Country	United Kingdom
Active	July 1940–August 1945
Motto	Non Vi Sed Arte (Latin: Not by Strength by Guile) (unofficial)
Branch	British Army
Nickname	Libyan Desert Taxi Service Pattuglia Fantasma (Italian: Ghost Patrol)

The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was a British Army unit during World War II. The unit was founded in Egypt, following the Italian declaration of war in June 1940, by Major Ralph Bagnold. With the assistance of Captains Patrick Clayton and William Shaw, acting under the direction of then General Archibald Wavell, the group specialized in mechanized recce, intelligence gathering and desert navigation. The group was disbanded at the end of the war. The LRDG was nicknamed “ The Mosquito Army” by Wavell and by the Special Air Service it was referred to as “The Libyan Desert Taxi Service”.

During the desert campaign of 1940 to 1943, the LRDG operated hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines, although its main function was to recce and gather intelligence. Units of the LRDG (Patrols) did carry out some hard hitting strike operations. The most famous one was Operation Caravan, which was an attack on the town of Barce and it’s airfield, which took place on the night of 13 September 1942. According to Fieldmarhal Erwin Rommel: “The LRDG caused us more damage than any other unit of their size.”

Between the wars Major Ralph Bagnold, an officer in the Royal Signaling Corps pioneered long range travel and navigation techniques. Traveling extensively throughout Egypt and Libya in Ford Model A Trucks, he succeeded in negotiating areas thought to be impassible. Among other things, Bagnold made major improvements in his Sun Compass, a new version which was patented by him and later used by the LRDG. Bagnold's experiences with Italian military forces persuaded him that they posed a major threat to Egypt and the Suez canal in the event of war being declared. With this in mind, in 1939, Major Bagnold proposed setting up a unit similar to the Light Car Patrols which could be used to spy on the Italians. His ideas were roundly dismissed until, through a set of fortunate circumstances, he was able to get his ideas to then General Archibald Wavell who, by the entry of Italy into the war in June 1940, was in command of the British and Commonwealth armies in the Middle East. Wavell immediately saw the merits of Bagnold's scheme and Bagnold was given a free hand to look for volunteers amongst the forces which were available.

The unit, initially known as the Long Range Patrol, was founded on 3 July 1940. From the start it was thought that Australians and New Zealanders, with their mostly rural backgrounds, would be more self-reliant than their more urbanised British counterparts. However, General Blamey was restricted by a directive issued by the Australian government that Australian personnel were to fight together as the AIF and were not to be parcelled out to non-Australian formations. The New Zealanders were approached next and 150 New Zealand volunteers were then selected with the permission of General Freyberg, the New Zealand commanding general in the Middle East theatre. Bagnold had reasoned that the New Zealanders, being mostly farmers, would be more adept at using and maintaining machinery. Later additions to the group included British and Rhodesian units. An Indian Long Range Squadron was also set up, which operated as a semi-autonomous formation within the LRDG. Several South Africans also served in the LRDG.

During the Desert Campaign, from 1940 to 1943, the LRDG went through several phases of organisation, although in the first year or so it was broadly organised into Patrols of two officers, 28 "other ranks" and four reinforcements manning 11 vehicles. Later it was found that it would be more flexible to split each Patrol into two Half Patrols each of which comprised one officer and 15 to 20 other ranks in five or six vehicles. Each vehicle was manned by a vehicle commander, a driver, who also specialised in maintenance and loading of the vehicle, and a gunner, who was responsible for maintaining all weapons and associated equipment. W/T trucks had a navigator/wireless operator added to the crew in place of one of the gunners.

The LRDG gained a well earned reputation as the experts in navigation in the Middle East. The LRDG was also frequently called upon to transport personnel of the SAS, the Free French, Popski's Private Army and other commando units, as well as British and Arab undercover agents. Allied prisoners of war were sometimes rescued as well as downed aircrew, and enemy personnel were often captured by LRDG patrols.

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Converting LRDG trucks for desert use entailed removing the cab roof and doors, replacing the windscreen with "aero" screens and fitting radiator condensers, Bagnold sun compasses, steel sand channels and heavy canvas sand mats, plus weapons mountings. A number of trucks were also equipped with "aero" compasses of the type used by RAF aircraft and others had magnetic compasses in addition to the standard Bagnold sun-compass. Special wide-tread, low-pressure desert tyres, which could be identified by their "diamond" or square tread pattern, were fitted. Spare wheels were often carried on quick release mountings on the sides of the vehicles, with additional spare wheels being loaded in the cargo tray. Because the trucks carried up to two and a half tons of equipment and supplies at the start of each mission the suspension springs were reinforced with extra leaves.

