Bill Kennedy Shaw
William Boyd Kennedy Shaw OBE was a British desert explorer, botanist, archaeologist and soldier. During the Second World War, he served with the British Army's Long Range Desert Group and the Special Air Service Regiment. He was known, variously, as Bill Shaw or Bill Kennedy-Shaw, but preferred the latter form of his name, which he always used in his writings.
Early life
Kennedy-Shaw was born on 26 October 1901, the son of Colonel F. S. Kennedy-Shaw, of King's Orchard, Teffont Magna, Wiltshire. He received his formal education at Radley College.During the 1920s and 1930s, Kennedy-Shaw played a key role in exploring the Western Desert near the southwestern corner of modern Egypt, drawing on his expertise as a botanist, archaeologist, and navigator. He made four major trips:
During the winter of 1927/1928, Kennedy-Shaw and Douglas Newbold, on leave from the Sudan Government service, travelled the Arba’in slave road from Selima and Bir Natrun, covering 1,000 km by camel. Shaw published observations and photos from the trip in the journal Sudan Notes and Records.
In October 1930, Kennedy-Shaw accompanied Ralph Alger Bagnold on a trip from Cairo to Ain Dalla, into the Sand Sea, past Ammonite hill to the Gilf Kebir, south to Uweinat and on to Wadi Halfa, returning via the Arba'in slave road via Salima oasis, Kharga and then Aysut.
He also travelled with Bagnold in 1932 from Cairo to Kharga, to Uweinat, Sarra, Tekro, Uweinat, El Fasher, Bir Natrun, Merga, Laqia, Selima, Wadi Halfa, Dakhla, Bahariya and back to Cairo, a total distance of 6,000 miles.
In 1935, Kennedy-Shaw set out from Cairo again on 14 January with Colonel G. A. Strutt and Mrs. Strutt, Lieut. R. N. Harding Newman, M. H. Mason, R. E. McEuen, this time in three Model 46 Ford trucks, first arriving at Gilf Kebir, onto Wadi Halfa, Grassy Valley, El Fasher. Kennedy-Shaw's paper and photographs were presented at the Royal Geographical Society in January 1936 and published in their quarterly journal.
Second World War
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Bagnold recruited Kennedy-Shaw from the British Imperial Mandatory Palestine Administration's office in Jerusalem, where he was employed, to be the Intelligence and Chief Navigation officer for the British Army's new Long Range Desert Group that Bagnold was assembling. Kennedy-Shaw served initially as a lieutenant in the General List. He transferred to the Intelligence Corps in 1940 and to the Special Air Service Regiment in 1944 when the LRDG ceased operations with the conclusion of the North Africa Campaign. He reached the rank of major, being mentioned in despatches during his service.From 1944 to 1945, he served as the GSO 2 at the SAS Brigade's Headquarters in the North-West Europe Campaign.