ARDUOUS MANŒUVRES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24911, 9 May 1942, Page 5

ARDUOUS MANŒUVRES

AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY TREK OVER ROUGH COUNTRY (Rec 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 8. Traversing 150 miles of rough bush country in eight days, a militia infantry battalion is completing the last stages of one of the most arouous military manoeuvres ever held in New South Wales. Typical of the tough-ening-up exercises introduced into militia training under the threat of invasion was a long cross-country trek, which was accompanied -by innumerable day and night actions involving the use of dummy ammunition, grenades and bombs The men were subjected to ceaseless attack by roving bands of commandos, who descended at night upon isolated parties of sleeping men and subjected them to “ free-for-all” fights, employing methods of unarmed combat, and then vanished into the bush from where they came. . A disconcerting practice of these commandos was to search all prisoners and confiscate their cigarettes and tobacco. Thus the troops had a very personal reason for maintaining watchful guard over bivouacs. On at least one day care was taken to cause a breakdown in supplies, thus depriving the troops of their food and compelling them to fall back on iron rations.