DESERT GROUP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 January 1943, Page 4

DESERT GROUP

NEW ZEALAND UNIT OPERATIONS IN LIBYA. UNOFFICIAL WAR HISTORY. A description of the achievements of the Long Range Desert Group—the first men of the New Zealand Division to see action in the present war is given in “Prelude to Battle,” the first of a series of unofficial surveys of the work of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. “Prelude to Battle,” which is written in popular language and is profusely illustrated, is based on official information and is authorised by the New Zealand Army Board. It deals with the activities of the Division up to the start of the Greek campaign and is notable for the fullest account yet given of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). The LRDG was originally formed to .find out details of enemy garrisons and movements in the Libyan Desert. It was known that the Italians had garrisons in the oases of south-east Libya and that Kufra and Uweinat were improtant aerodromes on the enemy’s lines of communication to Abyssinia but this area was cut off from accurate knowledge by the bulk of the Great Sand Sea over which transport seemed impossible to any but the most experienced desert explorers. Behind ■this barrier the enemy might concentrate large forces for a thrust south against the Nile Valley. Hence it was necessary to find out what was happening in the inner desert. IN ENEMY TERRITORY. In June, 1940, General Wavell approved the formation of the LRDG with trucks carrying, in addition to armament, petrol for 1500 miles and rations and water for 16 days. The patrols had to be prepared to cross some of the worst country in the world, hundreds of miles within enemy bounds. The selection of New Zealanders was decided on because, although unused to such conditions, they had shown marked adaptability to environment. With Cairo as a base, the LRDG made three major patrols before the end of 1940, on one of which the New Zealanders were given up as lost, but eventually turned up triumphant: with prisoners and bags of captured documents. The details of these expeditions, including a daring attack on an Itanlan fort near the mountain fastnesses of Uweinat, make thrilling reading. OPERATIONS ON THE FEZZAN. Then came the first defeat of the enemy in Cyrenaica and from December 1940, the LRDG, erpanded to include Scots Guards as well as New Zealanders, was taken from its Cairo base and used for surprise raids on the Fezzan, in south-west Libya, where the Italian garrison had been lulled into a sense of security by the armistice with the French in West Africa. The first sortie involved a rendezvours in middesert with de Gaullist forces from Chad, with whom an attack was made on Murzuk, 1300 miles from Cairo. “Prelude to Battle” recounts in exciting fashion these journeys and battles at Murzuk, Umm el Araneb, Gatrun, Bishara, Kufra and other places, during which the patrols sometimes had to withstand severe aerial bombardments, not without casualties.