Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War (11 page)

The Libyan desert covers well over a million square miles of the earth’s surface, an area roughly the size of India. Stretching a thousand miles south from the Mediterranean and twelve hundred miles from the Nile Valley to the mountains of Tunisia and Algeria, it is one of the most inhospitable places on earth and, in terms of humanity, one of the emptiest. Most of the North African war so far had been fought on a narrow coastal strip, along which a single paved road hugged the edge of the Mediterranean. Only a few ancient trading tracks traversed the interior. In daytime, the temperature could soar to 135° F, and then plummet below freezing at night. The only water is to be found in a handful of small oases. It was not an easy place to live, and a very easy place to die, but it offered an opportunity for warfare of a most unconventional and uncomfortable sort. In theory, this mighty desert was enemy-held territory; in reality, Bagnold calculated, the Italians and Germans had “only enough motor transport for a radius of action of a paltry 100 miles.” The rest was his. So far from being an impassable, hostile wilderness, the desert was a place that men, with the right training and equipment, could cross and recross, navigate, watch, hide in, and survive indefinitely. To the uninitiated, the landscape appears bleak and monotonous, but the apparently flat expanse hid myriad dips and depressions, rocky patches, shelves, and escarpments, as well as treacherous seas of soft sand. There were points to navigate by, if one knew how to see them.

The broad purpose of the LRDG was to carry out reconnaissance and raiding, to find out what the enemy was doing where and, from time to time, to attack him. Initially, Bagnold recruited New Zealand farmers, leathery outdoorsmen used to surviving for long periods in harsh terrain; gradually, as the unit expanded, volunteers came forward from Rhodesian and British regiments. After long weeks in the desert, the sand buccaneers had developed a distinctly piratical look, sporting Arab headdresses, sandals in place of boots, and bushy beards. Equipped with adapted, lightweight, heavily armed vehicles, the LRDG carried out deep penetration and covert missions behind the lines, moving undetected across huge swathes of territory and perfecting the art of desert camouflage and evasion. LRDG units became adept at slipping unseen up to the coastal road itself and observing the movements of enemy troops; these “road-watching” operations provided some of the most important military intelligence of the war. Axis forces never adapted to the challenges of the desert in the same way. At the time when Stirling first encountered them, the LRDG were the masters of their terrain: “There seemed to be nothing they did not know about the desert.”

Siwa Oasis in Egypt, about thirty miles from the Libyan border, was the operational headquarters and forward base of the LRDG, under the command of Colonel Guy Prendergast, another desert explorer who had traveled with Bagnold before the war. Waiting in Siwa for a plane to take him back to Cairo, Stirling asked Prendergast if the LRDG might be prepared to act as a transport service for the SAS to and from coastal targets. Prendergast said that this would be perfectly possible, so long as the task did not interfere with the unit’s primary reconnaissance role. Thus began one of the most fruitful partnerships in wartime history, bringing together the fighters of the SAS with the expert desert navigators of the LRDG. The SAS would come to refer to the LRDG, with deep admiration, as the “Libyan Taxi Service.” The hairy, hardened, experienced men of the LRDG were cabdrivers unlike any others.

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Stirling had feared that the abject failure of Operation Squatter might prove the death of the SAS. But, in truth, the brass at Middle East Headquarters had greater concerns than the loss of a few dozen men in a sideshow to the main battle. Operation Crusader was not going smoothly: Rommel’s panzers had inflicted a major defeat on the British 7th Armoured Division, and the Afrika Korps had pushed into Egypt in a dramatic counterthrust. General Neil Ritchie, Stirling’s initial backer and family friend, had taken over command of the Eighth Army on November 26; with so much on his plate, Ritchie had little attention to spare for the grim details of a single failed operation. Auchinleck believed that Rommel’s eastward countermove had left German supply lines along the coast fully extended and vulnerable to attack—exactly the sort of task for which L Detachment had been formed. But if the SAS was to attack by land, rather than by air, it would need a forward base from which to launch operations. The ideal spot had become available: an oasis refuge deep in the Libyan desert, but within striking distance of the coast.

