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OFFICER CADET TRAINING
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ELEVEN
There were two blank firing exercises. The first was a ‘company quick attack’ which was
based on chance encounters during an advance, the main point being the conduct of the
battle procedure in field conditions, deployment of support weapons, moving into the FUP
and the actual attack, followed by deployment in hasty defence on the objective. It was
obviously an important variation to the deliberate battle procedure, something to hone a
company in as the most likely scenario in a fluid theatre of war. The other blank exercise was
a company raid on a military installation, which was cross-linked to watermanship training as
part of the movement to the objective and the withdrawal included using boats.
The ‘company lesson in advance’ involved crossing the Mandai Forest Reserve at night.
These lessons were before the introduction of the laying of white tape by the advance party,
though the use of white tape was already adopted to guide the assault force in platoon and
company level operations from the assembly area to the FUP. The three platoons generally
followed in single file formation with the Company HQ somewhere between the first and
second platoons. Those towards the rear got the worst of it; those in front would have made
the route slippery wherever it was wet, especially at the tactical crossing spots of the streams
in the forest reserve and, not having any positional inputs within a line of trainees stretching
some 300 metres, was like traveling through a tunnel. The exercise was also used to practise
passing messages backward and forward through repetition down and up the line and it was
remarkable how mangled a message could get. Many cadets must have been in good humour
most of the time because one of the famous messages was “Log! Log!”, seemingly a friendly
advice to the person immediately behind, whether there was a log obstructing the path or
not; or, as if there was something that could be done about it. Apparently, based on what
those close to the Company HQ reported even the OC, MAJ Morrice who made a point
of joining in on these exercises, would dutifully lift his legs high over imagined obstacle in
response to these alerts. This lark, which was repeated every time there was a night exercise
at the company level, actually contributed to slowing down the movement. Another message
that many were only too eager to believe was that “OC says long weekend this week.”. To
this day, no one really knows where the real messages ended and where the stand-up comics
took over.
Another raid on an army camp, which required the three platoons to approach from different
directions including, again, crossing the Mandai forest reserve, was a demanding exercise,
but it came towards the end of the course when cadets had also toughened greatly. It was
the more memorable because the objective was Maju Camp, where the CO was MAJ Emile
Nicholas, who had stayed back to see the attack through. He participated in a quick debrief
and gave everybody a smashing night-snack before sending them on their way back to
SAFTI, another six-to-eight hour slog. No one remembers a single occasion when the first
intake cadets were presented with the pleasant surprise of an unplanned ride back to camp
after a gruelling exercise.