REAL TRAINING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1942, Page 3

REAL TRAINING

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS * SHOOTING EXERCISES IN WILD COUNTRY. A SPARTAN EXISTENCE. Recently a combat unit' of the United States Marine Corps, fully armed and equipped for active service, spent a period of intensive live ammunition firing over the primitive terrain lying beyond New Zealand’s biggest njlancl camp. In weather which ,ranged' frdrrf summer heat to winter cold, through rain, sleet, mud and dust, the Mannes keptup a full pressure training schedule with tanks, field artillery, anti-tank guns and machine guns under active service conditions. Day and night the sound of firing could be heard over many miles of this vast shooting gallery. These were no polite blank cartridge exercises—live ammunition of varying calibres was used throughout —and the officers and men engaged agreed that they had never before been provided with such an unlimited scope of country for realistic combat training, even on training areas in the United States. During the exercises the men lived the Spartan existence which will be their 'lot wheh they join their comrades in the firing line. They had two meals only a day—at 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. —but the cooks saw to it that both were hot, despite the difficulties _ of working with field stoves in atrocious weather. Sleeping accommodation was limited .to two-men bivouac tents (half carried by each man( about two foot six inches high when erected, and small enough to be heated by a candle, the Marines assert. Personal gear was reduced to an absolute minimum, two blankets and a combination ground-sheet and cloak being the bedding issue. Shaving was one of the ■ parade ground rituals which was not insisted upon. Yet, despite the severe weather conditions they had to face, the Marines showed no signs of wilting under them. One man only had to be evacuated for a day through sickness, and three accident cases were of a minor nature. Toughness was the keynote. These men were being taught the lessons which the Marines have learned in the bitter university of jungle warfare. No insignia which would distinguish officers and n.c.o’s. from their men was worn; saluting was banned; use of ranks in addressing officers was discouraged. The wily Jap has a habit of trying to disorganise operations by sniping leaders who can be distinguished from their men; of coilfusing his opponents by calling false orders under names he has overhear while lying concealed; of trapping the unwary into disclosing their locations at night by addressing them familiarly. The seeming informality cloaked real discipline based on mutual respect of all' ranks for each other and a common determination to put up the best possible fight when called on to do so. This wa« noticeable when the Marines were handling their weapons. Men who just seemed to be standing about were suddenly in action at a command from another steel-helmeted figure indistinguishable from themselves. Officers and men know each other as individuals. They have no illusions about the sort of war they are going to and realise that they must try to learn all the answers in advance. The weather conditions were not allowed to interfere with the shooting. One of the most spectacular firing i practices with the field guns took place during a howling rain storm in the middle of the night, with the wind reaching gale force at times. During another daylight shoot the gunners were blowing pieces out of the distant hills with high explosive shells I through a curtain of sleet. The MaI rines reckoned they could put up with any kind of weather as long as they could continue to get sUch spectacular shooting. . _ In co-operation with the New Zealand Army and Air Force, the Marines were also able to put in an afternoon of anti-aircraft shooting with both heavy and light machine-guns. An Air Force plane, operating from an auxiliary aerodrome which is one of the facilities-of this huge training area, made numerous runs across the line of machine guns, towing a balloon target a quarter of a mile astern. Into this the machine-gunners poured tracer and ball ammunition.