Merlyn Craw M.M.

4th October 1915 - 17 January 2003

In February 1941 there was a call for volunteers for the LRDG. Merlyn was selected along with 4 others from a group of about 60. He was sure this photograph of himself, Les McIver and Bill Forbes was taken on their first day of being in the LRDG. It was taken in front of their barracks at the Citadel in Cairo. His first trip was to Giarabub where T patrol relieved R patrol. Because the new Ford trucks were still being commissioned, they used the R patrol trucks and Merlyn was on the Rotowero with Les McIver and Eric Carter. Merlyn said they were the new men, and treated with a little disdain by the old crowd.

Merlyn went on to serve with the LRDG until his capture in 1942. He escaped a year later, went back home for a short period and then returned to eventually finish his time in WW II with the LRDG in Italy.

Merlyn Craw will be remembered in history books for his actions at Barce for which he received the Military Medal. This raid, with T1 Patrol of the Long Range Desert Group, was on an airfield which is still in use today, outside of the town of Barce in Libya. The aim was to destroy the aircraft that were on the ground there. Merlyn was on the last of 1 jeep and 4 trucks which were circling the airfield, with the men firing at the aircraft and setting them on fire. At the same time they were under fire from the Italians, some of whom were firing machine guns from the tops of the buildings. Merlyn, on the last truck, placed his home-made bombs on top of the wings above the fuel tanks of any aircraft that weren't already burning. These were set to explode shortly afterwards. Merlyn destroyed 10 planes. Merlyn said that in the Barce raid, where no-one was injured on the airfield, it was not due to good luck but because the Patrol had good fire power and good gunners. Merlyn saw his medal as not only for his actions, but for the whole patrol. He said they only had so many medals to give out, and he was the lucky one.

Although this is how history will remember Merlyn Craw, he once said to me that if he wanted to be remembered for anything it was for arming T1 Patrol with decent machine guns - the Vickers K or Brownings. The armament on the LRDG trucks at the start was pretty dismal. The Lewis guns, in Merlyn's words, were hopeless. All the cartridges would get bent from sand getting into the magazine and them jamming. The orders were that they were to be ready to fire at all times. However doing this meant that they would often misfire, and then they would have to somehow clear the gun of the bent cartridges. To get around this they would leave the magazines off, but hence they were not ready to fire at all times. Nobody was happy with the Lewis guns, and Merlyn was determined that they could arm themselves better than this. Merlyn and Frank White were supposedly resting and getting treatment for Malaria at Siwa at the beginning of 1942, but instead they went out shooting coots for a bit of fresh meat for the hospital, and while on one of their forays they also came across some Browning .303 aircraft machine guns. They decided to twin mount these guns and managed to get them firing simultaneously. In similar ways the patrol used whatever they could get their hands on to improve their fire power. (Both men overcame their malaria as well). Merlyn was an advocate for better arms, and in February 1942 each patrol were officially armed with 3 Vickers K guns. By the time of the Barce raid they also carried 3 pairs of .303 Brownings.

Merlyn's ability with explosives, learnt in New Zealand, was soon recognised, and he became an expert in this area. After Lewes made his bomb, Merlyn would make variations of this, depending on the material at hand. He can't remember ever meeting Lewes (co-founder of the SAS). The SAS could get plastic explosives, but the LRDG couldn't. Those that Merlyn made for the Barce raid were made from aluminium turnings and gelignite. They were very effective as the aluminium would burn very hot, and the gelignite would spread the filings around, thus ensuring a good blaze.

Merlyn was a quiet honest man, who wasn't vocal about his achievements, but if asked would talk about his life with the LRDG. He will be missed.

by Jean McIver