Ghent was occupied by the Germans in both World Wars but escaped severe destruction and was liberated by the British 7th Desert Rats Armoured Division on September 6, 1944.

In Desert Rats ( 1953 ), Burton plays a young English captain in the North African campaign during World War II who takes charge of a hopelessly out-numbered Australian unit against the indomitable Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ( James Mason ).

In Hollywood, Rafferty also appeared in Australian themed films, including The Desert Rats, The Sundowners and Mutiny on the Bounty.

His roles include Brutus in Julius Caesar ( 1953 ), Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel and The Desert Rats, the amoral valet turned spy in Joseph Mankiewicz's 5 Fingers, the declining actor in the first remake of A Star Is Born ( 1954 ), Captain Nemo in 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea ( also 1954 ), a small town school teacher driven insane by the effects of cortisone in Bigger Than Life ( 1956 ), a suave master spy in North by Northwest ( 1959 ), a determined explorer in Journey to the Center of the Earth ( also 1959 ), Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita ( 1962 ), a river pirate who betrays Peter O ' Toole's character in Lord Jim ( 1965 ), the evil Doctor Polidori in Frankenstein: The True Story ( 1973 ), the vampire's servant, Richard Straker, in Salem's Lot, and surreal Royal Navy Captain Hughes in Yellowbeard ( 1983 ).

* The Desert Rats ( 1953 )

Greene was discharged in December 1944 and appeared in the stage plays Desert Rats and I Capture the Castle.

A large section of bare desert land on the north side of Antonio Street near the 1400 – 1600 block is designated to become a soccer field complex with at least 4 fields and home to the Anthony Desert Rats soccer team.

It was part of the " Divisional Troops " of the 7th Armoured Division ( known as the " Desert Rats ").

: Desert Rats redirects here.

As alternatives to Chatterton or Mr Chadwick as the origin of the name Chad, REME claimed that the name came from their training school, nicknamed " Chad's Temple ", the RAF claimed it arose from Chadwick House at a Lancashire radio school, and the Desert Rats claimed it came from an officer in El Alamein.

In May 2006 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats were relieved by 20th Armoured Brigade under the command of Brigadier James Everard.

The regiment is currently based in Bad Fallingbostel, British Forces Germany, as part of the 7th Armoured Brigade (' The Desert Rats ').

In October 1990 The Staffordshire Regiment was deployed to Saudi Arabia as part of 7th Armoured Brigade, better known as the ' Desert Rats '.

Initially based at Tidworth, the battalion moved to Bad Fallingbostel, Germany in August 2009, where it is now permanently based as part of 7th Armoured Brigade ( The Desert Rats ).

* Moreman, Timothy Robert, Anderson, Duncan, Desert Rats: British 8th Army in North Africa 1941-43, Osprey Publishing, 2007.

Although there was pressure from London for the reconstituted Desert Rats to go into action, outfitting for the desert and training delayed their first use until Operation Battleaxe, an attempt to relieve the siege of Tobruk in June.

* Panzer Grenadier: Desert Rats

* Desert Rats ( April 2012, ISBN 1-84732-968-3 )

The last of the Zoo's Central Rock Rats were sent to Alice Springs Desert Park in 2007 and the breeding program closed.

* The Desert Rats ( 1953 )

He was a Second Lieutenant in the British 7th Armoured Division, called " the Desert Rats ".

In W. W. II 9 Bty fired both 25 pdrs and 105mm SP, with 3rd Field Bde, 11th Army Field Regt, 1st Canadian Corps Artillery, both in Italy, where at one time they were part of the 8th Army, the “ Desert Rats ”, and later in Northwest Europe as part of the 1st Canadian Army Artillery.

* The Desert Rats, nickname for the British 7th Armoured Division

* The Desert Rats, 1953 war film starring Richard Burton

Some modern scholars and archaeologists have argued that Essenes inhabited the settlement at Qumran, a plateau in the Judean Desert along the Dead Sea, citing Pliny the Elder in support, and giving credence that the Dead Sea Scrolls are the product of the Essenes.

Its western border with Pakistan extends up to 3, 323 km ( 2, 065 mi ), dividing the Punjab region and running along the boundaries of the Thar Desert and the Rann of Kutch.

All of the empires arose in the area then known as the western Sudan, a vast region of savanna between the Sahara Desert to the north and the tropical rain forests along the Guinean coast to the south.

The Namib Desert is a broad expanse of hyper-arid gravel plains and dunes that stretches along the entire coastline, which varies in width between 100 to many hundreds of kilometres.

Mostly high plateau ; Namib Desert along coast ; Kalahari Desert in east.

For example, the mountain ranges along the western border with Afghanistan are sometimes described separately from the Balochistan Plateau, and on the eastern border with India, south of the Sutlej River, the Thar Desert may be considered separately from the Indus Plain.

Before 1980, a section of the Commonwealth Railways Central Australian line passed along the western side of the Simpson Desert.

Depressions along the Karakum Desert may be found.

The Thar Desert (, Hindi: थर मर ु स ् थल, ) also known as the Great Indian Desert ) is a large, arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent and forms a natural boundary running along the border between India and Pakistan.

The Third Army was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, until the unit, along with its commander was ordered to the newly established Desert Training Center in the Colorado Desert of California and Arizona, by the Chief of the Armored Force, Major General Jacob L. Devers.

Amboy, California was part of one such series of villages along the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad across the Mojave Desert.

In September 1540, under orders from the conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, along with Hopi guides and a small group of Spanish soldiers, traveled to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon between Desert View and Moran Point.

This point is located to the east of the Grand Canyon Village along the Desert View Drive.

The Gila Trail going along the Gila River in Arizona, across the Colorado River and then across the Sonora Desert in California was scouted by Stephen Kearny's troops and later by Captain Philip St. George Cooke's Mormon Battalion in 1846 who were the first to take a wagon the whole way.

As more and more people visit the area each year, custodians of the Western Desert have become concerned about the protection and management of Aboriginal sites along the route.

Post-contact, they lived primarily in the eastern Mojave Desert and later the Chemehuevi Valley along the Colorado River in California.

* The Baja California Desert extends east of the Peninsular Ranges along the Pacific side of the peninsula for most of its length, and includes the El Vizcaíno Desert and El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve.

Farther south, the Southern Namib Desert stretches south from Namibia along the Atlantic coastline.

In 119 BC both Huo and Wei, each leading 50, 000 cavalrymen and 100, 000 footsoldiers ( in order to keep up with the mobility of the Xiongnu, many of the non-cavalry Han soldiers were mobile infantrymen who traveled on horseback but fought on foot ), and advancing along different routes, forced the chanyu and his court to flee north of the Gobi Desert.

Desert shrubs, range grass and cactus abound, with salt cedars along the river.

Morongo Valley lies along the western edge of the Mojave Desert and near the northern edge of the Coachella Valley, and as such is generally dry.