THE ALMÁSY COMMANDO SET OFF once again at 08:30 on 15 May. They headed south along the Palificata Track as far as KM 410 without seeing any trace of the British. Then they struck the edge of the dune country, skirting the vast Rebiana Sand Sea to the west.
For the purposes of W/T transmission, Almásy codenamed Eppler and Sandstette ‘Pit’ and ‘Pan’. He was not overly impressed by them, and makes no mention of having known Eppler before the war, as stated by Eppler. Both agents were nervous about his plan to take the Kufra Route, fearing an encounter with the enemy.1 Almásy found their personal organisation sorely lacking. They were ‘the most untidy fellows I’ve ever had under me. The inside of the radio car looks frightful, loads, personal effects, weapons and food all mixed up.’2 Almásy was not keen on his Brandenburg corporals either, as they lacked experience. None of them, despite Eppler’s supposed knowledge of the desert, had much experience that could assist him.
Almásy radioed in on 15 May indicating that they were setting off and ‘according to a recce the British post is supposed to be near Br Abu Zereigh. I shall attempt to turn SW before then.’3 It was at this point that radio communication between Otter at Jalo and Salam broke down. The culprit was Schildkroete itself (the Italian W/T station at Jalo) and the Italian W/T stations on the oasis. Interference from them was so bad that they had to take over the link to Salam, passing messages on to Otter. To make matters worse the Abwehr W/T station in Athens, codenamed ‘Adolf’, was largely kept in the dark; it seems unlikely that they had the right copy of Rebecca to decode Salam’s messages, or even the German work, an edition from the Leipzig-based publisher Bernard Tauchnitz, which was being used by all W/T stations for encoding.4
Four hours after setting off, the Almásy Commando passed near the British post to the north of Kufra Oasis. By this time it was noon; the timing was intentional as Almásy thought that ‘Tommy’ would be sleeping during the hottest part of the day. Then at about 15:00 ‘Pan’ got ‘Maria’ – one of the Bedford trucks – stuck in soft sand. It took them two hours to get it out.
Not long afterwards Almásy found ‘traces of the old Trucchi Track from the years 1932–33. At that time the Palificata did not exist and the heavy diesel trucks made a way through the hills with their double tyres. It is easy to keep to the track.’5 At 19:00 they stopped for the night, having covered 130 miles. Almásy hid four cans of petrol and two cans of water behind a crag for the return journey.
The next day they set off at 06:00 along the Trucchi Track, the ‘smugglers road’ past the danger zone of Kufra and due east of Jof, the main village of the Kufra Oasis. Almásy came across fresh tracks of more than 100 trucks. They could only be from British vehicles, and he was surprised: ‘I had no idea that enemy columns were running from the east toward Kufra.’ He changed course to follow the tracks; ‘Duney sand, heavy going. Tommy has also ploughed in deeply and often stuck.’ He thought the British might have used it only a few hours previously.
By the end of the day they had covered another 155 miles. They camped in the saddle between two hills and left another small supply dump, six cans of petrol, one can of water and a case of rations. Almásy wanted to radio a report but Woehrmann could not raise either Otter or Schildkroete.6
They left at 06:40 the next morning, 17 May. Almásy looked for his old route between Kufra and the Gilf Kebir plateau on the bearing 122, finding the Italian maps of little help, as they failed to show a range of hills that barred their way. This meant a detour south, where they came across the tracks of hundreds of vehicles and two abandoned Sudan Defence Force trucks, the odometer of one showing 433 miles. It was now obvious that Kufra was not supplied from the south, from French territory as previously thought, but rather from further north from Wadi Haifa and the head of the Sudan railway.
The going began to get very hard.
Dissected plateaux, soft shifting sand, tail dunes of the ‘giras’ sand hills’, he continually has to change course and bearings. Woehrmann is of little help, he … is not capable of reckoning bearings and distances for me. I am constantly forced to stop and to check the courses on the useless Italian map.7
Almásy found the way onto a stony plain of shale and suddenly the surface was much better; ‘At last we had good going again, and could make up for lost time.’8
However, it was clear that enemy vehicles were using the same route, so while the going was much better the men had to be cautious. Almásy soon spotted tell-tale clouds of dust ahead so they turned off the track and concealed the vehicles behind rocks. Climbing onto the roof of one of them, Almásy looked through binoculars and counted five dust plumes, five trucks, concluding that they ‘must drive carefully in order not to overtake the Tommy column inadvertently.’ Luck was on their side, as he also managed to see the outline of Gilf Kebir plateau on the eastern horizon, a familiar landmark. Within a few miles he would be able to use his own maps.
