COMMANDO EXERCISES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25241, 2 June 1943, Page 3

COMMANDO EXERCISES

AMERICANS IN BRITAIN RUGBY, May 31. American , Rangers (commando troops), all of whom had undergone basic training at a commlndo school in the Scottish Highlands, took part in a joint Anglo-American army exercise—the first of the kind—in the _ Southern Command area. During the operations the Higher Command offered the rangers a * tempting bait in the form of a raid on army workshops. The bait was swallowed, and the rangers wiped out the workshops and captured part of the British plans of operations. The Americans took every opportunity to prove the efficiency of their new self-propelled 75-millimetre and 105-millimetre field guns, organised in “ cannon company,” and their “ Bazookas,” or anti-tank rocket projectors. The “Bazooka” comes within The modem “Woolworth” category of weapons, but, like the Sten and Northover guns, its effectiveness is out of all proportion to its simplicity of design and operation. With a length of tubing and two wooden attachments—one a shoulder butt and the other a housing and firing mechanism—it looks an innocent weapon, but it will stop a tank if it hits it.