Instructor's dog kept alpine soldiers vigilant

Press, 24 September 1988, Page 26

Instructor's dog kept alpine soldiers vigilant

Through all three winters that the Middle East ski school existed during World War , II a large dog called Rex was an honorary instructor. Rex was an Alsatian formerly belonging to a black-robed bishop of the Maronite Church cum hotel landlord who graciously relinquished ownership to Major James Riddell, chief instructor of the ski school. The animal became such a devoted companion of the British major during his days in the Lebanon Mountains that he inspired Riddell’s book about the ski school, “Dog in the Snow,” published in 1957. Many ski troops passed through the school, including Australians, New Zealanders, Greeks, Gurkhas and British, and Rex was said to have been a great favourite with all of them. In his book Riddell describes

Rex almost in mythical terms as a “large wolf-like creature” of extraordinary size, intelligence and stamina. “His feet were abnormally large with long, powerful claws that would have done credit to a full-grown cheetah.” Slightly more detached about Rex the dog is one of the South Island veterans of the ski school, John Rolleston, of Timaru. “He was just an ordinary Alsatian in my eyes.” Mr Rolleston did say that he well remembered Rex chasing unfortunate skiers while Bob Fear, of Swannanoa, still cannot understand how the dog covered so much ground following the ski troops about without

wearing out his pads. According to Major Riddell, Rex was the most mobile member of the group. “Uphill, downhill and on the flat, through every depth of snow including deep drifts he seemed to find no difficulty and during the course of his excited and vociferous performance he must have covered two or three times the distance of anyone on skis.” The chief instructor and the self-appointed one were the only two individuals who saw the ski school through from beginning to end. While Major Riddell’s aim was to facilitate the movement of ski troops in the mountains, Rex apparently delighted in inhibiting their

progress. In a letter home at the time Bob Fear wrote of Rex: “He loves running down in front of the ski tips, and if a chap falls, he enjoys it thoroughly, and barks all round the place — if you dont fall, he has a fair attempt at trying to make you.” Riddell said in his book that the outside edges of both his skis were heavily pitted with Rex’s tooth marks. And he claimed that during one moonlight ski-ing excursion the dog had stationed himself at the bottom of a narrow gulley and caused a 30-body pile-up, the highlight of his (the dog’s) career. As chief instructor Major

Riddell saw his role as the training of high-altitude mountain troops in general and for ski troops in particular. The school had actually been begun by Australians in December, 1941, as I Aust. Corps Ski School with Major Riddell describing himself as “a lone Pommie in a position of authority.” A manual from the Kosciusko Alpine Club was reprinted for use in training. When the Australians left, the New Zealanders arrived, in March, 1942, and they comprised the last three courses of that first winter. Major Riddell had begun the ski school with a small team of about 15 instructors, many of

them Australians, and eventually built up a staff of over 100. During the second year when the courses became longer, various commando troops trained there, including a big detachment from New Zealand’s renowned Long Range Desert Group. The school became an all-year-round organisation with a rock climbing school in the summer. Apparently the main reason for the move of the New Zealand Division to Syria in the first place was the threat of a German advance through Turkey. And the conclusion was reached that the New Zealanders in the Bekaa Valley were vulnerable in the mountain

ranges and could be bypassed by enemy ski troops. In “Dog in the Snow” Riddell said it was not the right of those that ran the ski school at the Cedars to question the reason for its existence. But one possibility, he wrote, was that in 1940 and 1941 Allied troops in the campaigns of Greece and Norway came off second best. When the decision was made to expand the school at the end of the first year, there were, Riddell said, mutterings from G.H.Q. in Cairo about the probability of “running a little short of deserts (which we knew how ' to cope with) and that a number

of mountain ranges (which we didn’t) were beginning to loom up.” That could have been anywhere from the Balkans to Norway. Rather later there was the suggestion of a final enemy resistance in the “Bavarian Stronghold”: Hitler’s so-called National Redoubt in the almost impenetrable Alpine mountains. “Troops trained in such an establishment (as his ski school) could have been used to advantage in the Italian campaign, for instance, and later on in the Ardennes,” Riddell said. “But those we trained were never used — with very few exceptions.” According to Riddell, one mountain division that spent three years training in the Highlands of Scotland was eventually put into action below sealevel, on the island of Walcheren in the Netherlands!