Counter Insurgency

During a recent weekend, groups of eight men from the 13th and 14th platoons of D Company, 2nd Battalion of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, stalked and laid ambushes for each other in the wooded and scrub covered country around Pretty Bridge Valley, Spooner's Range, The object of ail this undercover activity was to give troops experience in the type of warfare they are likely to encounter in the jungle. Each group was a separate entity - cooking its own food and sleeping together under jungle conditions. Their main aim was to capture or destroy enemy (and the "enemy" was every other group) units through ambushes and to remain uncaptured and "alive" at the end of it all. A worthwhile exercise, captured on film for us by John Peterson.