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Week 4New Entrants – Week 4Report 1First thing Monday morning the Troop attended a Memorial Service for the Deal bombing of on the 22ndSeptember 1989. This was a very important event and our first official one as a Troop. It was, however, obvious that we need to have a bit more practise at standing still as there were a few ‘wobblers’ present. Those unfortunate few had to spend the next day carrying their Bergans with them but they won't leave their lockers open again! On Tuesday morning we finished the map reading work that we had started the day before. It was obvious that we were all feeling a bit deprived of sleep (myself included) but we all managed to stay fairly ‘switched-on’ and improved a lot during the period. After lunch we all got fitted with our lovat trousers and issued with our respirators. The rest of this week was to be spent in the field so the next hour or so was spent packing up the transport with kit and equipment needed for the exercise. We then finished the day with a tough PT period that included lots of piggybacks, wheelbarrow races as well as the usual press-ups and running. At the end of the period three of the lads were chosen to act as casualties whilst the rest of us had the task of carrying them back to base. After a much needed shower and scran we all spent most of the evening packing our Bergans for the field and aiming to get a full night’s sleep before the next couple of nights.
On Friday, after the previous morning’s events, we were determined not to be late for the kit muster, so left the harbour position at 0530 hours to be ready for 0700 hours. This was a much more successful one with most people only slipping up on full water bottles. (Nothing like a litre of cold water over your head at 0700 hours!) We then filled in our shell scrapes, packed up all the team tent area and made our way back to the coach. Although losing one Troop member on the way, (come back soon Evans!) we all made it back in one piece (well… Horner only just) and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening de-servicing our kit and preparing for the weekend ahead. Report 2First thing Monday morning there was a touching Memorial Parade in the Royal Marines School of Music in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the Deal bombing. This was to remember and mourn the loss of 11 Royal Marines musicians who were killed on 22 September 1989, in which the whole School took part in showing the importance of the day to the Royal Marines Band Service. After the Memorial we had the joys of the weapons handling test in which we had to show the Training Team we were competent, safe and trustworthy with a weapon so that we could move on to the ranges later in training. Many passed first time, however for some it took longer and after the third attempt, the whole Troop had passed. With this is mind we were all looking forward to taking the weapons to the range and later into the field on exercise. After a well-needed lunch break, we started our map reading lessons in which we learnt firstly how to fold the map, which is of great importance, then we moved onto learning how to read the map with grid references and learning to identify landmarks through contours on the map. After around two hours of map reading, we headed towards the accommodation thinking that the day was over. How wrong we were. We found a note on the white board from our Drill Instructor telling us we had extra parade for leaving our rooms untidy and this meant a night of quick changes. We were running up and down changing into different rigs that finally ended up with us looking like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Tuesday was full of map reading like the day before but we also had a PT session in which we all felt dead afterwards following piggyback races and many press-ups. This left us limping around getting our Bergans packed for the field.
Overall, the week was definitely hard work but very fulfilling as we had learnt so much and survived another field exercise. Predicted forecast of the training programme (Subject to change at short notice)Mon 24 SepWeapon Training - Rifle Practice 3 Tue 25 SepMap Reading - Shape of Ground - Measuring Distance - Bearings Wed 26 SepExercise Bugle Call (Tactical) Thur 27 SeptTactical Sentry - Observation - Shell Scrape - Harbour Drills Fri 28 SeptField PT Sat 29 SeptShore Leave Sun 30 SeptChurch Parade
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We set off bright and early on Wednesday morning on the half-hour journey to the exercise area that was to be our home for the next few days. The coach dropped us off and we had a fair walk to the team tent position where we unloaded the lorry and set up the team tents. I was surprised at how well we remembered how it all fitted together! (Thanks go mostly to Hemmings for that.) After being shown the wooded area that was to become our harbour position, we had lectures on harbour positions and sentry duties involving lots of note taking. We were then set the task of digging our shell scrapes and cooking scran before a night-time navigation exercise round a route we had walked earlier in the day. After this, our night routine started and everyone took turns completing sentry duties.
Our first detail on Thursday morning was at 0800 hours – full kit muster. Needless to say we completely underestimated the time needed to complete this and we failed – big time! So the next hour was spent taking part in some ‘corrective training’, we certainly won’t be late for kit muster again! Our field PT period was therefore spent pretty much recovering from earlier physical activities but we all really benefited from a good stretching period and a bit of a pep talk from some of the Training Team. The rest of the day consisted of lectures on camouflage and then target indication and fire control orders using blank rounds. Then we were back into our night routine, completed another Nav Ex and continued with sentry duties. UNTIL … at approximately 0230 hours our defence was broken and we were hastily moved to our ERV (emergency rendezvous). This basically involved a lot of bangs, pyrotechnics and the quickest Bergan packing you can imagine. Again, this taught us to keep our kit at a constant state of readiness. Those keen beans that were cleaning their weapons at this ungodly hour soon lived to regret this decision and reminded them of the correct operational stripping drills as taught by the training team.
We finished the week with a field exercise that spanned from Wednesday morning to Friday morning. In this exercise we learnt how to guard our harbour position through sentry duty, how to camouflage ourselves with foliage and cam cream, which I could only describe as tough play-dough. We also learnt not to be late during the field exercise as we were punished after being late for a kit muster. This involved relaying our kitmusters at various locations at the double, out lesson learnt and we won’t be late again! The Troop also learnt the importance of having your weapon in one piece at all times as some found it hard to put their weapon together after the harbour positions had been crash moved by the training team. People were running about panicking, trying to flee with incomplete kit while some were still in their sleeping bags pretending to shoot at the team. After an uneasy night’s sleep fearing the team would bump us again, it was time to get up and pack away. The training team had a little surprise for Musn Eskrett and Musn Gregory by cooking them fried breakfast while the others were packing away the team tent. The field exercise ended in disaster for Musn Evans who had a suspected dislocated her shoulder whilst falling over and landing awkwardly.
