BUSH TRAINING FOR TROOPS

Southland Times, Issue 24883, 24 October 1942, Page 4

BUSH TRAINING FOR TROOPS

Companies Move To Back Country

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, October 23. Practical training in bush and mountain warfare for Grade 1 personnel of the New Zealand Territorial Forces had now begun, said the Minister of Defence, the Hon. F. Jones, today. 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. Anned with rifles and light ma-chine-guns, the men would treat deer in every respect as if they were enemy troops.

Mr Jones said that although the troops were assisting the deer destruction branch of the Internal Affairs Department, the operations were in no sense an uncontrolled sporting venture, and the companies were operating strictly as military units. The type of fighting developing by the Japanese clearly indicated the need for still greater insistance on this phase or training by our forces, said the Minister, and New Zealand troops must be taught to live, travel and fight in the bush and among the 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 high country. . A number of former Internal Affairs Department officers now in the Army had been selected for duty with the composite companies as advisers, instructors and organizers, said Mr One was with each company and held the appointment of company sergeantmajor. Only physically fit men had been selected for this strenuous training, and all units had been put through a special hardening course before they were sent out. The new scheme aimed at introducing as many troops as possible to this form of training. Mr Jones denied a suggestion that Army training hitherto had failed to provide instruction in so-called jungle warfare, adding that the companies now out in the back country were really putting into practice the fieldcraft training they had already been taught in the -training camps.