Sand, Wind, and War: Memoirs of a Desert Explorer

by Ralph Alger Bagnold

Records the work, travels, and adventures of one of the last of the great British explorers, a man who served in both world wars and carved out a special niche in science through his studies of desert sands.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History, Africa

209 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1991

About the author

Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, FRS[1] OBE, (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was the founder and first commander of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group during World War II. He is also generally considered to have been a pioneer of desert exploration, an acclaim earned for his activities during the 1930s. These included the first recorded east-west crossing of the Libyan Desert (1932). Bagnold was also a veteran of World War I. He laid the foundations for the research on sand transport by wind in his influential book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes (first published 1941; reprinted by Dover in 2005), which is still a main reference in the field. It has, for instance, been used by NASA in studying sand dunes on Mars.

Reviews

[Jonathan]

An interesting memoir, modestly written, by an intellectually and physically courageous and durable man, of the sort who maintained the British Empire. He’s mainly known today as the founder of the lengendary Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) which conducted behind-the-lines surveillance and raiding against the Italians and Germans in Libya during World War II. For those interested in the LRDG, a good portion of the memoir is devoted to Bagnold’s war, and is preceded by his pre-war desert explorations, mapping and equipment work which later enabled the LRDGs profound success.

Bagnold followed his father into engineering through the Army, and this memoir includes his early upbringing, service in WW I, engineering work around the world which allowed him to see and spend time in season me amazing places, and his later life. He also covers his initial scientific insights and his research and experimentation agenda leading to his authoritative and award-winning discoveries in the areas of blown sand and later material transport in flowing water. Some of his descriptions of the physics of sand and sediment flow (and also of the operation of Bagnold’s sun compass) are mildly technical and sent this reader in search of clearer and/or illustrated explanations. Bagnold likely expected readers to resort to his primary works in those fields, perhaps because he wrote this originally for his family, but he editors might have included some diagrams.

One of the things that I found most enjoyable — after the desert exploration and the exciting LRDG work — were the little asides, curious or witty or very observant, with which Bagnold often concludes his various anecdotes of travels and other life circumstances. For instance, he had traveled to Ankara with another officer to see about improving signaling capabilities. When paying the hotel bills, he questioned why his room cost twice that of his colleague and was told that his room was guaranteed to be free of bedbugs....

[Marieke]

The author, an English gentleman and sister of the woman who wrote , wrote this memoir in his nineties, originally intending it to be for his family. his life was really interesting so thankfully he was convinced to publish it as a book for the general public. the tone is conversational and he sometimes makes quirky little remarks at the end of a thought, sharing the memory of a detail that isn't at all relevant to the point of the particular story he had just shared. I quite enjoyed that and chuckled aloud at many of his remarks and observations.

Bagnold was born at the end of the nineteenth century, served in both WWI (fighting in France) and WWII (stationed in Egypt and lead an operation into Libya), traveled all over the world (North Africa and East Africa, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, India, the tribal territories of what became Pakistan, Japan, Southeast Asia, the United States) and managed to retain sharp, vivid memories of his experiences, telling of his life all the way through the 1980s. At the end of the book he was sometimes quite bemused at all the changes in the world he had experienced, as well as the age at which he did certain things. As an older/old man, he traveled back to places he had visited as a very young man, taking the time to reflect and remember himself in his youth, as well as to take stock of profound changes in the areas.

i wouldn't call this a literary or even journalistic memoir, but rather like sitting with and listening to your favorite old person, one who happens to be very spry and articulate. i recommend it to anyone who enjoys tales of British adventurers or who takes an interest in the Middle East and Africa or Asia. there are moments of scientific thought related to his life-long pursuit of understanding the movements of sand dunes and solids in water, but Bagnold does not belabor his points so as to not bog things down for the non-scientific reader like myself.

[Keith]

If you are even the least bit interested in history or fascinating individuals, read this book. Ralph Bagnold was a fascinating person and this book continually amazed me. I wish I could have met him in person. Unfortunately it's hard to find a copy for less than several hundred dollars but if you're in Minnesota the MNLink system is generous enough to lend it to your local library.

[Mark]

A memoir of an amazing life. I started this because I was researching WW2's Long Range Desert Group for my wargame podcast. That's part of this story from its founder, but Bagnold's autobiography has many more tales than that. What a delight to find it ultimately crossed indirectly to my own work with spacecraft on the surface of Mars.

[Dave]

There might be some good stuff in this book. But after about 100 pages of boring drivel, I gave up.

[Elayne Gallagher]

Wasn't able to open it after paying for it.

[Kate]

Recommended by william langewiesche in Sahara Unveiled