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A number of broken 'Universal Type Sun Compass’ were offered to the engineers for possible repair. These sun compass was issued along with a complicated sheet of instructions to facilitate cross-desert navigation.

Bob was also a bit of an inventor. Accurate use depended on latitude and longitude, date and time, and reference to tables and curves that, once understood, were a good means of direction finding in the desert provided you could see the sun.

With a few modifications Bob realised a simpler but marginally less accurate version of the compass could be made. This would require only minor corrections every few days plus an occasional check with a magnetic compass. In anticipation of a possible move into the desert Bob kept a number of the simplified sun compasses to mount on their own vehicles in due course.

His foresight would be rewarded. When the Company was working with newly formed SAS the modified compass was welcome along with a front-gun mount that Bob devised for them.

This story was submitted to the people’s War site by a volunteer from CSV Oxford on behalf of the late Bob Borthwick. It is a transcript of his own diary and he gave written permission for the material to be edited and published.

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