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Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. July 1945 July 1942 in the Egyptian desert. A convoy of 18 American-made jeeps

rumbles its way through the sandy terrain on a hot moonlit night.

The convoy is headed for a Nazi air base for a surprise attack, but something's wrong.

In the passenger seat of the lead jeep, a tall, thin British officer named David Sterling signals the convoy to stop.

Sterling hops out of his jeep and stands up straight, all six-foot six inches of the Scotsman.

Sterling shuffles through the sand and reaches a jeep where his unit's navigator Mike Sadler is squinting at a dog-eared map.

Lieutenant Sadler, do you have any bloody idea of where we are?

I've been driving in the dark for hours.

Well, sir, it's hard to make out much by this old map, and these jeeps with heavy guns not helping much.

What's wrong with the jeeps, lieutenant? I'd say they've done a fine job getting us all over the rocks and cliffs and sand dunes we've encountered the past 50 miles or so

Major Sterling sir, it's just that these little tin buckets wouldn't make for combat

But by my reckoning sir sir we're probably just a mile short of the

airfield. Sterling turns to address the soldiers a raid behind him.

Men make a final check of your weapons.

We're almost at target.

Like Sterling himself, they're part of a ragtag roof of regular army castoffs, making up a unit known as the desert rats.

Most of the men are unshaven. Some have long dusty beards. Others wear Middle Eastern

headdresses instead of helmets.

Their jeeps are unusual too.

Sterling is heavily customized these jeeps,

transforming a vehicle originally intended for reconnaissance and light duty into one that's ready for direct combat.

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