The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1942. “FIGHTING FIT”

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 289, 4 September 1942, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1942. “FIGHTING FIT”

At the outset of the present war many thought that with the development of the mechanized arm in land operations the demand for men of the required physique for hard “foot-slogging” would be less urgent; that a less exacting standard of physical.fitness than m former times would be sufficient. Experience has shown that this idea was fallacious. The strain of modem warfare calls for the highest degree of physical fitness obtainable. Commanding officers have laid special emphasis’ upon this, and stressed the importance of adapting military training methods to meet this vital requirement. In their opinion the training that makes for physical endurance rather than mere muscular development is now essential. In short, men must be made “fighting fit,” as the saying is, in order to be able to stand up to the severe stresses of campaigning under present-war conditions. And this applies to all arms. The latest authoritative pronouncement on the point has. come from President Roosevelt, speaking at the ceremonial dedication of a naval medical centre at Bethesda, in Maryland. Medical science, he said in effect, was concentrating, among other vital objectives, upon “an unending fight to keep as many men at as many guns on as many days as possible.” Doctors, he added, must discover new methods of preparing men 'for unprecedented combat conditions in submarines, planes, and tanks. “Men must be perfectly attuned 111 their'bodies, as they are perfectly prepared in their minds and hearts, for the fierce test of battle.” The tempo of warfare has been speeded up enormously. As we have seen in descriptions of the fighting in the Western Desert, the entire setting of a battle stage may be changed completely in a short space of time with the velocity and intensity of the opeiations. Battalions,, regiments, even larger formations, may be to all appeal - ances disintegrated, to be regrouped later in the battle, if. they can be regrouped at all. In such conditions the qualities of initiative and endurance in the individual soldier assume vital importance. To hard physical condition must be allied an alertness of mind and quickness of judgment, for, as President Roosevelt has pointed out, a splitsecond error in timing by one individual may cost innumerable lives. It was well known before the war that our enemies—Germany and Japan especially—were devoting considerable, attention to the problems of physical fitness for war. Hard training and endurance ■ tests for all arms were a feature of their military preparations. Out aim is to go one better than the results they have achieved. What President Roosevelt has said about the co-operation of medical science in reaching this aim is no doubt the result of an Allied plan for concerted action in this field. In all aspects of this total warfare, m fact—our financial strength, our economic resources, our industrial energies and our fighting services—loo per cent, efficiency must be the aim in order that our enemies may be successfully attacked, defeated and destroyed.