They drove through a narrow defile, and between two jutting white rocks Almásy called ‘the Gateway to Egypt’ the ‘el Bab el Misr’. At last ‘everything was familiar to me … Allahu Akhbar [God is great].’9
Soon the ground was red and sandy heading toward the Gilf Kebir; the tell-tale plumes of the British vehicles disappeared. At 18:30 they stopped for the night, hiding in the foothills of the Gilf. More supplies were unloaded for the return journey: six cans of petrol, three cans of water and a day’s ration for four men.
It was all a great strain on Almásy.
At night, my eyes burn painfully, and even when they’re closed I continue to see the compass needle, with the numbers dancing in the background. Who knows how many hundreds of kilometres we’ve driven, how many tracks we’ve crossed, how often tense watchfulness has succumbed to utter exhaustion. Driving, nonstop driving, always following the enemy tracks.
When the sun finally dips below the horizon and we stop in a favourite hideout, my men first set up a camp bed next to my car so that I can stretch out on it, with a cold compress over my eyes. This is my only privilege, and they insist on it. They know that I’m the most exhausted, with eyes burning from constantly staring at the compass.10
He also suffered bad bouts of insomnia.
Eppler was well aware how Almásy felt even without the strain of using the compass in the heat and glare.
No one wanted anything to eat. We had even almost forgotten our thirst. Hardly had the monotonous roar of the engines fallen silent than we lay down, just as we got out of the vehicles, right between them, utterly worn out. We pulled the blankets over our heads and slept as if we had died till daybreak.11
The next day they left one of the Bedfords at their camp, painting out the identification German crosses and removing everything that might give a clue to their mission. Almásy left a note in French, stating that the vehicle would be picked up when they ‘return from Kufra’. It was hoped that if the British found the vehicle they would think it was French.
The supplies were redistributed amongst the three remaining vehicles and the convoy set off at 09:25. They soon reached the Wadi Sura (the Valley of the Swimmers) a place familiar to Almásy, as it had made his reputation as an explorer. Nine years before he had discovered its cave paintings, and he showed these to his Salam companions.
Ten years earlier Almásy had sought and found the Oasis of the Little Birds, the ‘Zarsura’, in the Gilf Kebir. Together with the Englishman Clayton, who was knocking around not far from us as our enemy [by this time Clayton was in a POW camp in Italy], they had travelled down the Wadi Hamra and had found a hidden valley in the south, amid the high crags of the Gilf, which could only be the ‘Zarsura’ …
It was supposed to have been as green as the Garden of Eden and full of antelopes and gazelles. It was said to have been inhabited by thousands of small birds and to have had water. Above all water, any amount of it, flowing down the wadi.12
Further on they came across the three distinct craggy peaks of the Drei Burgen (Three Castles). Here Almásy had left a water store in 1932, topping it up in 1933, in a cave on the eastern ‘castle’.
There were eight cans. This store had saved the life of Almásy’s pre-war friend Ralph Bagnold in 1935, when the truck he and a companion were driving had broken down. The men of Operation Salam found that four of the tin cans had rusted through, but four were intact, and they found the water ‘excellent.’13 Eppler testified to this as he had a ‘canister of Nile water tipped over [his] head’. Almásy had promised to pour one over his ‘fat head’.14
From the heights Almásy spotted a group of parked enemy vehicles in the plain below, an area he had used as a landing strip in the 1930s. He watched them for a while but saw no sign of movement. He and Corporal Munz drove down in a Ford to take a look, and found six trucks of the Sudan Defence Force seemingly abandoned. The vehicles were laden with empty fuel drums, but the trucks’ fuel tanks were full, presumably left to be picked up on some return journey. Almásy realised that with this fuel he could easily reach his objective with the two Fords and even pick up one of the Bedfords on the way back. He would not have to worry about air re-supply, which was becoming a concern as radio contact was distinctly unreliable.
