ARMY SKI SCHOOL

Evening Star, Issue 24284, 27 August 1942, Page 6

ARMY SKI SCHOOL

TRAINING IN MIDDLE EAST SOLDER'S IMPRESSIONS Impressions of life in ,au Army ski school in the Middle East are contained in a letter to relatives in Dunedin from a Wellington soldier. There arc high mountains on three sides, and at the time of writing there was still snow around. The hotel was very well known before the war as a winter playground, something after the same style as the Chateau, but not nearly so modern The ski-ing fields,- however, were much superior. The hotel was taken over by the Army authorities. The training was described as strenuous, with long hours from start to finish. The time-table was:—s a.m., reveille; 6 a.m., breakfast; 7 a.m,. parade, climb to the ski grounds, and arrive home about 11.30, change into dry clothes, and have dinner at 12; 3.45, afternoon tea; 4.30, parade, climlb for ski-ing, arrive home at 7 p.m. ; dinner, 7.45 p.m. One lecture was held a day,. and in what little spare time was available in

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the afternoon the men had to fix up their gear—wax skis, grease straps and fittings, all of which took time. The food was excellent, and there was plenty of it, and “ believe me, we do get an appetite on the mountains, and you can sec for yourself the long time between meals,” the writer added. The first day at the school tho men received instruction, and, though half of them had never been on skis before, they found that standing on skis on a slight slope was easy, and anyone could do it, but it was a different story when it was very steep and they were moving about 30 miles an hour. The instruction on the first day was merely designed to get them used to the feel of the skis on snow. On the second day they were taken for a G) hours’ liike on" skis. This was not a march along Hat country, for the men plodded up the sides of the mountain 2,000 ft above the hotel, then they would ski down and up another part, and so on all the time. After that the men received the usual instruction, and after a week had their first test. Most of them landed home at night wet through, but a hot 'bath and a good meal soon brought about a feeling of well-being. The clothes were dried out over a heater overnight, and were ready for the next trip.