Pat Clayton
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Captain Patrick Andrew Clayton DSO served in the British Army's Long Range Desert Group during World War II. He was one of the first men recruited by Bagnold to form the LRDG. Clayton spent nearly 20 years with the Egyptian Survey department during the 1920's and 1930's extensively mapping large areas of previously unmapped desert.In 1931, Clayton was running triangulation from Wadi Halfa to Uweinat when he came across refugees fleeing from the Italian occupation of Kufra, via Uweinat and made helped save many from death in the arid desert. Clayton had collaboratad extensively with Bagnold in the preparation and mapping associated with Bagnolds pre-war exploration trips.
At the start of the war Clayton was a government surveyor in Tanganyika. Bagnold had him returned to Egypt because of his detailed knowledge of the Western Desert.
Clayton was leading "T" Patrol in a planned attack on Kufra when the patrol was engaged by the Italian Auto-Saharan Company on December 31st 1941, near Gebel Sherif. During the action Captain Claytons was wounded and his car damaged. He along with his colleagues was taken Prisoner of war. He was moved to the Abruzzo region in Italy where he was visited by Laszlo Almasy after Almasy spy mission, Operation Salam, to transport two German spies across the Libyan desert to Cairo.
He died in 1962.
[edit] See also
[edit] External Links
- British Special Forces Roll of Honour
- New Zealand Electronic Text centre on the LRDG, 1940-41
- LRDG Preservation Society
[edit] References
- Desert Explorer: A Biography of Colonel P.A.Clayton by Peter Clayton
- Libyan Sands, Travel in a dead world about the travels of R.A.Bagnold by Ralph Alger Bagnold
- Long Range Desert Group about the LRDG by Bill Kennedy Shaw
- The Long Range Desert Group about the LRDG by David Lloyd Owen
- The Hunt for Zerzura and World War II about members of the Zerzura Club in World War II by Saul Kelly
- The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy by John Bierman
