story of the Long Range Desert Group

The History Press

Piracy on the High Desert

HOW IT ALL STARTED: RALPH BAGNOLD, FOUNDING GENIUS OF THE LEGENDARY DESERT FORCE

The late Ralph Bagnold was the brilliant originator and first commanding officer of the Long Range Desert Group. He was a man of uncanny vision, expert in the movements of the remorselessly shifting sands, with vast practical experience in negotiating the treacherous, arid wastes in motor vehicles, surmounting daunting difficulties with clever innovation, skill and guile.

Simple, yet effective sun compasses, and portable mats to help vehicles drive themselves out of the clutches of soft, sinking sand were just two of Bagnold's refinements and inventions, without which the LRDG could not have functioned with such telling effect. Meticulous maps of the desert areas of operation, made before the war, came into their own, together with key survival techniques and knowledge of hidden sources of water. The experience of First World War Light Car Patrols in the Western Desert also provided much key information.

Bagnold's own account of the origin of the LRDG was reproduced as part of the LRDG's 50th anniversary celebrations in 1995, privately circulated in the veterans' own newsletter. His words, as the first commander and founder of the LRDG, remain as the definitive statement of the proud and pioneering LRDG tradition, the original and most charismatic of the British Army's Special Forces.

His study into the relentless shifting sands of the North African desert was made in the turbulent years in the run-up to the Second World War, when war seemed inevitable to many. However, the wide-open spaces of the desert were the last places on earth it was expected that such a terrifying conflict would envelop ...

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I had no idea at the time that our travels could have any serious scientific outcome. It was only later that it dawned on me that the natural mechanism we had become so familiar with, whereby the wind blowing on loose dry sand grains creates and activates the huge dune forms, was as yet entirely unknown. I became so interested that on my retirement from the Army in 1935 I built at home a suitable wind tunnel of plywood and glass panes and equipped with simple wind-measuring instruments. With this, some sieves and a supply of builder's sand, I embarked on the first scientific study of the mechanism. I felt it was really just exploring in another form.

The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes was finished in 1939 and published shortly afterwards. To my astonishment it soon became the standard textbook on the subject and still remains so. Indeed, when NASA's spacecraft were able to examine the Martian landscape at close range, the book was found to allow the sand-driving mechanism to be adapted to the very different and far more tenuous atmosphere of Mars.

Although most of us were young army officers, not one of us in the 1920s dreamed for a moment that war could ever come to the vast, waterless and lifeless Libyan Desert. We simply enjoyed the excitement of pioneering into the unknown. But the Second World War was declared almost as soon as the physics book was finished. I had served in the First War in the trenches in France as an engineer officer and, as a recompense, spent two happy years at Cambridge. Now, as a reservist, I was recalled to the Army in the autumn of 1939 and posted to East Africa. It was by the pure accident of a convoy collision in the Mediterranean that I was landed at Port Said to await another troop ship.

Seizing the opportunity, I took a train to Cairo to look up old friends. That visit, again accidentally, resulted in my posting being changed to Egypt, a country I was at home in.

HQ British Troops in Egypt [BTE] was just the same as I had known it. Its role having long been confined to internal security it seemed as yet to have given no thought to the defence of the country against attack from outside. Training had always been for a war in some temperate climate rather than in the desert on its doorstep. The staff seemed to be obsessed with the danger of any soldier getting lost, to the frustration of the more enterprising troops under it. The 700-mile western frontier with Libya, running south nominally along longitude 25E, was unguarded and unpatrolled, the Light Car Patrols of 1916 having been disbanded long before, and most types of army vehicle were unsuitable for desert going.

I wrote a three-page memo on what my experience suggested should be done in a small way, such as re-forming an up-to-date version of the Light Car Patrol. My General thoroughly agreed and sent the memo to HQ BTE. The idea was turned down angrily as though it was impertinent! Even the idea of driving out into the desert seemed to appal them as impossible, insane or at least reckless.

In the spring of 1940 things began to change. General Sir Archibald Wavell became an overlord, as C-in-C Middle East Land Forces with responsibilities from India to West Africa. A fresh staff was arriving from England to form his new GHQ, so HQ BTE sank to a subordinate position. All this time we knew that a great Italian army was massing on the Libyan coast ready to invade Egypt and another equally large army lay in Ethiopia ready to invade the Sudan. But on our side, no overt preparations were allowed, in the vain hope that Mussolini would remain neutral.

Then came June 1940. France collapsed. Italy declared war on us. The Mediterranean was closed, so we were cut off from England except by the long slow shipping route round the Cape. I felt impelled to do my bit. Pulling out the last copy of my former memo I added a few paragraphs and persuaded a friend in Ops to lay it on the C-in-C's own desk. I was sent for within an hour.

