David Lloyd Owen - Böcker

This splendid record takes the reader behind enemy lines not only in North Africa but in Italy, the Aegean and the Balkans.The Author, who commanded the LRDG, paints a vivid picture of the unit's colourful characters: for example, Ralph Bagnold who put to good use the knowledge he gained from his pre-war desert travels.The LRDG was truly international with New Zealanders and Rhodesians playing key roles.This classic book won acclaim from the critics on its first publication by virtue of the author's unique knowledge, experience and narrative skills.

In mid 1941, David Lloyd Owen, aged 24, joined the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) as a young patrol commander. He soon found his feet learning the arts of survival and navigation deep in the Libyan desert, and recounts in detail the characters in his Y Patrol, their operational methods, their team spirit and camaraderie.The LRDG was primarily concerned with reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, but was also allowed the occasional ‘beat-up’. With astonishing navigational skills based on their founder Bagnold’s invention of the sun-compass and unparalleled long-distance signal communications, the LRDG became masters of the deep desert – an area that was effectively a no-go zone for the Axis forces.Here, Lloyd Owen describes the origins of the LRDG and the formation and first operations of the SAS under David Stirling, and how the two units worked so closely and successfully together for the rest of the campaign in the desert and thereafter. ‘Popski’s Private Army’ also worked with the LRDG and the author recounts his contacts with them.For many months a significant part of the LRDG’s work involved keeping a watch on the main coast road, counting all enemy traffic and movement in both directions along it, and passing invaluable intelligence immediately back to HQ in Cairo. Other patrols not on the Road Watch were tasked with all kinds of jobs, and Y Patrol was involved in the 1942 raid on Tobruk, after which Lloyd Owen was badly wounded by a Heinkel cannon. He describes their tough military role fulfilled by hand-picked, highly trained and disciplined men, relieved by occasional raucous and happy breaks back in the flesh pots of wartime Cairo.The Desert My Dwelling Place covers Lloyd Owen’s own triumphs and frustrations, as well as those of the LRDG during the desert campaign, which ended with Rommel being finally driven out of North Africa after Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein.

Two hundred years ago, Wales was an all but forgotten corner of England. Travelling across its remote uplands between scattered settlements was often a challenge as was entering a land close to home where few people outside its towns spoke English. It was rarely visited without good reason. A Wilder Wales introduces readers to the sheer breadth of experiences these travellers had, through extracts from 35 books, journals and periodicals, written between 1609 and 1831.

David Lloyd Owen introduces us to the breadth of travellers' tales from a mysterious and absorbing country in a fascinating compendium. A Wilder Wales highlights the astonishing transformation of Wales from poor rural backwater to the crucible of the industrial revolution and offers readers an insight into the ways in which outsiders viewed the land and its people.

Therefore, instead of advocating new funding, this book proposes addressing the funding gap through technological innovation and more efficient management and procurement through a series of examples that have challenged traditional assumptions.