TROOPS ON THE MOVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1939, Page 4

TROOPS ON THE MOVE

TRENTHAM TO THE COAST IN QUICK TIME. USE OF MOTOR TRANSPORT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Travelling across 17 miles of hill country and flat in an hour against the 1(1 hours that route marching would occupy for the same trip, the 19th Wellington Rifle Battalion with a full motor column of 20 vehicles provided by the reserve motor transport company of the Army Service Corps, made a fast trip from Trentham camp to Pahautanui yesterday. From there they marched by road to Plimmerton. and then toward Paremata, where in the sandhills they lunched off rations brought by lorries using an alternative route. It was not all work. They stripped and swam before they had their meal of bully beef, bread and butter and tea. There was an unrehearsed incident when a commercial plane appeared overhead as they were marching toward Plimmerton. The air alarm was given and the battalion scattered io take cover, a few platoons taking up anti-aircraft fire positions. Probably those in the plane above were unaware of the stir they had created below and wondered at the quick-moving of khaki-clad men. The principal lesson learned from the day’s exercise was boarding and leaving lorries at a speed which is required by active service emergency conditions. Marching toward Paremata on the return the lorries came alongside the front line of the troops, who climbed aboard without the vehicles stopping. Under war conditions it is. often necessary to clear a road of troops in quick time; for instance, when air assaults are threatened in country having no cover. Before lunch was taken the lorries were dispersed as much as possible and camouflaged to protect them from aerial observation. While Wellington had rain there was sultry, fine weather for the troops in these exercises in the Hutt and coastal districts.