He signalled the rest of the team to come down and together they drained the fuel tanks into empty drums and loaded them onto the Bedford, some 500 litres (110 gallons) in all. They then incapacitated the enemy trucks by putting sand in the engines, taking care to leave no trace of sand around the oil filler caps. They left camp and travelled northeast, hiding the stolen fuel amongst some black rocks, ‘so that none could be seen, even from vehicles that might follow our tracks.’15
At last Woehrmann managed to raise Schildkroete and reported that they had reached the Gilf Kebir on 18 May. ‘Tortoise’ passed this on to Abteilung I at Panzerarmee Afrika, who responded that Salam’s messages were hard to read: ‘Please inform Salam’s W/T operator that his “handwriting” shows room for improvement.’ Was this rebuke intended for Salam or Schildkroete or both?16
On 19 May they set off at 07:15. Almásy had some difficulty finding the entrance to El Aqaba, which had been obscured through overuse by the British. After taking a new bearing he found the outlet of the Wadi, but he was worried that the British might have mined it.
For a moment I am beset by fear, perhaps they have mined the pass from above downwards or blown it up at its narrowest point. There was talk of that in 1937; I even had to give an opinion as to whether it was feasible.
I drive in front and look for traces of mines, but on reaching the top I find the solution to the puzzle. A number of enemy vehicles did indeed, about a year ago, drive down the great rift in the Gilf Kebir but did not find the entrance to the pass even up above and went down into the plain through ‘Penderel’s Wadi’ which is E of El Aqaba. Penderel’s Wadi is impassably low; it is a steep ravine with many twists and soft drifting sand. The English must have done some fine swearing.17
It was a bad day, as a spring broke on Almásy’s vehicle and they covered only 50 miles. The next day had better prospects, as Almásy found his old tracks and followed them, reaching the north point of the Gilf Kebir and then turning southeast. He had discovered the pass seven years before, and by keeping to his old route he got his men over the tail-dune that blocked the pass. The men under his command were a continual cause of irritation.
Pit as usual drives like a wild man and instead of following any track he drives ‘the President’ [one of the Fords] head over heels down over the steep part of the tail-dune. A miracle that the vehicle does not overturn at the bottom. Result: broken track-rod on the shock absorber.18
They stopped for the night at Zwei Bruste (Two Breasts) on the plain close to the eastern slope of the Gilf Kebir. Their usual habit was to park for the night in a staggered fashion, facing the wind, far enough apart so that if a fire broke out it would not spread rapidly. Fire was the greatest threat, there being fuel everywhere, in the vehicles, in cans, in the open primus stoves they cooked on.
One must be extremely cautious around the gas cans, which are always condensing. If we spend more than one night at the same spot, we unload the gas cans and place them beyond the reach of any windswept sparks.19
They set off again at 06:30 on 21 May, leaving behind another store of fuel and water. It was difficult country, the most difficult so far.
Low plateaus and over and over again small hills with the tail-dunes which are such a nuisance, broad plains with shale stretches and only now and again a piece of open serir. The vehicles suffer terribly on this kind of ground …20
Progress was slow to the area south of the Dakhla Oasis. There they left ‘Flitzer’ (the last of the Bedfords) at a mountain with two peaks, along with some fuel and water. According to Eppler, ‘Flitzer got irretrievably stuck in a fissure of rock on the Gilf. We were bound to lose one somewhere along the way. For all I know, it’s there to this day.’ They were in fact well past the Gilf Kebir by this time. Almásy does not mention this; would they have left fuel and water with a damaged vehicle?
Eppler found the journey arduous and hair-raising at times.
Most of the time on the way up to the Plateau the right wheel of the car was using only half the width of the tread. The other half was turning on air over a sheer drop of several hundred metres.21
They followed Ralph Bagnold’s mapped route part of the way, and Almásy ordered an early camp; the strain was starting to tell. ‘While I rest my eyes, the others perform the evening chores.’22 In fact he had little rest, as he was once again frustrated by his men, this time over communications. He found he had to repair the radio transformer himself: ‘Three radio-operators and a mechanic are not in a position to find out what is wrong. In this undertaking I always have to do everything myself.’ He discovered that the main feed line had been snagged and severed, and even though he got the transformer working he could not make radio contact. ‘Now the fault is supposed to be in the instrument itself! I am no radio mechanic and I can do no more to help. Tomorrow Pit must try with his instrument.’23
On 22 May they headed toward the Kharga Oasis. Almásy left another store of fuel and water to the south of Dakhla, in case he needed to take another route on the return journey. They then passed through an area where Almásy recalled hundreds of Sanusi refugees had been rescued by the Mamur of Dakhla, Abd er Rachman Zoher, who with two Fords had ferried them to the safety of the oasis. Forty would later die and a further 100 were not reached in time, but 300 had been saved. The Salam men saw the bleached white bones of humans and animals.
