READY FOR ANYTHING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1942, Page 4

READY FOR ANYTHING

AMERICANS IN AUSTRALIA. SOLID TRAINING CARRIED OUT. SYDNEY, September 5. A United States division now in Australia has been training for two years in near-tropical, thickly-wooded country not unlike that in ■which the coming campaigns against the Japanese will be fought out, says Gavin Long, the “Sydney Morning Heralds” defence correspondent. Part of this training has been in Louisiana. Lately the division has been carrying out large-scale exercises in Australian mountains so steep and rugged that, according to one of them, “we had to carry the birds up with us.” One company made a four-day march through country which, according to the local people, had never been crossed before. This company and the three others in the battalion were sent off to cross a range which is only 12 miles wide in a beeline, but it took one company four days and a march of more than 90 miles to get across. It got there, however, carrying its mortars, its machine guns and light machine guns, and full rations for the four days. The men took no blankets Or greatcoats, although it is cold in the mountains at night. In one regiment of this division, one of the three battalions is now specialising in beach defence, another in mountain warfare, and the third in jungle

fighting, so that this division will be • equipped for any type of warfare it may meet.