Jalo Oasis lies about 150 miles southeast of the Gulf of Sirte and west of the Great Sand Sea, the undulating ocean of dunes that makes up about a quarter of the greater Libyan desert. With its white wooden fort, mud houses, fringe of palm trees, and glittering azure waters, Jalo is exactly what a mirage of an oasis might look like in a fairy story. In fact, it is anything but a paradise: roastingly hot and whipped by an unceasing wind that can drive a man mad, it was home to a handful of Berbers, a few ill-tempered camels, and a colossal population of flies. The oasis water is almost undrinkably salty and thick with minerals, but as the only water source for hundreds of miles, Jalo was of vital strategic importance. It would change hands several times in the course of the war.

On November 18, 1941, in support of Operation Crusader, Brigadier Denys Reid had set out from Jaghbub Oasis, on the Egyptian border, with E Force, a mixed unit of Indian, South African, and British troops, intent on capturing Jalo, three hundred miles to the west, from the Italians. It was a sign of his determination that Reid took armored cars, but only enough petrol to travel one way. Six days later, Reid’s force reached Jalo and, after a daylong battle with its surprised Italian defenders, seized it. Reid’s orders were to continue north with a flying column and attack the extended Axis supply lines along the coast, while the Eighth Army launched another counteroffensive against Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The LRDG were ordered to mount a series of raids on the airfields at Sirte, Agheila, and Agedabia on the Gulf of Sirte, in order to put out of action enemy planes that could otherwise inflict carnage on Reid’s troops approaching from the south. It was Guy Prendergast, probably as a result of his conversation with Stirling, who suggested that L Detachment might be better equipped for this task: “As LRDG not trained for demolitions, suggest pct [parachutists] used for blowing dromes.”

Here was an opportunity for the SAS, or what remained of it, to prove its worth. Stirling quietly gave orders to Jock Lewes to head to Jalo in the deep desert with the remaining men and as much weaponry, ammunition, and explosives as he could lay his hands on. Lieutenant Bill Fraser, his wrist now healed, was back on active duty, along with his dog, Withers. Jim Almonds was also back in the ranks, although still anxiously awaiting word on the health of his baby son.

The SAS took up residence in its new forward base on December 5. Johnny Cooper thought Jalo looked like a “Foreign Legion outpost, straight out of
Beau Geste
.” Brigadier Reid warmly welcomed the new arrivals, as well he might: he was under orders to advance north to the area of Agedabia, near the coast, by December 22; if the SAS could inflict serious damage on the enemy air forces in the fortnight before that date, it would make Reid’s task considerably easier.

Stirling established his headquarters in a disused storehouse, gathered his officers, and began to make plans for the next SAS operation—in the knowledge that, if it failed again, this would also be the last.

The airfields of the Gulf of Sirte were strung out along the Mediterranean coast like buoys on a rope: Sirte, Tamet, Nofilia, Agheila, Agedabia. Once these had been sleepy little tuna-fishing villages; now they were home to the German and Italian air forces in North Africa, vital aerodromes from which Axis fighters and bombers harried the British lines, attacked the convoys sailing to and from Malta, and provided the air support so vital to the Afrika Korps. Auchinleck’s counteroffensive had pushed Rommel back as far as Gazala, but the front line was still so distant that a direct attack on the airfields seemed laughably unlikely to those living and working on them. The air bases were linked by the coastal highway. Most were lightly defended, according to intelligence reports, with only a perimeter fence, a handful of sentries, and perhaps a few land mines; some were hardly guarded at all. These were juicy targets indeed: the long, frustrating wait for action was about to come to an end, in spectacular fashion.

Stirling laid out a three-pronged plan of attack. The first assault team, led by Stirling himself and Paddy Mayne, would be transported across the desert to within striking distance of Sirte on the western gulf coast. Sirte was believed to be the largest of the airfields. They would carry out surveillance and attack on December 14. The same night, a force under Jock Lewes would strike Agheila, the southernmost gulf airfield and the nearest to Jalo. Finally, on December 21, just before Brigadier Reid struck north with his ground troops, Bill Fraser’s section would attack Agedabia, on the eastern side of the gulf.

