A DESERT PATROL

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 76, 26 September 1940, Page 20

A DESERT PATROL

DRIVE INTO LIBYA

ARMOURED CAR WORK

Somewhere thirty-seven miles inside Libyan territory I have been hiding with a group of British armovired cars for thirteen long, and for me, emotionally strenuous hours, wrote a correspondent of the London "Daily Telegraph" from the Libyan border recently. The armoured cars were ordered to approach the Italian base at El Gubi oasis to watch and report anything of interest. Such deep incursions into enemy territory are routine to units out here. War in the desert is a hit-and-run war, and the British have been doing most of the hitting. Their chunky, sandcoloured armoured cars, with a pennant at the tip of the slender wireless aerials, are the eyes and ears of the British High Command, and there is nothing wrong with their eyesight and hearing. They snoop and spy. They move fast. On occasion they strike. They have established a reputation for sudden attack and daring that the Italians can confirm. On the previous night we crossed Graziani's 150-mile long barbed wire fence along the border. In the darkness our station wagon kept close to the tail of trie armoured car ahead of us. Somewhere, I have not the slightest idea where, we stopped and slept under the stars. Before dawn we moved on. Two sharp bursts of machine-uun fire startled me out of sleepiness. The car on our right accelerated and dashed off by itself into the desert. Later, when it rejoined the pack, I learned that a glimpse of two desert gazelles prompted a test of the car's Bren gun. . STAGGERED THE CARS. At dawn we stopped, staggered the cars over a wide area and set to work to camouflage ourselves as part of the desert. With spades and picks we cut clumps of desert brush and covered the cars. "If planes come, don't move. Sit still and maybe they won't see us," the major instructed everybody. "If ] they attack, then scatter, zig-zag, and fight back."

The sun rose and the day became warm. The long shadow beside our station wagon began to shrink. The

drone of a plane approached. We got into the cars and sat.

The plane went away and the hours dragged on. The heat, our thirst, and the flies increased as the shadows decreased. We drank water and tried to sleep. ><* Holding binoculars to their eyes, the men in the car turrets scanned the desert skyline. The others passed the time sleeping on the ground or tinkering with car gadgets. In the late afternoon two flights of bombers passed intent on raiding some ! place behind the lines. I suppose there are at times advantages in being thirty-seven miles inside enemy' territory—when you are under their noses maybe they don't see you. The shadows lengthened. When the red sun touched the rim of the horizon we started homeward reasonably safe from discovery by planes. i At various places other cars met us and reported. From a certain spot we were to return to the wire barrier alone while the armoured cars remained in Libya some time longer. Our plans were changed, however, when one of the scouts reported to the major that there were signs that a number of Italian vehicles had recently passed through the srea we had to traverse. ! Acordingly we got an armoured car I escort and followed the track eastward. It consisted of tyre-tracks on the ground. In the dark we lost them, and although we zig-zagged we could not find them again. Our escort steered by compass. After a time we stopped and signalled into the blackness. We waited a moment and then the answer came. Half an hour later we pased through a gap in the wire i into Egypt.