That evening Pit’s (Sandstette’s) transmitter was working but he could not raise Schildkroete at Jalo. What was Rommel’s signals branch doing? Almásy was furious.
I have scarcely enough petrol to get back. Everything was discussed and planned in detail … I was only to radio and they would drop fuel, water and food for me in any grid square I liked. Now the instrument which is tuned to our point of departure has fallen out and the called station on the other does not answer! Probably there’s another shift going on there. I begged them to leave Schildkroete at one fixed point.24
Almásy had to reconsider his limited fuel supply; he might just reach his objective if he took the road to the Kharga Oasis instead of the fuel-consuming dunes. The road meant a greater chance of running into a British patrol, but he considered that he had no choice. Even if he reached Kharga safely he knew he still might not have enough fuel for the return journey, and would have to ‘get petrol by cunning or force’.
That night they camped to the west of the Kharga Oasis. On 23 May they set off at the crack of dawn, prepared for a long day. Almásy was determined to get Pit and Pan as close to the Nile Valley city of Assiut as he could, but he wanted to be on his way back to Jalo before dark.
Nearing Kharga, Almásy told those in the following car to keep close, to stop when he stopped and to have their weapons at the ready. However, they were not to fire under any circumstances unless he did so first. They passed the railway station and on into the town square, where they were stopped by two ghaffirs (night watchmen-auxiliary police), one of whom was armed. Almásy coolly exchanged greetings in Arabic, and they told him to report to the Markas, the administration centre, where he would find their captain. Almásy countered by saying that he was merely carrying his Major’s luggage to the railway station and was in a hurry to catch a train. One of the watchmen rode on Almásy’s truck running board to point out the Markas, where they dropped him off.
In his account Eppler takes credit for getting them through the check point, claiming that he told the watchmen that he was an ‘Egyptian Divisonal Interpreter attached to a British General’, that the General was not far behind, was in a hurry and might ‘tear a big strip off him’ if delayed. According to him, at the mention of the General the ghaffir waved them on.25
They soon found the main road heading north and drove on through the oasis.
In the glow of the rising sun we drive through the most beautiful of all oases. On our right is the temple of Isis, then on the left the early Christian necropolis, the Roman citadel and the small watch towers and in between the most glorious spots of oasis with its bright green fields, the great shady lebah trees and the countless palms. The road is excellent.26
The road took them across the railway embankment, past the old POW camp at Moharig and along the Roman road which led on through the Yabsa Pass. At the Pass, Almásy stopped the party to have their photographs taken; in one shot he can be seen wearing his stained Afrika Korps uniform, standing beside a sign in English and Arabic: ‘DANGEROUS DESCENT/DRIVE IN BOTTOM GEAR.’
At 14:00, having left one car and two men concealed not far behind, Almásy, Pit, Pan and Munz reached the edge of the Egyptian Plateau within sight of Assiut. According to Eppler, Almásy brought the vehicle to a halt and said, ‘That’s it, chaps. Let’s keep it short.’
Eppler and Sandy – who would be known as Peter Monkaster from this point – changed into their civilian clothes.
I carefully checked all papers and other small details, such as my Egyptian driving licence, address book and club membership card – all those little things a man carries about with him in his pockets that prove he really is who he says he is … Almásy turned his truck around, the second truck followed him, and they were on their way back. [According to Almásy he did not take the second Ford to the drop-off point.] There we were, two agents who had to get to Cairo, despite the omnipresence of the British Army.27
Salam was over, Kondor had just begun.
See here for a list of abbreviations used in the below notes
1 IWM-LOP Operation… p.2
2 ibid, p.10
3 ibid, p.2
4 Kelly, p.205
5 IWM-LOP Operation… p.3
6 ibid, p.3
7 ibid, p.4
8 Eppler, p.208
9 IWM-LOP Operation… p.4
10 Almásy, p.96
11 Eppler, p.207
12 ibid, p.208–209
13 IWM-LOP Operation… p.5
14 Eppler, p.209
15 IWM-LOP Operation… p.6
16 GCCS 19/32 No 30887 18/5/1942
17 IWM-LOP Operation… p.6
18 ibid, p.8
19 Almásy, p.97
20 IWM-LOP Operation… p.9
21 Eppler, p.209
22 Almásy, p.98
23 IWM-LOP Operation… p.9
24 ibid, p.10
25 IWM-LOP Operation… p.12
26 Eppler, p.212
27 ibid, p.214