A HUNGARIAN EXPLORER AND AVIATOR, László Almásy’s life story was to become the stuff of books and films. A tall and slender man, he had a large, curved nose giving him a bird-like appearance, although he had an engaging, shy smile. He was also a chain smoker, seldom seen without a cigarette. He first learned to fly in England, when he was sent to a small private school in Eastbourne at 17 Carew Road run by Mr Daniel Wheeler; at fifteen he was a hopeless student. Even the redoubtable Mr Wheeler, MA, FRGS, could not improve his academic abilities. However Almásy did join the fledgling Eastbourne Flying Club where he obtained his first pilot’s licence aged seventeen. Motoring was another of his passions, and in November 1913 he was fined for ‘driving a motor car at a dangerous speed’ in Eastbourne.1
At the start of the First World War Almásy returned home and with his brother Janos joined the 11th Hussars Regiment. He fought against the Serbs and Russians, and after a period of leave in 1916 he transferred to the Austro-Hungarian Air Force and took to the air against the Italians. In one engagement his aircraft was badly shot up and he was wounded, but managed to get the aircraft back before crash landing on friendly soil. After recovering from his wounds he spent the last months of the conflict as a flight instructor.
At the end of the war Hungary lost much of her territory and came under a revolutionary communist regime. Almásy took up arms in a counter revolution with nationalist forces ousting the communists, during which thousands of pro-communists were massacred in Budapest.
In the early 1920s Almásy came to the attention of Steyr Automobile, an Austrian company founded by Hans Ledwinka in 1915. They offered him a job, inviting him to go to Africa to establish their brand name in the lucrative Egyptian market; while in their employment Almásy won several car races using Steyr vehicles. It was while in Egypt in 1926, during a drive to the Sudan, that Almásy became interested in the desert. In 1932 he took part in the expedition to find the legendary lost oasis of Zerzura – ‘The Oasis of the Birds’ – with three Britons, Sir Robert Clayton-East-Clayton, Squadron leader Hugh Penderel and Patrick Clayton. The expedition used cars and an aeroplane, cataloguing prehistoric rock art sites such as the ‘cave of the swimmers’ in Uweinat and the Gilf Kebir, both already well known to the Bedouin Arabs and attributed to the djinn (unpredictable spirits). The Bedouin gave Almásy the nickname Abu Romia (Father of the Sands).
In 1932 Sir Robert Clayton-East-Clayton died in England, almost certainly from an infection picked up during the exhausting search for the Zerzura. His wife Dorothy, an accomplished pilot in her own right, went to Egypt after his death, determined to locate the Zerzura and complete his work. The 1933 expedition to the western edge of the Gilf escarpment was led by Patrick Clayton, who would later help form the British Long Range Desert Group during the Second World War.
It is said that Lady Dorothy did not like Almásy, she would not even shake hands with him; Patrick’s wife Ellie felt the same and ‘simply couldn’t stand him’. Dorothy thought him untrustworthy and both women were aware of the Cairo gossip concerning his fondness for young men, although he also had a reputation as a womaniser, probably created as a smokescreen. John Bierman in his account of Almásy’s life states that he was bisexual rather than homosexual, but whatever the truth, given the attitudes of the time it is perhaps not surprising that these women shunned him.2 Later that year, Dorothy, having returned to England, died in a mysterious plane crash at Brooklands Aero Club, close to the motor racing circuit in Surrey. Although the coroner returned the verdict of ‘death by misadventure’, some eyewitnesses believe she could have landed the plane but instead flung herself from the cockpit and that she had committed suicide.
Almásy went on to explore the area of the Gilf Kebir plateau and the Egyptian Sand Sea up until 1936. The expeditions were often funded by the wealthy Egyptian Prince Kemal ed Din, a desert explorer in his own right, who had written about the Gilf Kebir for National Geographic in 1921.3
On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland; two days later Britain and France declared war. For Almásy there could hardly have been a worse scenario. He had seen it coming and knew that his country, Hungary, was likely to ally itself with Germany. It is said that Almásy approached Sir Thomas Russell Pasha, Chief of the Cairo Police – a tall, handsome and cultured man who loved Egypt and hunting in the desert – offering his services as a desert adviser and guide to the British Army.4 His offer, if it was ever made, was turned down. Almásy was advised to leave Egypt or risk internment. The British thought he was an Italian spy, while the Italians thought he was a British spy. This confusion may have come about because of his willingness to work as a surveyor for whichever colonial power paid the most. He was often strapped for cash.
The Middle East, Libya, Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.
It appears he left Cairo, flying himself, on 22 July 1939. Back home he became a reserve lieutenant and flight instructor with the Royal Hungarian Air Force. He came to the attention of the German Abwehr when his book The Unknown Sahara, first published in 1934, was released in a German edition in 1939. It landed on the desk of Major Franz Seubert, head of North African affairs, and while the Germans considered North Africa and the Mediterranean mainly an Italian concern, Seubert was recruiting useful people with Middle Eastern knowledge. He put it to his colleague, Luftwaffe Major Nickolaus Ritter (who had responsibility for the Balkans) that he might like to sound Almásy out the next time he was in Budapest.
Ritter met Almásy in Budapest, at his ground floor flat, part of the Almásy family mansion on 29 Miklos Horthy Avenue.5 He thought him ‘a cavalier of the old school’, but was generally impressed. During one visit Almásy revealed that he was on good terms with General Aziz el Masri, an Egyptian nationalist whom the British had had removed from his position as chief of staff of the army. It dawned on Ritter that Almásy might persuade El Masri to come over to them. They talked over plans to get the General out of Egypt and to Berlin, from where he might be able to foster rebellion within the Egyptian Army. Almásy felt it could be done; he was invited to Hamburg to discuss details and was seconded from the Hungarian Air Force to the Luftwaffe. There is no doubt Almásy was itching to get back to the desert and he would have overplayed his hand, a fact Ritter and Seubert were well aware of. However the plan remained at the back of Ritter’s mind.6
It was not until February 1941, when the Germans arrived in North Africa, that Ritter’s Commando within the 10th Fliegerkorps began to take shape, comprised of Abwehr men. Their role was initially to get General el Masri to Germany, but their secondary role was to get agents into Egypt, both of which would be aided by Almásy’s skill as a pilot and desert explorer.7
Before Almásy left for North Africa, to work with the Germans, a friend asked him how he was able to accept working against the British, many of whom were his friends. He replied all would be within ‘military honour’. But he also confided, ‘The only thing that really interests me there is to dig out Combyses.’ Rommel could supply the petrol to do so. He was referring to the lost Persian army of Combyses, which Almásy had been searching for in 1935. According to Herodotus, the 50,000-strong army had vanished in the desert over 2000 years ago, while marching from Thebes, via Kharga, to subdue the Kingdom of Siwa; but it never reached Siwa or returned to Egypt.8
See here for a list of abbreviations used in the below notes
1 Bierman, J., The Secret Life of László Almásy p 18
2 ibid, p.253
3 Cooper, A., Cairo in the War 1939–1945 p.204
4 Bierman, p 131
5 ibid, p.128
6 KV/2/1467 bitter personal glory
7 Carell, P., The Foxes of the Desert p.205
8 Rawlinson, G., Herodotus p.426