THREE retired Royal Engineers from Dorset are celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of 'the most notorious motoring expeditions ever made'.

The British Trans-Americas Expedition saw members of the British Army tasked with finding a vehicle route through the dangerous Darien Gap – a 250-mile passage that links the Americas and is famous for its denseness – to complete the Pan-American highway.

The team, which consisted of more than 100 servicemen from Britain, Colombia, Panama and the US, along with scientists, specialists and four women, used Army aircraft, small-tracked carriers, a Land Rover, 28 horses and their feet to make their way through the dense jungle, swamps, and hills of the Darien.

The group included Lt Colonel Ernie Durey MBE from Weymouth, leader, Colonel John Blashford-Snell CBE from Shaftesbury, and Lt Colonel Phil Church from Poole.

Speaking of his time in the Darien, Colonel John Blashford-Snell said: “A godforsaken place full of snakes, insects, heat, rain, bandits, jungle, and swamps. Several expeditions had failed to cross the complete gap but we were determined to succeed – this was without a doubt the most challenging expedition of my career.”

He described how the jungle consumed them mentally and physically, leading to breakdowns and dense vegetation that reduced them to ‘an exhausted group of mud-babies’.

He remarked how 17 days in they had only advanced 30 miles, with over 200 left to go, “the worst going lay ahead.”

Over half the team became ill at some point and their battles with the challenging terrain, insects, snakes, mechanical difficulties, attacks by revolutionaries in Columbia, and the tragic drowning of some Columbian marines supporting the team, made this one of the epic expeditions of the 20th century.

Colonel Blashford-Snell added: “There were several narrow escapes from serpents. A six-foot bushmaster sank its teeth into the heel of David Bromhead’s boot, its fangs stuck, and David blew its head off with his revolver!”

On June 16 around 20 of the remaining members of the original expedition team gathered at the Coppleridge Inn, Motcombe to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the expedition.

The Darien remains one of the last remaining wildernesses on earth and the Pan-American highway still does not cross this stretch of land and it is still considered by the exploration community as ‘one of the last frontiers on earth and continues to fascinate people’.