Lieutenant Colonel Randal has established a clandestine base at Oasis X on the far side of the Great Sand Sea from which to launch hit and run gun jeep raids on isolated enemy positions, airfields and fuel tank farms up to a thousand miles behind the lines with Desert Patrol while his Sea Squadron carry out amphibious pinprick Commando raids off a Landing Craft Tank along the Mediterranean Coastline. Raiding Forces is also tasked with raiding the Italian roadhouses located every fifteen miles along the only blacktopped road Rommel has in Africa, which runs from Tripoli to Tobruk, the Via Balbia. Lieutenant Commander Ian Flemming, RN recruits Raiding Forces to conduct ‘pinch operations’ targeted against remote Africa Korps weather stations to capture code books, keys and signals devices that can be used by MI6 to penetrate the Ultra Secret German Enigma machines. In addition he has to spring Colonel Dudley Clarke from a Spanish prison and rescue his men being held in two Italian POW camps.