Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook414 pages6 hours
Ghost Patrol: A History of the Long Range Desert Group, 1940–1945
By John Sadler
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
The origins of most of the West’s Special Forces can be traced back to the Long Range Desert Group, which operated across the limitless expanses of the Libyan Desert, an area the size of India, during the whole of the Desert War from 1940 to 1943. After the defeat of the Axis in North Africa they adapted to serve in the Mediterranean, the Greek islands, Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece. In the process they became the stuff of legend.
The LRDG was the brainchild of Ralph Bagnold, a pre-war desert explorer (featured in fictional terms in The English Patient) who put all of his expertise into the creation of a new and, by the standards of the day, highly unorthodox unit. Conventional tactical thinking shunned the deep heart of the vast desert as it was thought to be a harsh, inhospitable wilderness where British forces could not possibly survive even less operate effectively. Instead, Bagnold and his colleagues created a whole new type of warfare.
Using specially adapted vehicles and recruiting only men of the right temperament and high levels of fitness and endurance, the first patrols set out bristling with automatic weapons. The LRDG, in a dark hour, was the force which took the fight to the enemy, roving over the deep desert—a raider’s paradise—attacking enemy convoys and outposts, destroying aircraft and supplies, forcing the Axis to expend more and more resources to protect their vulnerable lines.
Their work was often dangerous, always taxing, exhausting and uncomfortable. They were a new breed of soldier, and the Axis never managed to field a similar unit. Once the desert war was won they transferred their skills to the Mediterranean sector, retraining as mountain guerrillas, serving in the ill-fated Dodecanese campaign, then in strife-torn Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece, fighting alongside the mercurial partisans. In addition, the LRDG worked alongside the fledgling SAS and established, beyond all doubt, the value of highly trained Special Forces, a legacy which resonates today.
The LRDG was the brainchild of Ralph Bagnold, a pre-war desert explorer (featured in fictional terms in The English Patient) who put all of his expertise into the creation of a new and, by the standards of the day, highly unorthodox unit. Conventional tactical thinking shunned the deep heart of the vast desert as it was thought to be a harsh, inhospitable wilderness where British forces could not possibly survive even less operate effectively. Instead, Bagnold and his colleagues created a whole new type of warfare.
Using specially adapted vehicles and recruiting only men of the right temperament and high levels of fitness and endurance, the first patrols set out bristling with automatic weapons. The LRDG, in a dark hour, was the force which took the fight to the enemy, roving over the deep desert—a raider’s paradise—attacking enemy convoys and outposts, destroying aircraft and supplies, forcing the Axis to expend more and more resources to protect their vulnerable lines.
Their work was often dangerous, always taxing, exhausting and uncomfortable. They were a new breed of soldier, and the Axis never managed to field a similar unit. Once the desert war was won they transferred their skills to the Mediterranean sector, retraining as mountain guerrillas, serving in the ill-fated Dodecanese campaign, then in strife-torn Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece, fighting alongside the mercurial partisans. In addition, the LRDG worked alongside the fledgling SAS and established, beyond all doubt, the value of highly trained Special Forces, a legacy which resonates today.
Unavailable
Author
John Sadler
John Sadler is a very experienced miliary historian, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and the author of more than two dozen books. He is a very experienced and much travelled battlefield tour guide covering most major conflicts in the UK, Europe and North Africa
Read more from John Sadler
Castles: Fortresses of Power Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Second Barons' War: Simon de Montfort & the Battles of Lewes & Evesham Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bannockburn: Battle For Liberty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghost Patrol: A History of the Long Range Desert Group, 1940-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Mercury: The Fall of Crete, 1941 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Knights: Chivalry and Violence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hotspur: Sir Henry Percy & the Myth of Chivalry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood on the Wave: Scottish Sea Battles Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Caesar's Greatest Victory: The Battle of Alesia, Gaul 52 BC Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlexander the Great: Conqueror, Commander, King Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpy of the Century: Alfred Redl & the Betrayal of Austro-Hungary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cromwell's Convicts: The Death March from Dunbar 1650 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tommies: The British Army in the Trenches Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFighter Aces: Knights of the Skies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Battle of Flodden 1513 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTommy Rot: WWI Poetry They Didn't Let You Read Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Towton: The Battle of Palm Sunday Field 1461 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAs Good as Any Man: Scotland's Black Tommy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOde to Bully Beef: WWII Poetry They Didn't Let You Read Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood Divide: A novel of Flodden Field Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Book of Newcastle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Siege of Newcastle 1644 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOperation Agreement: Jewish Commandos and the Raid on Tobruk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Ghost Patrol
Related ebooks
British Armoured Divisions and Their Commanders, 1939–1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Churchill's Desert Rats in North-West Europe: From Normandy To Berlin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCommando Men: The Story of A Royal Marine Commando in World War Two Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Norway Campaign and the Rise of Churchill 1940 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHull Pals: 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th Battalions East Yorkshire Regiment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEl Alamein 1942: Turning Point in the Desert Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wingate Pasha: The Life of General Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, 1861–1953 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVisiting the Fallen: Arras North Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRetreat and Rearguard, 1914: The BEF's Actions From Mons to the Marne Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hood Battalion: Royal Naval Division: Antwerp, Gallipoli, France 1914–1918 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rifles Are There: 1st & 2nd Battalions The Royal Ulster Rifles in the Second World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thin Green Line: The History of the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC, 1922–2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Napoleonic Lives: Researching the British Soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictory in the Falklands Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fighting Through to Hitler's Germany: Personal Accounts of the Men of 1 Suffolk 1944–45 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCatalina over Arctic Oceans: Anti-Submarine and Rescue Flying in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salient Points Five: Ypres & Picardy, 1914–18 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEbony & Scarlet: Poems of the Anglo-Zulu War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsandlwana: How the Zulus Humbled the British Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Visiting the Fallen: Arras South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZulu Victory: The Epic of Isandlwana and the Cover-up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gresley's Silver Link: The Evolution of the A4 Pacifics 1911-1941 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gathering Storm: The Naval War in Northern Europe September 1939 - April 1940 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eighth Army in Italy, 1943-45: The Long Hard Slog Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe 16th Durham Light Infantry in Italy, 1943–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTank Commander: From the Fall of France to the Defeat of Germany: The Memoirs of Bill Close Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowmen of England Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Secret Forces of World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Yompers: With 45 Commando in the Falklands War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sam Hughes: The Public Career of a Controversial Canadian, 1885-1916 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of the Peloponnesian War: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer - The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington: The Indispensable Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Ghost Patrol
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews