When on leave in Cairo the Pyramids were a must to visit, at least for these Royal Navy nurses. Second from the left is the author’s aunt. (Olive Hard Collection)
Cairo White Domes of the Mohammed Ali Mosque at the Citadel. (Olive Hard Collection)
The Kharga Oasis, used by both the Allied and Axis forces during the war.
An Egyptian snake charmer. (Olive Hard Collection)
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr. (Akg-images)
An Italian Auto-Saharan desert patrol. (Revista Militar Italy)
László Almásy and Nickolaus Ritter planning a desert operation.
The Grand Mufti, Hadji Mohammed Amin el Husseini, in Berlin.
Major A.W. Sansom, head of British Field Security, Cairo.
Heinrich Gerd Sandstette and Johannes Eppler before they set off on Operation Salam.
The Egyptian Sand Sea. (Almásy Hungarian National Geographic Centre)
Cave paintings at the Gilf Kebir. (Almásy Hungarian National Geographic Centre)
The Gilf Kebir from the air.
The Gilf Kebir plateau. (Almásy Hungarian National Geographic Centre)
Almásy at a road sign near Assiut, taken before dropping Eppler and Sandstette off in the desert. (Revista Militar Italy)
Eppler in Cairo, 1942, dressed in the uniform of an officer of the Rifle Brigade.
Likely cover of the Rebecca edition used in Operation Kondor. (Bookends of Fowey)
Rommel the Desert Fox; always up with the action, here in winter 1941. (US National Archives)
The Jalo Oasis and Axis camp, drawn by Eppler under interrogation. (Public Records Office)
The burial site of equipment near Assiut, drawn by Eppler under interrogation. (Public Records Office)
Anti-aircraft fire over the desert near a field hospital. (Olive Hard Collection)
General Bernard Law Montgomery, the Eighth Army commander, with General Dempsey, Brigadier Hayman-Joyce and Major Sansom, shown here leaving GHQ Cairo.
Montgomery on the move. (US National Archives)
Nickolaus Ritter. seen here in Hamburg after the war, while he was working for the CIA.
Eppler and the biographer Leonard Mosley in discussion.
The bust of László Almásy at the Hungarian Geographical Museum in Érd. (Hungarian National Geographic Centre)