The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was a unit of the British Army during World War II. The unit was founded in Egypt, following the Italian declaration of war in June 1940, by Major Ralph A. Bagnold with the assistance of Captains Patrick Clayton and William Shaw, acting under the direction of then General Archibald Wavell. The group specialised in mechanised reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and desert navigation. However, it was disbanded at the end of the war. The LRDG was nicknamed the "Mosquito Army" by Wavell. Special Air Service soldiers would refer to it as the "Libyan Desert Taxi Service". During the Desert Campaign of 1940 to 1943 the LRDG invariably operated hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. Although its chief function was reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, units of the LRDG (called "Patrols") did carry out some hard-hitting strike operations, the most famous of which was Operation Caravan, an attack on the town of Barce and its associated airfield, which took place on the night of 13 September 1942. According to Lloyd Owen and others, the LRDG often conducted an ambush from the back of their trucks. They would back up their trucks to the ambush site with bonnets (hoods) facing away from the road and space the trucks about 25 yards (meters) apart. They would often sit for hours waiting for just the right target to come by. One such target would be fuel trucks. Besides shooting up the enemy vehicles they would quickly look through papers and check for radio frequencies but would not spend a long time at the ambush site (killing zone). After or sometimes while waiting on the enemy they would cut down communication lines. On some occasions, after committing the ambush, they would tear down the road, travelling after other vehicles that had passed through the killing zone, shooting them up as they came upon them. After the excitement was over, they would head off into the desert making sure to mine the path they took in their escape. According to one passage, they would often tie the communication lines to the back of their trucks and head off in the desert with long sections of the wire trailing behind them in order to make it more difficult for the enemy to fix the lines. Lloyd Owen did not go into specifics of how to set up an ambush other than the information above. However the basic plan for an ambush is easily applied to the vehicle mounted ambush Lloyd Owen described. The common method in ambushes is to set up two arcs of fire which will fire down and across the ambush site. This is often called an L shaped ambush especially if it occurs at a bend in the road. This basically closes the bottle of the ambush while the rest of the patrol fires into the side of the enemy. When such an ambush is set, ambushers usually place their most deadly weapon at the bottom of the "L". It doesn't matter which direction the enemy approaches. The ambush isn't triggered until the enemy is in the kill zone. Ambush patrols are usually divided into two parts. Today, these parts are called assault element and the support element. The assault element is closest to the kill zone and will be the party to enter the kill zone after the ambush to gather information. The support element provides flanking and rear security and usually has the heavier weapons. In the L schematic below, the Breda gun and far left Lewis Gun are the Support element while the six guns in the middle make up the assault.
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