Quote:
“this is a common task for soldiers, yet there is little known about it in any text book…it is a poor job for a soldier, dangerous and dull, very hard work and very thankless. Last night and its results are typical of this sort of operation, four Bn’s …turned out to hunt 40-50 scallywags, having hard day and night, losing perhaps a dozen comrades sniped from ambush, and all there is to show for it is tenor twenty ragged toughs, of whom half will be released by civilian authorities in a week or so, and you will perhaps be lucky if you don’t have to apologise to some of them. But we’ve got to learn to do it, or at least think about it. The advantages are nearly always on the side of the guerrilla in that he is bound by no rules, tied by no transport, hampered by no drill books, while the soldier is bound by many things, not least by his expectation of a full meal every so many hours. The soldier usually wins in the long run, but very expensively”.
Post exercise report, Blackdown, Hampshire, England 1930!
