John Edward “Jock; also recorded as John” Haselden

Lieutenant Colonel · #147079 · MC

What this roll records

A NOTE MOVED OUT OF THE PATROL FIELD, WHERE IT WAS SHOWING PUBLICLY (2026). This card’s patrol field did not hold a patrol. It held a sentence, and the sentence is worth keeping, so it has been moved here rather than discarded: “HE WAS ACTUALLY NEVER A MEMBER OF THE LRDG. He spent many hours with a number of the patrols, either going to or coming from one of his missions.” Only the punctuation has been mended; not a word has been changed. It is the single most important thing on this card — it says why an Intelligence Corps officer with a Military Cross appears on a roll of the Long Range Desert Group at all — and it was in a field meant to hold a patrol name. The field is now empty, which is honest: HE HAD NO PATROL, and that is the whole point.

Led the commando force guided from Kufra to Tobruk by Y1 patrol; in the night attack of 13–14 September 1942 they captured the coastal defence guns but were overwhelmed, and Haselden was among those killed. Source: ‘Raids Behind the Enemy Lines’, Episodes & Studies Vol. 1 (NZ official war history).

London Gazette, Supplement 35908, page 863, 16 February 1943: “Major John Edward Haselden, M.C. (147079), Intelligence Corps”. One line, and it gives three things this roll did not hold: his forenames in full; his corps, THE INTELLIGENCE CORPS, where this card named none, which for a man who worked in Arab dress behind the lines is worth having; and his Military Cross confirmed against his exact service number and dated to five months after his death, so very likely the posthumous announcement. A caution for anyone re-checking: 147079 also returns other men in other notices, because service numbers were reused between the services; what makes this identification safe is that the entry names him outright. Source: The London Gazette.

See him in the full roll →

Where this comes from

• AKA added from the LRDG Preservation Society’s Troopers roll (missing information).

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Not By Strength But By Guile