HOME GUARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 January 1942, Page 2

HOME GUARD

RANGE PRACTICE YESTERDAY GOOD SCORES RECORDED. ADJUSTMENT TO RIFLES. The A, C and Headquarters companies of the Masterton Home Guard Battalion held their monthly full-day parade yesterday. The Lines of Communication Company supplied a dozen trucks and the men were conveyed to the Opaki Rifle Club’s range at Upper Plain. A special feature was made of embussing and debussing in correct order and the convoy proceeded to its destination at the regulation distance of 30 yards between trucks. Some excellent shooting was done. Rifles previously held in the battalion armoury have now been issued to the individual men who will require to use them in action, and one particular object of the shoot was to familiarise each man with his own rifle. As the rifles are of diverse types, some being sighted for ammunition other than, the present mark VII, it was necessary to “zero” each rifle in order that the owner might be trained to use it on the general lines of the Ommundsen theory. This theory is briefly this: Instead of training men to shift the sights to the actual range, all rifles, with the exception of snipers’ rifles, have their sights fixed at a definite range. The men are then to be taught to fire with sights at the fixed range, and if the target is more or less than that range, the firer is to fire low or high as the case may be. In the heat of battle it sometimes happens that men forget to shift their sights, and even when they remember to shift them, it is little easier to estimate the distance in yards than in terms of high or low sight if a man knows his rifle, as to shift the sight takes time. One result of yesterday’s shoot is that each man's rifle has now been “zeroed" by the expert riflemen, formerly of the Opaki Rifle Club, who now form a special platoon in the battalion. It is, therefore, essential that each man should observe how his sights have been fixed and that from now on the sights should not be moved. This is absolutely essential if the benefit is to be obtained from the “zeroing" work.

The best scores were as follow: No. 1 Platoon: F. C. Thornton 48, Serg.-Major Roff 45, C. L. Brown 43. No. 2 Platoon: K. H. Hopkirk 45, B. Norman, A. D. Barnes, T. Jestin 44. No. 3 Platoon: A. S. Graham' 45, B. Batty, K. Percy 44. No. 7 Platoon: G. Sharman, R. J. Leighton 48, M. Reid, W. Burns, L. Sheperd, G. B. Young, K. S. Ralph 45. No. 8 Platoon: S. Henson, K. Eastwood 44, L. H. Carter, G. Chambers, E. E. Downes, E: Jenkins, H. Dugdale 43. No. 9 Platoon: R. Buchanan 44, A. J. Gibbs 43, D. Hogg, L. Fulton 41. No. 10 Platoon: N. Pelvin 46. J. A Wells, M. M. Loader 45, J. H. Summers 44. H.Q. Specialists: H. G. Scott, H. W. Robinson 44, R. Stewart, D. A. Barns 42. H.Q. Ambulance: A. J. Parsons 44, G. Gregory 42, J. Haywood, J. H. Gurney 40.

H.Q. Signallers: P. Weston 45, H V. Marshall, F. A. Algar, H. G. Pickering 44.