Any other information of military value and finally capture if possible enemy personnel or inhabitants. The force would be commanded by Major William Henry Scott, the second-in-command of the 9th Light Horse Regiment (9th LHR). With him in the forces headquarters was Captain Macaulay, a General Staff Officer belonging to the 2nd Australian Division. Captain Albert Ernest Wearne, of the 8th Light Horse Regiment (8th LHR), Captain Ayris, from the Headquarters 3rd Light Horse Brigade. The 9th LHR and 8th LHR provided the fighting component, of another eight officers and 122 men. Supporting them the ANZAC Mounted Division provided the engineers, one officer and eight men. The Royal Flying Corps, provided a ground signals unit of two officers and two men. Radio communications were provided by a Royal Engineers Wireless Section of one officer and eight men. Medical support was from the 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance, one officer and eight men. Additional transport capacity came from the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps (ECTC), one officer, thirty-one Light Horseman drivers and ninety-five Egyptian drivers. The Australian Army Service Corps provided an officer to assist with supply. To protect the ECTC the Bikanir Camel Corps provided one officer and twenty-four men. There was also two guides and an Arabic interpreter. Comprising a total force of eighteen officers, 302 men, 175 horses and 261 camels. The Australians and New Zealanders had carried out some reconnaissance patrols in the desert, but this would be their first offensive action. A second RFC reconnaissance, on 9 April, reported that Jifjafa may have been evacuated, as no men were seen but tents and equipment were still in place. Further intelligence reported Turkish garrisons in that area as 900 men at Hassana, fifty men at Bir el Hamma, and 200 men at Nekhel. Scott's force left the on the raid just after 14:00 11 April 1916. Adopting the normal cavalry or mounted force procedure they rode for fifty minutes then, to rest their mounts, walked for the next ten minutes every hour. They rested at 17:00 to feed the animals, starting out again at 19:30, they eventually halted that night at the Wady um Muksheib at 22:30. The next day the force started out at 07:30 heading for a known water source, reconnoitred earlier in the year by a patrol from the ANZAC Mounted Division. The horse mounted troops arrived there at 11:20, but the slower camels did not arrive for another two hours.