THE GHOST WALK

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 29, 29 October 1942, Page 4

THE GHOST WALK

Testing Troops’ Nerves And Reactions Eerie night exercise by soldiers, in pairs, to test and steel the nerves are being carried out at a mobilization camp in. the Wellington district and were witnessed @by a representative of "The Dominion” recently. The location is a double line of trees, bare up to average man’s height, and above that well covered with foliage. The darker and more still the night, the better for effect. In full battle equipment each pair of men, with fixed bayonets, takes the “ghost walk.” Instructors are up the trees and as the men get abreast'of the tree-trunks, down swishes a dummy. The soldier has then to .treat the dummy as an enemy and deal with it in the quickest and most effective way. He may bayonet it, smash at it with rifle-butt, or get stuck into it with his hobnailed boots —a very effective weapon. All the time small explosive charges are being let off along the walk, momentarily lighting up a scene of tense-expressioned men getting at “the enemy” with alb the vigour of combat. Some men get so keyed up by the test that for a time the end tree of the walk, which was faintly outlined by' a camp street light,_ received some vicious thrusts from bayonets. Now an instructor is placed near this last tree on. the “woodman, spare that tree” principle. A representative of "The Dominion” tried the walk; first time down it’s a real test for nerves.