Wavell was alone. He put me at ease in an armchair and invited me to talk. Here, I felt almost at once that I had at last found a man of vision and vast knowledge who understood. I told him of the possibility of an enemy raid on Aswan from their southern-most outpost of Uweinat only 500 miles away across ideal desert going. I had myself done the journey in a day and a half. Such a raid would cut our vital link with the Sudan. If attacked, the raiders would simply threaten to open all the sluices of the Aswan Dam and cause disastrous floods in Egypt. Moreover, if Lorenzini was still in Libya, he would be just the man to do it. He and I had discussed that very thing during our strange desert meeting years ago. (Major Lorenzini was an adventurous Italian officer whom Bagnold had met before the war. He boasted he could take vehicles across the desert from the Libyan/Sudanese border from Uweinat to destroy the Aswan Dam.) We had now no means of knowing what the Italians might be preparing away in the far south.

I proposed that a small group of modernised Light Patrols should be created, specially equipped, manned by specially trained volunteers in really desert-worthy vehicles. By applying all the techniques our former little private parties had learned, we would have the extreme mobility of 1,500 miles of travel entirely self-contained, with water and food for several weeks. We could get into the emptiness of inner Libya by a back door I alone knew of, through the heart of the sand barrier. We would then track-read both the routes leading south. 'What', asked Wavell, 'would you do if you were to find no signs of unusual activity?' Without thought I said, 'How about some piracy on the high desert?'

At the word piracy the rugged face that had seemed a bit stern suddenly broke into a broad grin. 'Can you be ready in six weeks?'

I said, 'Yes.'

'Of course,' he said, 'there'll be opposition and delay.' He pressed a bell. His Chief-of-Staff, General Sir Arthur Smith, came in. 'Arthur,' said Wavell, 'Bagnold seeks a talisman. Get this typed for my signature right away: "To all heads of departments and branches. I wish any request made by Major Bagnold in person to be met at once without question."' Then to me, 'Not a word of this must go out. There are 60,000 enemy subjects here. Get a good cover story from my DMI [Director of Military Intelligence]. When you are ready, write your own operation orders and show them to me personally.' That was all.

I had been given complete carte blanche, presumably to make trouble anywhere in Libya. Clearly, any threat to the 900 mile unguarded desert flank of the enemy's supply route along the North African coast would be taken very seriously. The C-in-C had conceived a big bluff.

There was much to do, but little time. Three of the old gang were available. Rupert Harding-Newman was on the spot in Cairo, Pat Clayton was surveying somewhere in Tanganyika and Bill Shaw was in Jerusalem, curator of the Palestine Museum. The latter two were extricated, flown to Cairo and commissioned captains within 48 hours. Meanwhile, Rupert collected thirty 11/2-ton commercial Chevrolet chassis from local dealers and elsewhere, and he and I set to work making all the detailed designs needed for ordnance workshops to make the many conversions we wanted. Bill Shaw became our intelligence officer and chief navigator and set to work acquiring and improvising all the instruments.

There were to be three patrols, each self-contained and capable of independent action. A special ration scale was drawn up and authorised, as also were special footwear (sandals) and special Arab headdress for face protection against sandstorms. I raided the GHQ reserve of stores for machine-guns and suitable long-range radio transmitters. A very bright wireless officer volunteered to join, as also did a doctor.

General Freyberg agreed to ask his New Zealand Division for volunteers for an 'undisclosed mission of some danger'. There was a great response. Two officers and some 150 other ranks we had asked for arrived just as the first trucks were coming out of the workshops – tough, self-reliant and responsible people with many useful skills. They were just what we had hoped for. Training was largely combined with cross-country journeys to Ain Dalla to make a forward dump of petrol there, as we had done in the old days. The New Zealanders were astonishingly quick to learn a new, and to them a very strange, way of life.

I laid great stress on conservation. We were going a very long way without the possibility of obtaining anything anywhere. So there must be no losses and no breakdown involving the abandonment of a single vehicle.

We were ready on time. The C-in-C came himself to see us off and wish us good luck. The 150-mile sand dune barrier was crossed twice over in order to start fully loaded from the Libyan side. Then, on the very day, 15 September, the Italians crossed the Egyptian frontier going east along the coast, two little patrols crossed the same frontier going west into Libya, 300 miles further south.

Mitford's patrol penetrated so far west as to cross and examine both the enemy's southward routes to Kufra and Uweinat. Finding no signs of activity on either, he turned pirate, drove southward and burned unguarded aircraft and aviation petrol dumps. A small convoy was intercepted carrying supplies and mail to Kufra. The crew and mail were captured and the trucks were made to disappear without trace.

Meanwhile, Clayton took a more southerly route across southern Libya to make contact with a French outpost of Chad Province. He too found no trace of enemy activity. Both patrols returned triumphantly to Cairo having covered 60,000 truck miles in enemy territory without losing a single truck.

As a result, three more patrols were ordered to be raised, with volunteers from the Guards and from the Rhodesian and Yeomanry regiments. More raids took place during the next few months. Isolated garrisons were shot up. On one occasion two posts, up to 300 miles apart, were attacked on the same day by mysterious troops who appeared from nowhere and disappeared. The Italian invasion was halted for a vital period.

