TAKING FEAR OUT OF NOISE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 30, 30 October 1942, Page 4

TAKING FEAR OUT OF NOISE

How Troops Are Tested EXPLOSIVES DISCHARGED SIX YARDS OFF

Noise is one of today’s great war weapons, used to demoralize and terrify an enemy. Examples are the screaming and whining devices of bombers and their bombs. Noise is so effective a weapon that men must be trained to stand up to it and take it as a matter of course. This training takes the form of battle noises exercises, in which a representative of "The Dominion” look part recently to get a first-hand impression. First test was to lire electrically five two-pound charges of quarry mouobel “0 yards ahead of a line of troops lying prone on the ground. A standard two-pound charge is three ounces heavier than the charge in a 25pounder gun high explosive shell. Barring the deadly effect of fragmentation, the effect was similar in noise and concussion to the bursting of five successive shells from a 25-pounder at 20 yards. , With each blast the earth trembled and a vacuum was created which swept outward and then back with the noise of warning rumblings and thunderclaps. The charges fired, the men relieved their tenseness with a fixed bayonet charge to a rise 30 yards away. Next they occupied trenches, six yards ahead of which more charges were exploded, Each shook the earth and dislodged rubble into the trenches, while overhead, with each charge, there was the whine and whistle of 500 rounds a minute live firing from machineguns several hundred yards away. At the finish every man, as far as realistic training allows, had an idea of what it was like to be under both artillery and machinegun fire. More valuable still, he had discovered that while noise may temporarily stun, deafen, or create other unpleasant effects, it does not injure. Experience has shown that if a man is in a slit trench, lie is safe from anything but a direct hit.

It is aimed to put every soldier from the recruit stage onward through battle noises exercises.