Transcript: History of the Long Range Desert Group

Audio transcript

Jimmy Patch:

The rough history of the LRDG was that it was Ralph Bagnold’s brainchild. He managed to persuade General Wavell that it would be a good idea to have such a unit, used mainly for reconnaissance, with the odd bit of raiding thrown in.

He wanted a very particular kind of man - someone more inclined to be independent than perhaps the average soldier.

So he went to the New Zealand Army and was given permission to choose New Zealanders, who had a higher proportion of farming types - independent sorts of men. Colonials, in other words - people he thought could be relied upon to do their own thing and act individually in emergencies.

So he recruited... how many would it be? Perhaps as many as 50 men, I don’t know... from the New Zealand Army, forming two patrols. And that was a success.

So when he wanted to expand, he recruited others of a similar nature. He went to the Rhodesians, who were a similar sort of character to the New Zealanders. 

They joined him, and after that he still wanted to expand. So he went to the Guards - a very different kind of man altogether, but nevertheless self-reliant, highly trained, and self-disciplined, as well as disciplined in the Army sense. And thus was formed the Guards, or G Patrol.

The Rhodesians were called S Patrol - presumably for Southern Rhodesians. The New Zealand patrols were R and T Patrol. I really don’t know what the origin of those initials was.

He still wanted to expand, and then went to the Yeomanry regiments of the British Army, where he expected to find a similar kind of independent character. And he recruited Y Patrol from the Yeomanry.

This was the situation when I joined, as I say, around September 1941.