BATTLE SCHOOLS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 April 1942, Page 4

BATTLE SCHOOLS

FOR ALL BRITISH DIVISIONS

SEVERE TRAINING OF SPECIAL TROOPS. ONLY TO BE ENDURED BY FIT MEN. (Special P.A. Correspondent.) (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) LONDON, April 7. Every infantry division in the British Army is to have its own battle school, as soon as instructors leave a new General Headquarters training centre, at which realistic methods of battle drill are taught, based on tactical notes which General Sir Harold Alexander drew up after Dunkirk. It was men from the first divisional school to be formed who provided covering infantry in the recent Bruneval raid. They were toughened at this school, where they underwent a most vigorous assault course, including practice in dealing with every conceivable obstacle which might be met in action. As students in fighting order, they toil in relays and are subjected to tumult and noise from unexpected explosions and goaded by yells of “hate” from their instructors. For example: “Remember Hong Kong.” “We want leaders, not weaklings.” -n“Ydu are suffering now because Hitler raped Europe.” No man who is not fit could complete the course. Those not completing it for physical reasons are sent back to their units. The training course is a mile and a half long and for most of the distance the men are knee-deep in water. They have to crawl through a tunnel, with water nearly reaching to the roof, cross a stream by hanging on to two high strands of wire, negotiate a smoke-fill-ed pit enmeshed with barbed wire, and a twelve-foot barrier between two trees, without footholds, negotiate a maze of hazards in a thick shrubbery, resembling a jungle, and finally to fire a round at figure targets. The course record is sixteen minutes, held by an Olympic runner, now a Sergeant-Major instructor. There are no complaints of boredom at this school.