In March 1942 the LRDG began to receive the first of 200 Canadian-built Chevrolet 1533X2 4x2 30 cwt trucks, with a steel Gotfredson 4BI "ammunition body". Each of the Gotfredson bodies had lockers incorporated into the front face and forward of the rear wheels. The body sides were made higher by fitting wooden "greedy boards"; the posts onto which the "greedy boards" were mounted also doubled as weapons mountings capable of carrying a light machine gun. A reinforced post mounting for the rear machine gun was fitted to the rear half of the tray. Another weapons post was fitted to the front left door pillar. Brackets for carrying Lee-Enfield rifles were usually fitted to the rear door posts on both sides of the open cab. The Bagnold sun compass was fitted to the centre of the front bulkhead, above the instrument panel. Most of these vehicles also carried racks of three two-gallon oil cans on the rear of each running board. A good illustration of where equipment was fitted is shown in the photo of "T10" of "T 1 Patrol".

In the case of W/T trucks a special compartment was built into the forward right side of the Gotfredson body in which was fitted an Army No. 11 wireless transmitter and a Philips model 635 receiver; wooden masts for the "Windom" aerial array were fitted on brackets to the "greedy board" above the radio installation and an insulated aerial mount was fitted to the front of the body. The compartment was covered by a bottom-hinged flap which doubled as a table when lowered; in addition the No 11 wireless was covered by a door which slid backwards along the side of the body.

Although these vehicles were two wheel drive an extra low ratio gearbox and powerful straight-six engine meant they could deal with the terrain types traversed by the LRDG. On flat, firm surfaces they could easily reach and cruise at 100 km/h. More importantly, they consumed petrol at half the rate of the F30s which was a vital factor in allowing the unit to carry out successful long-range missions.
From early 1942 the Chevrolet 1131 "pilot cars" were progressively replaced by Willys Jeeps as supplies became available. For several months the Special Air Service took priority over the LRDG when Jeeps were being allocated, the irony being that in several of its early missions the SAS relied on the LRDG for transport. The LRDG took particular delight in salvaging abandoned SAS Jeeps and restoring them back to running order before handing them over to their own patrol leaders. LRDG Jeeps were typically armed with either the Vickers K or .303 Browning machine gun in either a single or twinned mountings. From early 1943 Jeeps progressively became the main patrol vehicle as the Chevrolets and remaining Ford trucks wore out. By May, when the Desert Campaign was wound up, the standard establishment had become six Jeeps per half Patrol.

It should be noted that the LRDG maintained its vehicles to a very high standard and boasted well equipped workshop facilities at its base (called "The Citadel") in Cairo and at its forward bases at Kufra and later Jalo. Each patrol went out with a "fitters" truck which was a standard patrol vehicle equipped with tools and spare parts (extra springs, fanbelts, carburettors, clutches, spark plugs etc) sufficient to allow running repairs in the field. This truck always travelled at the rear of the column. The fitter who was part of the crew, was a fully qualified motor mechanic. The drivers of each vehicle were also able to carry out mechanical repairs. Many vehicles were salvaged through some ingenious improvisation; on one mission a truck cracked its differential housing and crushed the cover plate on a rock, completely losing the oil. Towing the vehicle the 1,600 km back to base was impossible. The solution reached was to seal the cracked housing with chewing-gum and to pack the differential with whole bananas. Once the cover plate was hammered back to shape and bolted in place, and a trial run carried out, the 1,600 km journey was completed without any problems.

At the end of each mission the trucks were routinely overhauled and every four to six months they were taken to the base workshops and, in effect, rebuilt.

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The first training patrol commenced in August with Bagnold taking two Ford trucks, five New Zealanders and an Arab guide to monitor the supply traffic on the Jalo–Kufra track. At the same time Shaw used the other patrols to build up supply dumps along the Libyan border, required due to the huge distances that would be travelled in future.

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They arrived there by driving approximately 240 km across the Egyptian Sand Sea. On 15 September two patrols of the LRDG were engaged in the unit's first combat operations. In this action Captain Mitford's unit traveled via the Kalansho Sand Sea and attacked Italian petrol dumps and emergency landing fields along the Palificata. Meanwhile, Clayton's group passed through Italian territory to contact the French forces in Chad. It is believed that the LRDG helped persuade the forces there to join the Free French Forces.

The patrols joined at the southern tip of the Gilf Kebir (where a supply dump was located) and then returned to Cairo via the Kharga Oasis. Each patrol had traveled approximately 6,000 km.

Following the September expedition the War Office approved a doubling of the unit's size, its renaming and the promotion of Bagnold to lieutenant-colonel. The enlarged unit gathered volunteers from British, Indian and Rhodesian units.

Bagnold wrote, "During the next few months, raids were made on a number of enemy-held oases...isolated garrisons were shot up...the raiders seemed to appear from a fourth dimension...Graziani was beginning to doubt his intelligence reports [and] the Italian army halted for...months."

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From Kufra the LRDG commanders would essentially serve as the military commanders of a region approximately the size of northern Europe, a region which had not seen rain in 70 years.

During the summer of 1941 Bagnold recruited another pre-war exploration companion, Guy Lennox Prendergast, to serve as his second-in-command. On 1 July Bagnold left the unit to serve in Cairo as a full colonel and Prendergast became the LRDG's commander. Prendergast would be succeeded by John Richard Easonsmith (always known as 'Jake' Easonsmith) who was followed by David Lloyd Owen.

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