words and pictures Michael Brown
Michael Brown joins a Popski’s Private Expeditions tour to Tunisia in search of World War Two artefacts
In January 1943, seven vehicles of a Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) patrol were destroyed in an air attack in southern Tunisia. The site was rediscovered in 2022 by an expedition group called Popski’s Private Expeditions (PPE).
In 2023, a further PPE expedition returned to Tunisia with two objectives; first, to further investigate the air attack site, and second, to find and document the location of the New Zealand Corps concentration area, where Kiwi, British and Indian troops spent a week preparing for the left hook attack behind the Mareth Line in March 1943. The concentration area was near Wilder’s Gap – a mountain pass found by New Zealand LRDG patrol commander Captain Nick Wilder to enable the New Zealand Corps to outflank Axis forces.
PPE is named for the World War Two Popski’s Private Army (PPA), founded by Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Peniakoff, nicknamed “Popski”. PPA was a small, SAS-style British Army unit which carried out reconnaissance operations in heavily armed Jeeps. Popski and his unit operated with the famed LRDG in Libya and Egypt, arriving in …
