HARD TRAINING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1943, Page 4

HARD TRAINING

UNDERGONE BV ALLIED COMMANDOS IN SCOTTISH MOUNTAIN CAMP. REALISTIC BATTLE EXERCISES. (Special P.A. Correspondent.) (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, January 14. Somewhere in one of the wildest and most rugged parts of Scotland is a military camp. At the entrance is a row of grimly realistic mock graves, marked with rough wooden crosses, inscribed: “These men died by their own stupidity. Watch your fieldcraft.” With this for introduction, you enter, fully aware that the men training there are not assembled for fun. They are commando soldiers, officially known as special service troops, and at this camp are trained not only British, but Americans, Canadians, Poles and Fighting French. If there is one thing the commandos dislike, it is the idea that they are a gang of cutthroats. They are rough, but not toughs. They pride themselves upon their discipline, smartness on parade, and standard of drill. They train for six and a half days a week, from dawn to dusk, under active service conditions, and, with a background of snowcovered Scottish mountains, they do physical training, stripped to the waist, before donning battle kit for exercises. These include storming a battery on heights, re-staging the Dieppe raid, and landing from barges, while live bullets churn up the water. They raid a castle representing gun emplacements, scaling up the walls by means of toggle ropes.

They learn to cross rivers by ropes and traverse forests by ropes strung from tree to tree, and also street fighting and house fighting. A commanding officer, commenting on the commandos, said it was fantastic to suppose that they were a gang of low villians, who would cut throats for sixpence. They should be chivalrous, discreet, security-minded, tough, smart and well disciplined. “We get twenty per cent of failures,” he added, “but the men we train can be relied on to do anything. The officers are most carefully selected and train in the ranks with the men they will ultimately command. They are closely watched, for we want natural leaders. The keynote of commando training is confidence, aimed to give the men confidence in their bodies, weapons, comrades and officers. They are tought to be confident, self-reliant and physically perfect —these things and the right spirit are what count, not so-called blood courses. Big muscular men are not necessarily accepted, nor tough who are spoiling for a fight. The ‘pub-brawler’ type is not wanted. It is untrue that the commandos receive more pay than other soldiers, but they are given a living allowance computed on what the Army spends daily on lodging and feeding any soldier. With it the commandos must find lodging and feed themselves, but they do not receive this allowance when not billeted, nor on operations. The men are kept in a high state of physical fitness, but ease off if they show a tendency to become stale. They need not give up smoking or drinking to keep fit, but if they do not come up to standard they are returned to the unit from which they volunteered, which is looked on as a disgrace. The training includes a thorough knowledge of every weapon. The men must be first-class shots and must become accustomed to ships, for combined operations. They also help sailors, handle boats and canoes and swim. They must be able to live off the country. cook, butcher meat, bivouac, mountaineer, cross obstacles with minimum equipment, learn unarmed combat, and use land and sea explosives. It is an interesting fact that saluting and the desire to salute are regarded as an essential feature of commando discipline. There is no time for sloppiness, for sloppy mindedness may result in their not passing out keen from the training camp, where live ammunition is used while they are exercising. Unless mental discipline is good, they may for ever stay at the camp’s entrance, as a warning to others.

More will be heard of the commandos as the war continues. Those which were formed soon after Dunkirk, when Britain faced the Axis alone, are now passing on their spirit and training to all the Allies. The spirit of Dunkirk will live throughout the war.