British Long-range Reconnaissance Operations in the North African
Desert, 1940-1942 * The extraordinary story of how a relatively small number of
dedicated men developed the methods and techniques for crossing the vast
unmapped Western
Desert
Made up of members of the Coldstream and Scots Guards, British
yeomanry cavalry regiments, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Indian Army men,
the Long Range Desert Group was perhaps the most effective of all the "special
forces" established by the Allies during Second World War. It was able to go
thousands of miles into enemy territory, well-armed and carrying its own
supplies of petrol, food and even water to last for weeks at a time, something
previously unheard of.
Using experience acquired in World War I and inter-war exploration
travels, the LRDG thus developed the ability to appear almost anywhere in the
desert to carry out almost every type of ground reconnaissance mission possible
in desert warfare, exploring and mapping the terrain, transporting agents behind
enemy lines or determining the strength and location of enemy forces with an
extraordinary degree of accuracy and detail. Equally important were their skills
in the art of desert navigation, demonstrated in the outflanking of the enemy
during the Allied advance from El Alamein westward to Tunisia, as led by the LRDG.
Through meticulous research in original archival material, this book
tells the extraordinary story of how a relatively small number of dedicated men
developed the methods and techniques for crossing by motor vehicle the depths of
the then unmapped and seemingly impassable great Western Desert, during the
British Army's North African Campaign of 1940–1943. Their tactics, techniques
and remarkable success in desert warfare continue to make them of great interest
to the student of military affairs. Likewise, as it seeks to answer how the deep
desert can best be used for military purposes, this study is pertinent to
today's military operations, perhaps more so than at any time since Second World War.
