LOST IN LIBYA - IN SEARCH OF THE LONG RANGE DESERT GROUP

Rights Information
Year
2009
Reference
F114311
Media type
Moving image
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Rights Information
Year
2009
Reference
F114311
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online

This content is for private viewing only. The material may not always be available for supply.
Click for more information on rights and requesting.

Place of production
New Zealand/Aotearoa
Categories
Television
Duration
1:05:20
Broadcast Date
25/04/2009
Production company
PACFIC SCREEN, BEACON HILL PICTURES
Credits
Narrator: Dan Henry
Director: Dan Henry
Producer: Amanda Evans
Editor: Murray Ferguson
Camera: Ivars Berzins
Sound: Anthony Spear
Researcher: Kate Manson

''Three amateur historians venture 4000kms into the Libyan Sahara retracing the footsteps of their wartime heroes in search of Gebel Sherif, the only battlefield where New Zealanders fought during WWII that remains untouched. New Zealander and world expert on the LRDG, Brendan O'Carroll, historian Kuno Gross a Swiss engineer working in Libya, and their Italian friend and fellow history buff Roberto Chiarvetto, share a fascination with LRDG and its Italian counterpart The Autosahariana.
Lost In Libya follows these men on their journey into the Libyan Desert. Lost In Libya is also the story of the men who travelled those same sand dunes 70 years earlier. The LRDG was an elite force, expert in navigation, desert warfare and survival. As the war in North Africa intensified, the British knew the only way to make headway was to come at the enemy from the last place it would expect - the uncharted desert to the South. For this, they needed men who could handle heavy trucks over the unpredictable sand, knew their way around an engine and would just get on with the job: they called in the Kiwis. The LRDG's main objective was to provide detailed maps and information about enemy positions from deep behind enemy lines in the Libyan Desert - all without being detected. Each patrol was completely self-sufficient, capable of travelling for hundreds of kilometres over barren unmapped country for weeks at a time. Through interviews with some of the last surviving members of the LRDG, Lost In Libya tells just how effective this relatively small group was.
Documentary about the Long Range Desert Group, the forerunner of the SAS during the Second World War. They were an elite raiding group of 30 (at any 1 time) made up of entirely of Kiwis, mostly farmers serving in the army.
Follows amateur historian Brendan O’Carol as he travel to Libya in search of any traces that might have been left by the group.'' TVNZ; tvnz.co.nz; 27/05/2009

Interview with former LRDG recruits: Keith Yealands. Tom Ritchie, Peter Garland.