Edward Cecil Mitford Edward " Teddy " Cecil Osbaldeston Mitford was a British officer in the British Army during the Second World War and after . He was an explorer of the Sahara desert before the war which was instrumental in his becoming one of the original members of the Long Range Desert Group . He later commanded five armoured regiments ( three in action ) and an armoured brigade . He was also a member of the Mitford family from Northumberland . History . Early life . Born in London on 20 November 1908 , Edward Cecil Osbaldeston Mitford was the son of an officer in the British Indian Army . He was educated at the Haileybury and Imperial Service College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . After graduating from Sandhurst he was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion , Royal Tank Corps . In the 1930s Mitford was one of several young army officers who started exploring the interior of the Libyan Desert . He learned to speak Arabic and was involved in the development of the sun compass . Posted to Palestine in 1936 , the following year he married his first wife Margaret Greaves . Second World War . Serving in Egypt with the 7th Armoured Division at the start of the Second World War , Mitford was approached by a friend and fellow explorer Major Ralph Alger Bagnold and asked to join a new unit he was forming . Bagnold knew Mitford was one of the few Englishmen who had been to Kufra . Bagnold had been given permission from General Archibald Wavell the Commander of Middle East Command in Alexandria to form the Long Range Desert Group ( LRDG ) or as it was then called the Long Range Patrol . Mitford was promoted to captain and in September 1940 , during the Italian invasion of Egypt , led his LRDG patrol from Cairo deep into Libya on their first reconnaissance mission . The patrol crossed the Libyan Desert to the Jalo oasis and Kufra . It raided two enemy emergency landing grounds , destroying unguarded aircraft and a considerable amount of aviation spirit and a supply convoy carrying petrol and official mail . The effectiveness of this first patrol was reflected by the Italians having to reduce their front line forces , and reinforce the troops garrisoning the area , from 2 , 900 men to 5 , 500 by November 1940 . The first patrol was followed by another in November . Mitford ' s patrol was operating close to Uweinat when it was spotted by an Italian bomber . Caught in the open , the patrol was bombed for more than an hour . The next day , Mitford led an attack on an Italian post at Ain Dua , engaging it with the patrol ' s Bofors 37 mm and killing a number of the garrison without loss to the patrol . For his actions during these first patrols Mitford was awarded the Military Cross . In 1941 , Mitford was promoted to Major and given command of A Squadron , LRDG , which at the time comprised ' G ' ( Guards ) and ' Y ' ( Yeomanry ) patrols . The squadron ' s main task was to keep a watch on the German and Italian southern flank . In March 1941 Mitford led his squadron into Cyrenaica with the intention of establishing a new forward operating base for the LRDG at Siwa oasis . On route they located a track that was the main axis for the German and Italian advance on Tobruk . In 1942 Mitford was posted to command the 1st Battalion Royal Tank Regiment ( 1 RTR ) during the battle of Alam Halfa and the first and second battles of El Alamein . Afterwards he was given command of 6 RTR . In 1943 he was posted to the 22nd Armoured Brigade as second in command . After attending the Staff College at Haifa , he served in staff appointments in Sicily and Cyprus . He was then given command of his third regiment , 3 RTR , in Northwest Europe which saw action in the Netherlands and the Ardennes , ending the war on the Elbe River . Post war . After the war , Mitford served with the occupation forces in Germany before returning to England to command the 66th Training Regiment at Catterick Garrison . This was followed by a staff appointment as GSO1 in Ankara and his final regimental command , 5 RTR , which at the time was stationed in Germany . His next command was the 4th Armoured Brigade of the Arab Legion . He led the brigade until 1956 . The following year , Mitford returned to Ankara as the military attache at the British Embassy . He then served as the military assistant to the Commander - in - Chief , Eastern Command , until he finally retired from the army in 1966 . Mitford then returned to his family home in Mitford , Northumberland . In 1949 he had remarried , this time to Patricia Kirrage , who would predecease him in 1993 . Both of his marriages were childless . In 1970 , after the death of his father , he inherited the family estate at Mitford . Mitford worked to support the local community and raised money for the church before he died on 16 July 2002 .