ARMY MANOEUVRES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 261, 2 October 1940, Page 10

ARMY MANOEUVRES.

THE LIGHTER SIDE,

A CORPSE THAT FLED

Stories are still circulating concerning unrehearsed incidents which provided light relief to the hard work that was involved in the “Battle of Wanganui” on Thursday night, when an attempt to capture Wanganui was made by a company of the National Military Reserve and resisted by the First Battalion Wellington Regiment (City of Wellington’s Own), says the Wanganui Herald. There were evidently many instances of combatants who personified the title of tho song “He’s Head But He Won’t Lie Down.” In one instance an officer suddenly appeared in the grey light of dawn from among the lupin bushes a few feet from where a private of the opposing force was crouching under the cover of other lupin bushes. Anxious to make quick and certain success with such an important opponent, the soldier, in full view of several of his mates, “let the officer have it” at almost point blank range with his blank ammunition. Those who were there say the force of the explosion alone must have nearly blown the officer over. However, instead of falling according to the rules of the game, the officer became a ghost and fled, providing his opponents with the rather astounding and aggravating sight of a uniformed corpse speeding away through the lupins in \almost record sprinting time. In another instance a despatch rider on a motor-bicycle was speeding along a road in the dark, advertising his progress by the noise of his machine, heading straight for a party of opponents who decided to ambush him. The section leader, however, omitted to detail any one man to do the shooting, with the result that when the cyclist arrived about a score of rifles went oft at once. “If wc had had live ammunition, he would have been a human sieve,” said one of his captors, in relating the tale. MEN WHO “DISAPPEARED.” There were several “disappearances.” One man, advancing in the dark, stepped from a sandhill on'to a track. Unfortunately the track was about three feet lower than lie thought it was and he made a “crash landing” that produced subdued laughter from bin mates following him. The man concerned would like to laugh about it now, too, hut he cannot, as every time he laughs his bruised ribs hurt! Another man who was proceeding across broken country stepped boldly forward into thin air and landed at the bottom of a sand pit. 1 One man “went missing” early in the engagements and was not sccii bv the rest of his section again. They all went home rather anxious about him, but really more anxious about their breakfast, promisong one another that they would make up a search party afterward to scour the lupins for him. However, it proved that he had had a “better battle” than they, as he had been taken prisoner in the first few minutes and was home before they were.

One n.c.o ; . spent some time “stalking” someone else round a clump of lupin, only to find that it was, not the enemy, but one of his own men. To add insult to injury he broke part of his rifle in the process.