Ralph Bagnold: Difference between revisions

|birth_place = [[Plymouth]], (Stoke-Devonport)Devon, England

|serviceyears = 1915−19441915−1935, 1939-1944

|rank = [[Brigadier (United Kingdom)|Brigadier]] (Honorary)

|unit = [[Royal Engineers]]<br>[[Royal Corps of Signals]]

[[Brigadier (United Kingdom)|Brigadier]] '''Ralph Alger Bagnold''', [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]],<ref>[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?Edoc_Id=7681115&queryType=1&resultcount=1 Documents online: Ralph Alger Bagnold's OBE, awarded 8 July 1941.] The National Archives. Retrieved 22 May 2010.</ref> [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]],<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Kenn | first1 = M. J. | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1991.0003 | title = Ralph Alger Bagnold. 3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990 | journal = [[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 37 | pages = 56–68| year = 1991 | s2cid = 72031353 }}</ref> (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was an [[English people|English]] 20th-century desert explorer, [[geologist]] and soldier.

After [[Malvern College]], he attended the [[Royal Military Academy, Woolwich]]. In 1915, Ralph Bagnold followed in his father's footsteps and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers, after having graduated from the [[Royal Military Academy, Woolwich]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29063|page=1329|date=9 February 1915}}</ref>
He spent three years in [[Western Front (World War I)|the trenches in France]], being [[Mentioned in Despatches|mentioned in despatches]] in 1917 and receiving the Belgian [[Order of Leopold (Belgium)|Order of Leopold]] in 1919.<ref name=hh>{{cite web|last=Houterman|first=Hans|author2=Koppes, Jeroen |title=British Army Officers – 1939–1945: Babbage, C.A.E. to Bartlett, W.J.O.|work=World War II Unit Histories|url=http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_B01.html|access-date=12 December 2010}}</ref>

After the war Bagnold studied engineering at [[Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge|Gonville and Caius College]] at the [[University of Cambridge]], obtaining an [[Master of Arts (Oxbridge and Dublin)|MA]] before returning to active duty with the British Army in 1920 with the [[Royal Corps of Signals]]. He served in [[Cairo]] and the [[North-West Frontier Province (1901–55)|North West Frontier]], India, where he was again mentioned in dispatches.<ref name=hh /> In both of these locations, he spent much of his leave exploring the local [[deserts]]. After having read [[Ahmed Hassanein]]'s "Lost Oasis" he spent one such expedition in 1929 using a [[Ford Model A (1927–31)|Ford Model A]] automobile and two Ford lorries exploring the vast swathe of desert from Cairo to Ain Dalla which was an area reputed to contain the mythical city of [[Zerzura]]. After a brief period of [[half-pay]], he left the Army in 1935, but rejoined upon the outbreak of the Second World War.<ref name=hh />

Bagnold and his travelling companions were early pioneers in the use of motor vehicles to explore the desert. In 1932 Bagnold explored the [[Mourdi Depression]], in present-day [[Chad]], and found implements dated to the [[Palaeolithic]] period in the valley.<ref name="Archäologie1977">{{cite book|last=Archäologie|first=Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Zentralinstitut für Alte Geschichte und|title=The Archaeological Map of the Sudan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmtBAQAAIAAJ|year=1977|publisher=Akademie-Verlag|page=26}}</ref> Bagnold wrote of his travels in the book ''[[Libyan Sands|Libyan Sands: Travel in a Dead World]]'' (first published 1935; reprinted by [[Eland Books|Eland]] in 2010).<ref>{{cite web|work=Travels in a Dead World|title=Libyan Sands|publisher=Eland Books|url= https://www.travelbooks.co.uk/shop-online-books/libyansands |access-date = 12 September 2016}}</ref> He is credited with developing a [[Solar compass|sun compass]], which is not affected by the largemagnetic iron ore deposits found in the [[desert]] areas or by metal vehicles as a [[magnetic compass]] might be. During the 1930s his group also began the practice of reducing [[tyre (wheel)|tyre]] [[pressure]] when [[driving]] over loose sand.

Bagnold wrote, "Never in our peacetime travels had we imagined that war could ever reach the enormous empty solitudes of the inner desert, walled off by sheer distance, lack of water, and impassable seas of sand dunes. Little did we dream that any of the special equipment and techniques we had evolved for very long-distance travel, and for navigation, would ever be put to serious use."{{cn |date=March 2024 }}

On 10 June 1940 Italy declared war on the United Kingdom in alliance with [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] while Bagnold was in Cairo due to an accident involving a troopship collision that he was on interrupting his journey elsewhere. Upon hearing the news and realizing that [[North Africa]] was about to become a theatre of war, he requested an interview with General [[Archibald Wavell]], Commander-in-Chief Middle East. Having secured it, Bagnold suggested that Wavell use his knowledge of the terrain in North Africa to establish a mobile scouting force for desert operations against the Italian Armed Forces in Libya, which Wavell was charged with defeating in the field. During the conversation Wavell asked Bagnold what he would do if he found that the Italians were not doing anything beyond the Libyan coast in the desert interior. Bagnold replied that the new unit that he had in mind might be able to commit "acts of piracy". Wavell granted Bagnold authority to form a unit along these lines, with it being constituted in July 1940 with the name [[Long Range Desert Group]] (L.R.D.G.). After assembling its first formation, Bagnold was the L.R.D.G.'s Commandingcommanding Officerofficer until August 1941, when he handed over command to [[Guy Prendergast (British Army officer)|Guy Prendergast]] on being promoted to the post of Inspector of Desert Troops. Later in the war he was promoted to the post of Deputy Signal Officer-in-Chief Middle East, with the temporary rank of [[Brigadier (United Kingdom)|Brigadier]].{{citation needed|date=February 2020}}

[[Category:FluidBritish fluid dynamicists]]