On November 16th, 1941, two nights before the British planned to launch Operation Crusader, five of Lt. David Stirling's Special Air Service groups were dropped by parachute in the Gazala-Tmimi area to attack five of the enemy's forward airfields. The weather had turned bad and they were forced to jump from 500 feet into gale force winds which scattered the men and supply chutes. This air attack was a total disaster and many of the men were lost, but Stirling and some of his men were picked up by the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and transported 250 miles south to their Siwa Oasis base.
This experience convinced Stirling that his Special Air Service (SAS) raiders should stick to surface attacks, using the LRDG to drive them inti enemy rear areas. From that point on Rommel's airstrips and supply transport were under constant threat of attack from this combined group. The men of the LRDG had originally been deployed to operate from the southern vastness of the desert and radio back reports on enemy movements and build-ups. While carrying out these reconnaissance missions they would now also drop off and rendezvous with the SAS groups after their sabotage missions were completed. With this attangement the SAS had immediate success, and between December 14th and 28th, 1941 they struck enemy airstrips from Sirte to Agedabia, destroying 61 planes on the ground, along with 30 enemy vehicles.
On the night of January 23rd, 1942, in one of their greatest successes, the SAS was in position to strike at an oil supply depot in Buerat, west of Sirte. They managed to blow up eighteen enormous fuel transporters, each loaded with 4,000 gallons of fuel, along with the dock facilities and accompanying warehouses filled with everything from foodstuffs to heavy machinery. Rommel had just launched his latest offensive and was desperately short of these massive fuel transporters at this time. They would not be easily replaced. That same night a second group also knocked out a German wireless intercept station just east of the town.
From this point on they continually harrased airfields and supply lines of the Afrika Korps and began to earn Rommel's concern, since he mentioned their attacks in several of his reports. Since Rommel had once again pushed the British back to Tobruk, Lt.Col. Stirling chose the airfields near Benghazi as his next target. Moving by night and navigating by the stars, several SAS attack groups were delivered to the Cyrenaican escarpment overlooking the city sixteen miles away. The Senussi inhabitants of these foothills were bitter enemies of the Italians and eagerly gave them refuge and assistance hiding their trucks. They had come equiped with a makeshift German staff car so they could move freely along ther main roads, but this outing was less than successful. They managed to blow up 15 planes at Berka airstrip, but found most of them too heavily guarded now. They had also hoped to sink shipping in Benghazi harbor, but this never reached fruition either.
On the nights of June 13th and 14th, in support of the Malta convoys, it was planned that eight separate raids would take place simultaniously against German airfields. The targets were located in the Benghazi sector, Derna area, Barce, and Heraklion aerdrome in Crete. Each raiding party consisted of 5 men, and the three airstrips near Derna would be the hardest to crack. For Derna they enlisted the help of the SIG which was made up of German speaking Palestinian Jews who had trained to work behind German lines dressed as DAK soldiers. These also included a DAK prisoner who had convinced his captors that he was an anti-Nazi. After being escorted from Siwa to the Derna area by the LRDG, the SIG using German vehicles would deliver the SAS team right onto the Derna airstrips. They penetrated all the way to the target area only to be betrayed by the DAK recruit and all three teams were lost. The raids in the Benghazi area however went well. They successfully set their charges and 16 planes, 30 brand new aircraft engines, 3 workshop hangars and several ammunition dumps went up in flames. The team on Crete had been dropped by submarine and successfully destroyed 21 planes, 4 trucks and a fuel dump, before being captured.
As the DAK advanced on the Alamein Line the LRDG was forced to move its forward base down to Kufra, south of the Great Sand Sea. In early July they struck out along the rim of the Qatarra Depression and swept north to make a series of surface strafing attacks on German airfields supporting the attacks on the Alamein defenses. By mid-July 1942 the grand total of the SAS raids stood at 213 planes destroyed. This is not the whole story, but will give the reader an idea of how important these desert launched raids were. In his diary Rommel admitted that "they caused us more damage than any other British unit of equal strength."
Stirling greeting a raiding unit back from behind enemy lines.
