COMPOSITE COMPANIES OUT

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 250, 23 October 1942, Page 5

COMPOSITE COMPANIES OUT

DEER TREATED AS JAPS. TROOPS IN BACK COUNTRY.

P.A.

WELLINGTON, Oct. 23.

Practical training in bush and mcuntain warfare for Grade I personnel of the New Zealand Territoriai Forces had now begun, said the Minister for Defence to-day. Composite companies from certain brigade groups had set out during the last few days into nearby back country where they were combining tactical exercises with deer extermination. Armed with rifles and light machine-guns, the men will treat deer in every respect as if they were enemy troops. Mr Jones said that although the troops were assisting in deer destruction, a branch of the Internal Affairs Department's operations, in no sense was it an uncontrolled sporting venture and the companies were operating strictly as military units. "The type of fighting developed by the Japanese clearly indicated the need for still greater insistence on this phase of training by our forces," said the Minister, "and New Zealand troops must be taught to live, travel and fight, in bush and amongst mountains and hills. This was the

main object of the new training." Preliminary reports, he said, indicated satisfactory progress and that the troops were thoroughly enjoying their spartan life in the iiigh country. A nurnber of former Internal Affairs Department officers, now in the Army, had been selected for duty with the composite companies as advisers, instructors and organisers. One was with each company and held the appointment of company sergeant major. Only physically fit men had been selected for this strenuous training and all units were put through a special hardening course before being sent out. The new scheme aimed at introducing as many troops as possible to this form of training. Mr Jones denied suggestions that Army training hitherto had failed to provide instruction in so-called jungle warfare, adding that the companies now out in the backcountry were really putting into practice the fieldcraft training they had already been taught in training camps.