LRDG / Ken Lazarus

Does anybody know about an eventual account about Captain Ken Lazarus who was with the LRDG?

 

Can you be a bit more specific, Kuno?

H

 

Kuno,

I do not know if this of help to you.

On D Minus 7 (Sept 6th) the main part of Force B left Cairo for Tobruk, which was 300 miles behind the lines but a distance of 1800 miles by their roundabout route. Morris says the raiders left Kufra on Sept. 5th, however, to travel the 800 miles to Tobruk - which seems much more likely and is in any case borne out by Lloyd-Owen's report , which says they left at 1706 hrs precisely on that day.

Gordon Landsborough describes how they travelled south to El Kharga (500 miles inland), then west to Kufra (to meet the SIG) and then north to Hatiet Etla. Here, 90 miles from the target, they rested on the night of Sept. 10th (Kennedy-Shaw - see below - however, does not even mention the SIG as taking part in the raid, possibly for security reasons when writing his book! I am grateful to Captain, now General, David Lloyd Owen, for pointing this out to me - letter 13.12.99). The plan was for them - at 2am on the 14th - to call in Force C from seaward , if they had managed to silence the guns of Mersa Umm es Sciausc. (A Jewish British officer and LRDG survey/cartography expert, Capt. Ken Lazarus, was with SAS Sqdn 2 with Stirling, the same night when they launched a diversionary attack at Benghazi - an SIG man was on this raid too.

From:
AFRIKA AXIS-ALLIED: OPERATION AGREEMENT

Regards
Tom

 

Lazarus was 'The' surveyor of the LRDG. working from Kufra with the SDF (to which he belonged before joining the LRDG). In 1943 he was commander of S1.Patrol (not sure any more) and was running into the clash with 'Sonderkommando Dora' in Wadi Zemzem (together with Popski).

Is there any publication about / from him?

 

Kuno, being jewish it is possible that he did not fight under his real name. I have had a look for an obituary but nothing comes up of significance, but there are a couple of Kenneth Lazarus's who have died on ancestry who would be in the right timeframe

 

I was told once that after the war, he lifed in Spain.

 

This may be in the wrong direction but there was a K.M Lazarus who wrote a training manual for the Home Guard :
GUNS FOR THE HOME GUARD: LAZARUS. K. M. - AbeBooks - Anitabooks

 

...I would rather look for something about the SDF and the LRDG....