The Rat Patrol
During the North African Campaign of the Second World War two British units, the Special Air Service (SAS) and Number 1 Demolition Squadron, were formed to conduct raids, reconnaissance, and sabotage operations against the German Africa Corps. Number 1 Demolition Squadron became known as Popski’s Private Army (PPA), after the nickname of its commanding officer, Vladimir Peniakoff, a Russian Jew raised in Belgium and serving in the British Army. Both of these units used vehicles such as Jeeps and White Armored Cars, armed with heavy machine guns, to conduct hit and run raids.
These units were the inspiration for the 1966-68 American half-hour television program The Rat Patrol. In the program the small independent unit used Jeeps armed with heavy machine guns to harass the Germans, usually led by Hauptmann (Captain) Hans Dietrich. Dietrich is portrayed by Hans Gudegast as a professional German soldier rather than as a fanatical Nazi, unlike most of the officers of the real Africa Corps. Dietrich and the unfortunate German troops who served under him are foiled in every attempt to capture or destroy the Rat Patrol, and he is outwitted nearly every week by the Allied unit.
The Rat Patrol itself is an American unit, with one British member who joins the unit as the series begins. Operating independently, the unit uses unconventional methods to accomplish their missions. In one storyline two members of the Rat Patrol allow themselves to be captured as a ruse in order to in turn capture Dietrich’s superior officer. The same scheme is employed later as the means of obtaining information on German plans. In another the Germans under Dietrich and the Rat Patrol are captured together by Arabs who consider them infidels and intend to kill all of them. The Germans and Allies work together to defeat the Arabs, and the following week they are back attempting to kill each other.
In short, The Rat Patrol is pure fiction from beginning to end, with little historical fact presented in its 58 half hour episodes. The commanding officer of the Rat Patrol, Sergeant Sam Troy – played by Christopher George – is an American who shuns official uniform and typically wears an Australian Army slouch hat. The “Rat” of the Rat Patrol refers to a nickname earned by the British Commonwealth Forces in and near Tobruk, who became known as the Desert Rats. It was not an appellation applied to Americans. The only non-American member of the Rat Patrol is a British sergeant who possesses an expertise regarding the desert and the Arabs in the manner of an Englishman of an earlier war, T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia.
The Rat Patrol has little relationship with the real Desert Rats of North Africa (many of whom were from Australia and New Zealand) and no historical basis in either its premise or its presentation. As an American television program it leaves the impression that the Americans won the battle against the Africa Corps almost singlehandedly, with but token assistance from the British and Commonwealth Forces. The Rat Patrol and their German opponents capture and recapture each other, attack and rescue each other, and in essence have a private war of their own in the desert, with temporary truces when convenient to the story.