Two days after arriving in Jalo, Stirling’s force of fourteen men climbed into the trucks of the Rhodesian patrol of the LRDG, and set off on the 250-mile journey to Sirte. The SAS team included Reg Seekings and Johnny Cooper, whose mutual antipathy had been sharpened by a fierce argument at the oasis just before departure. A sleeping blanket belonging to Seekings had gone missing. He stormed around the camp, angrily demanding its return and threatening to beat up whoever had stolen it. “Oh, bloody well lie down,” said Cooper, who was trying to sleep. Seekings saw red, his habitual visual color: “You get on your feet, you bastard, and I’ll knock your bloody block off. Big bloody mouth. I’ve had enough of you.” The fight was defused, but it left a simmering residue. Seekings and Cooper were dismayed to find that they were both deployed in Stirling’s task force; they would have to spend the next six days side by side, bouncing around in the back of a truck and then going into action together. “We were unhappy. We didn’t speak. Looked daggers at each other all the way up on the job.”

There are few experiences more uncomfortable than a long desert journey in a lorry with little suspension and wooden seats: the jolting and rattling made sleep impossible; the heat and monotony induced a state of sweaty semi-consciousness. For three days they rumbled and jounced northwest, the oceans of sand and rock broken by the occasional gully and unexpected escarpment. The trucks broke down or got bogged down, and had to be mended or laboriously dug out using sand mats. Tires burst, frequently but unpredictably. It was freezing at night, broiling by day, with no intermediate moment when the temperature felt bearable. Already, the men of L Detachment were calling it “Devil Country.”

The navigator of the LRDG’s Rhodesian unit was Mike Sadler, a quiet, unassuming, and exceptionally intelligent twenty-one-year-old. Born in Gloucestershire, Sadler was working on a farm in Rhodesia when war broke out. He immediately downed tools and signed up with an artillery unit, which was later deployed to North Africa. “I didn’t want to miss anything. Some people are like that at that age. I certainly was.” He transferred to the LRDG after encountering some members of the unit in a Cairo bar. Sadler had a naturally geometric mind. On his first cross-desert expedition, he watched the navigator steering with compass and chart, and decided that this was far more interesting and challenging than anything the army had so far offered. Trained in celestial and solar navigation by a former merchant seaman, he swiftly emerged as one of the LRDG’s best guides. The desert, despite appearances, is neither flat nor featureless, but in 1941 large areas were still unmapped, blank spaces on the map. Desert navigation, like its equivalent at sea, is largely a matter of mathematics and observation, but the good navigator also relies on art, hunch, and instinct. The uneven ground caused the shadow on the sun compass to tilt this way or that, requiring the navigator to compensate. Sadler had an uncanny, almost unerring ability to know where he was, where he was going, and when he would get there.

On the third evening, Sadler announced that the little convoy was now seventy miles south of Sirte, and within range of enemy aircraft. The trucks had been painted a fetching if unlikely combination of camouflage colors: pale green and rose pink. In any other surroundings, they would have stuck out comically, like “something from the fairground,” but when stationary they blended into the flat, pale colors of the desert. On the move, however, they were ominously easy to spot from the air. Sure enough, at around midday the next day, as the convoy crawled across a boulder-strewn plain, an Italian Ghibli reconnaissance plane appeared overhead, dropped two bombs, which fell wide by a considerable distance, and wheeled back toward the coast. The drivers gunned their engines and scrambled to take cover in a patch of low camel-thorn scrub to the south, perhaps half a mile in length. Camouflage nets were thrown over the vehicles, and the men spread out to take what cover they could find beneath the spiny bushes. Minutes later, two more Italian planes appeared. Their pilots deduced that the convoy must be hiding in the scrawny undergrowth, and so for the next fifteen minutes they blasted and bombed the patch of dry greenery. “Lightly and inefficiently strafed by Italian air force,” reported Paddy Mayne, who spent the time calmly reading a paperback. Eventually, having run out of patience or ammunition, the Italian planes departed. It was a most unpleasant foretaste of an experience that would soon become routine: being hunted and attacked from the air in open desert. No lives or vehicles had been lost, but the unit had forfeited the element of surprise. “They’ll report our presence all right,” the LRDG veterans predicted.