DESERT WARFARE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4428, 21 May 1941, Page 5

DESERT WARFARE

THE LONG RANGE GROUP. GRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF WORK. A graphic account of the exploits of the famous Long Range Desert Group, to which several Te Awamutu boys are attached, is contained in a letter received recently from an officer who is at present with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Egypt. His letter states: “Some of the heroes we have entertained here included one or two of the officers from our own country who have made history in the famous Long Range Desert Patrol, and some of whom have recently been deservedly decorated for feats which are unbelievable. While you read of Sidi Barrani, Bardia, Solium, Tobruk, Derna and Benghazi, and for months before that, in the really dark days when the fate of the African campaign was tottering—when, if Mussolini and his boastful legions had had half the courage between them that one of these men I speak of had, we would surely have been driven from Africa for good this desert patrol, a handful of men and a few trucks, Englishmen, New Zealanders, and Frenchmen, left Cairo and struck out into the desert.

“They severed all communication with the world, carrying their food, clothing, water, medicine, petrol and everything necessary to keep themselves alive and to fight and move in a country where maps are blank sheets of paper, and the slightest mistake means certain death. They vanished for months at a time, straight into the heart of the Sahara, and into and across the dreaded sand sea where the trucks sank to the bodies but were always dug out and moved forward again right to the farthest bounds of Libya. There they sought out the Italian garrisons and fought and burnt, and were ambushed and fought again, 1000 miles and more from their base, and came back again through the desert where the only visible signs of previous travellers were the tracks of armoured cars of the last war, and the later caterpillar marks of an Italian exploration expedition of 10 or 15 years ago, which were still identifiable.

“Again and again they did that, bringing back valuable information and wrecking Italian posts and shattering Italian morale. They would arrive outside a garrison, 800 miles ahead of where the Italian expected to see a British soldier, would drive to within 150 yards of the garrison gates while the guard turned out to welcome them, and then open fire and clean the place out. .Within 24 hours they would have struck again, 500 miles away. It is a wonderful story, and will thrill the world when told in full.”