Introduction by Chris Lorigan
You’re in an open-topped MB Jeep in the deep darkness of the Libyan desert. You roll silently down from the sand dunes onto an unlit German airfield. The driver guns the engine and you race along the sand runway. You can see nothing yet as the Jeep gains speed. And then, suddenly looming in the darkness, the black silhouettes of German aircraft. You open fire, the machine gun rattling sharply in the otherwise dead night. Aircraft are shredded, fuel tanks explode. You see the enemy rushing to react but then you’re gone. Full speed down the runway. Cutting quickly back into the folds of the desert you disappear into the vast emptiness.
The unofficial motto of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) is ‘Not by strength, by guile’, and it is incursions like this that mark out these small, brave and unique patrols.
Here’s the first part of an adventure I wish I’d been on. As the current editor of NZ4WD I feel obliged to share it with you, as the Long Range Desert Group holds a unique place in New Zealand’s military history. I was involved in the early stages of the idea to retrace their tyre tracks, but unfortunately never made the expedition. The idea came after we’d had a few pints, which is often where the best plans originate.
About seven years ago I was in a south London pub with John Carroll, editor of 4x4 Magazine and Land Rover World. John has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Jeeps, Land Rovers and military history, among other things, and we were discussing future editorial ideas. We would often come up with some crazy schemes in our bid to stay ahead of our competitor magazines (there were four other all-makes 4WD publications in the UK at the time and three other dedicated Land Rover ones), and we were always trying to develop interesting, entertaining stories that would engage readers.
“You’re a Kiwi,” said John, “what do you know about the Long Range Desert Group in the Second World War?”
From there we hit upon the exciting idea of retracing their footsteps. I knew there had been New Zealanders involved and that they’d driven Jeeps (both Willys and Fords) and Chevrolets, but that was about it. John ran me through some of the stories and we decided to get a small team together and go there ourselves in wartime Jeeps. John had been thinking about doing something like this for a number of years and, now that I was around, was keen to do it with a Kiwi as part of the team. I was pretty keen, too.
We discussed it a few more times over the next year or so, but were always too busy to get it off the ground. Then I left the UK to come home after almost five years away.
Well, they finally went and did it. John and a few other keen blokes, including another mate, Toby Savage (off-road enthusiast, Jeep and Land Rover owner and photographer), headed off into the desert in a pair of wartime Jeeps, and this is their story.
Sand, Wind and Stars, part 1
By John Carroll
Seventy years after the Long Range Desert Group's exploits became the very stuff of Boy's Own adventures, a diverse group from Egypt, England, Sweden and the US came together to follow in its tyre tracks. The group comprised eight experienced desert travellers, military vehicle enthusiasts, historians and classic 4WD fans and set out, in a pair of 1943 Jeeps, to follow some of the LRDG patrol routes through the vastness of the Western Desert and the emptiness of the Great Sand Sea.
The LRDG's roots pre-date the Second World War to the twenties and thirties as Europeans searched for the legendary lost oasis of Zerzura. Foremost among the group was Ralph Bagnold, a Cambridge graduate and officer in the Royal Corps of Signals. He was posted to Egypt in 1926, bought a Model T Ford and, impressed by its ability to travel on unsurfaced tracks, began to explore the vast and roadless desert regions.
Using sun compasses they learned how to navigate in the vast expanses of desert and mastered the art of driving their vehicles over huge sand dunes without overturning or getting stuck. Each trip was more ambitious than the previous, and by 1929, in both Model A and Model T pick-ups, Bagnold and his companions drove into the Great Sand Sea, a place that was generally considered to be impenetrable by car…
