text: Road watch When the LRDG was based at Siwa, they took part in what has since become known as the 'Road Watch' along the Via Balbia (the Tripoli to Benghazi road). Three patrols were engaged on road watch duties at any one time, with one watching the road for a week to 10 days, another would be en route to relieve them and the third was returning to Siwa after having been relieved. The site of the road watch was about  from the Marble Arch monument. The road watch patrol would park about 2 miles away from the road and the trucks would be camouflaged using camouflage nets, any local foliage and sand. Before dawn each day two men would move into a well camouflaged position about  from the road. By day they would record the details of all vehicles and troop movements, and at night they would move to about  from the road and guess what type of vehicles were passing by their sound and outline. At daylight they were relieved by another pair of men who took over that day's road watch.
  If tanks or a large number of troops were seen passing, they would radio the LRDG headquarters at Siwa immediately so that by the time the enemy reached the front line, GHQ at Cairo would know they were coming. Once a patrol was relieved they would transmit details of all they had seen back to Siwa. The LRDG did not lose any men or vehicles when on the road watch, but they did have some close encounters. On 21 March 'R1' Patrol was surrounded by a convoy of 27 vehicles and about 200 men who stopped for the night between the watchers and their vehicles. While the road watch was ongoing, other patrols would be attacking targets along other stretches of the Tripoli to Benghazi road, by planting mines or attacking vehicles with machine gun fire. The road was kept under constant observation  from 2 March to 21 July 1942.