Wavell's bluff paid off.

As a final stroke in the Italian phase of the Libyan campaign Clayton, Shaw and I decided to raid the Murzuk oasis in the far south-west 1,400 miles away, provided we could induce the French to help us with supplies. They were an unknown quantity to us. Douglas Newbold was then head of the Sudan Government. I flew to Khartoum to see him. With his secret backing, I flew on to Chad.

A contract was signed, with the provincial governor's blessing, between Lieutenant Colonel Bagnold and the French Army whereby they would supply all we wanted on condition we let them join us with a token contingent consisting of the army commander himself and a captain. By implication, Chad Province would rebel and openly join the Allies and De Gaulle. The raid was very successful, though sadly the gallant French commander Colonel d'Ornano was killed. De Gaulle immediately sent as his replacement Colonel, soon afterwards the famous General, Leclerc. The latter and I became friends and cooperated closely till he left to join our Eighth Army on the coast.

In the summer of 1941, Guy Prendergast arrived from England. I had wanted him badly from the start. Now, I felt, I could hand over to a younger man.

The LRDG continued to play its unique role until the end of the North African campaign. It was the first of several 'private armies'. Its speciality remained, as it had begun in the old pre-war days, extreme mobility and accurate navigation. Occasionally, two private armies would co-operate, as when the LRDG carried David Stirling's SAS, who then had no transport, to do their sabotaging of enemy aircraft on the ground.

LONG RANGE PATROL – FORERUNNER OF THE LRDG

Little has been written about how the LRDG began. Brigadier Teddy Mitford MC, late officer commanding W Patrol, who was one of the last remaining original members of the unit in the UK, wrote a fascinating account about the Long Range Patrol, forerunner of the LRDG, showing how founder Ralph Bagnold produced the unique unit from virtually nothing in a remarkably short time.

The germ of the idea for the unit started during Bagnold's tour of duty in Egypt in the years up to 1932 when, having read extensively about the Light Car Patrols of the First World War which operated successfully in the desert, he organized parties of civilian and army friends and travelled many hundreds of miles into unknown country.

Bagnold gained an immense amount of valuable experience of desert travel which he later described in his book Libyan Sands. Brigadier Mitford takes up the story ...

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The Italians entered the war in June 1940. At that time Ralph found himself back in Egypt and managed to obtain an interview with the then GOC-in-C, General Wavell, on the subject of producing some form of counter to possible Italian threats in the desert to the south. The General was very sympathetic to his ideas and agreed that patrols should be specially formed as soon as possible. Some of the necessary equipment was very unorthodox.

The British Army in Egypt considered it to be difficult and quite possibly dangerous to travel out of sight of the pyramids, but we did have annual manoeuvres a few miles into the desert. We always knew where they would take place because the sappers put up water points for the cavalry and petrol points for the armour. Neither of these could meet during the exercise in case the tanks frightened the horses!

I was posted to 3rd Armoured Company in 1932. There were three mechanised units in Egypt and some wheeled transport in supply units, but everyone else, including artillery, Royal Engineers, signals etc, were horsed or on foot.

Almost every year from 1935, parts of the army went to Mersa Matruh, by train, owing to some international crisis. When the crisis subsided we returned to Cairo, also by train. I soon caught the desert motoring disease and bought a Ford car, which I fitted with fat desert tyres. I was able to carry out a few journeys across Sinai in 1935 to Aqaba, Petra, Jerusalem and back to Cairo and in 1938 to Kufra via Gialo (Jalo) and back. This, with some fairly short-range military recces, gave me a little more experience than some. None of this in any way compared with Ralph Bagnold and those who accompanied him on his desert travels.

Ralph, having received the go-ahead from General Wavell and, armed with his signed talisman, got to work forming what were then known as the Long Range Patrols. It was decided to form a small HQ and three patrols each of two officers and thirty men carried in eleven vehicles, also a small supply section of three large trucks for building forward dumps. He was very fortunate in obtaining the transfer from the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry of five officers and about 110 other ranks, all volunteers, who were in every way suitable for carrying out the tasks required.

Ralph had transferred to LRP as officers Pat Clayton from the Egyptian Desert Survey and Bill Kennedy Shaw from Palestine. Tim Heywood came from the Middlesex Yeomanry as Signals Officer and Captain Edmundson from NZ Medical Corps. The three patrols were commanded by Pat Clayton, Captain Don Steele from NZ infantry and myself. I had been transferred very willingly from 7th Armoured Division. Rupert Harding-Newman, Royal Tank Regiment, could not be extracted from the Egyptian Military Mission but was of great value to Ralph in organising the lists of stores required.

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Excerpted from Sting of the Scorpion by Mike Morgan. Copyright © 2011 Mike Morgan. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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