IN N.Z. "JUNGLE"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 171, 21 July 1943, Page 2

IN N.Z. "JUNGLE"

MARINES TRAINING

USE LIVE AMMUNITION

(By CHAS. E. WHEELER) U.S. MARINE CORPS CAMP. For the United States Marine Corps, camp life in New Zealand is a strenuous preparation for the next adventure somewhere in the Pacific. Regiments back from the Solomons receive their quota of recruits, and training goes on steadily, with very little in the way of spectacular parades. Though large numbers of men may be engaged in comprehensive operations, the conditions of warfare as the Marines have experienced it. do not provide vivid bird'seye views for the visiting spectator. Out in the field with the Marines, one had to join a comparatively small section of the men and take cover with the rest as soon as operations commenced. The complete picture of events could only be built up with the aid of the communications system. New Zealand, I was assured, provides ideal terrain for training in jungle warfare. Our Marine friends call our light bush and scrub country "jungle" and say that our wooded ravines closely resemble, except for the superior climate, the country on which the 3' fought the Japanese on Guadalcanal'. Storming a Hillside < I went out with a company to see how they could "canture' 'a bit of this country of rough ridges. All the weapons had to be carried on the men's backs—mortars, machine-guns and rifles. There was a welcome breathing spell while an advance party roamed the hills to plant small numbered targets resembling prone men, while a few of large size were laid flat on the hillside to represent nests of enemy resistance, which had to receive a preliminary "softening" from mortar fire. Live ammunition was used in every weapon, and it was a thrilling experience to watch through field glasses, from a snug position, how the advancing marines made a sorry mess of the targets, and the mortars plumped shells into the areas marked for their attention. Tracers from the machine-guns enabled the deadly curtain of fire to be followed along the whole course from gun to target. The mortars, firing from behind the advancing men, showed their capacity for doing deadly damage. These gunners were hidden, and get their directions from an advanced observer. A she!! is dropped into the mortar tube, there is an instant "ping," and one could follow the course of the projectile high into the air. to fall almost vertically on the "enemy" with a loud explosion, a column of dense black smoke and a deadly scatter of steel fragments. With machine-guns and rifles rattling around them, and the mortars lobbing high explosives from the rear, the lesson of taking cover was soon understood by the recruits accompanying the Guadalcanal' veterans. Everybody could see enough of the real thing to realise the consequences of carelessness, in the field. Obstacle Courses Obstacle courses are features of all up-to-date military training camps, and fighting experience has suggested new "snags" to test the men's endurance and courage. The start of one of these ingenious testing grounds was the crossing of a stream on one-inch planks, thin end uppermost. There were many variations of the familiar ordeal of crossing wire entanglements. Some definitely called for crawling, with a machine-gun spluttering bullets over the course at a height of 3ft to enforce the non-com's warning: "Any guy who puts his head up gets his hair cut." Vertical faces had to be climbed without hand-holds, and after that a three-wire bridge, with one slender wire for the feet, was just a piece of pleasant tight-rope walking. As the grand finale, the men crawled through an underground maze, from which the unwary emerged by the same way as they went in. A wag had labelled this "Tokyo Sewerage System," and the fact that this was well lettered in paint suggests that, although training, is severe, officialdom allows it to be taken with a laugh. Like our OAvn Services, the organisation of the marines is democratic, with discipline enforced strictly as an adjunct to efficiency.