The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)

'Sans Peur' 'Ne Obliviscaris'

A Snapshot of Service 'A' Company Libyan Desert Training - 1958 Map of Libya	from the A&SH tray.......... Cyprus, military intelligence informed us that Colonel Grivas was in a Greek Cypriot mountain village. Operation 'Kingfisher' was mounted and a massive cordon of troops surrounded the village during the night. Each soldier was lying 10 yards apart with instructions to shoot anyone who moved. Middle of the night, a machine gun goes off. Everybody was petrified, but no one dared move. Next morning we found a dead donkey, shot by an 'A' Company bren gunner. Later that day when 'A' Company went into the cookhouse, the whole Battalion chanted - 'Hee, haw! Hee, haw!'

Background Information The Libyan Desert constitutes that part of the northeastern Sahara Desert which stretches from eastern Libya, into Egypt and to the northwest of Sudan. The area in Egypt known as the Western Desert, was the scene of extensive military operations during World War II. For example, on the 9th and 10th December 1940, British and Indian divisions launched a counter-offensive codenamed Operation Compass against the Italian 10th Army at Sidi Barrani.	And the port of Tobruk, occupied by the Italian 10th Army commanded by Graziani fell to Australian troops on 21st January 1942 after a 12-day siege - 27,000 Italian prisoners were taken. The Libyan desert terrain is harsh, arid, rocky and bare. The very few inhabitants who reside there mainly concentrate around the oases of Egypt and the Libyan oasis of al-Kufrah. Throughout our stay in the desert, we did not see any of the desert-dwelling or nomadic people, but we did see the odd Thompson gazelle, locust and hawk. I clearly remember some members of the platoon chasing gazelle across the desert at a terrific skelp in the back of a Landrover.

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