The Long Range desert Group was a body of picked men, trained in desert life and warfare, sent to relay intelligence and harry enemy positions many hundreds of miles behind Rommel’s lines. Its tactics were unconventional, extempore and swift. The patrols moved with disconcerting speed from point to point, attacking forts, petrol dumps, aerodromes and convoys. They were able to cross thousands of miles of desert and arrive with uncanny accuracy at predetermined rendezvous, possibly marked visually by only a pile of stones. By the end of the war in North Africa, they had won themselves a reputation out of all proportion to their short existence.

This is the story of Y2 patrol of the LRDG, told by its leader, Captain (now Colonel) Lloyd Owen, who joined the group in 1941, soon after its inception. Graphically he tells of the lightening-fast attacks, the nerve-wracking and often tedious intelligence work. He had a lively collection of men, too, and these he brings to life – likeable, sardonic, capable and always utterly dependable,

But it is also the fascinating story of an officer learning a new kind of war, a man learning a new job of work. Lloyd Owen knew little of the desert and its ways when he volunteered, and his story traces, incidentally, the widening of his knowledge, experience, and, as a result, his confidence and determination.