Army & Navy - Rangers in Scotland

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"These men died by their own stupidity."

U.S. newsmen stopped short when they saw this sign in the Scottish highlands last week. They read the brutal details on white crosses over neatly heaped graves. "This man forgot to examine his climbing rope"; "This Royal Marine walked in front of his pal's rifle"; "This officer put a bomb down a three-inch mortar the wrong way"; "This man took up a position against the skyline."

With relief they learned that the graves were empty. But the incidents had been real enough. In the camp close by, British Command troops had long been training under real fire, and unwary men had indeed been killed. Now U.S. Army Rangers were in training there, in a course as dour and harsh as the snow that capped the crags and sluiced icy water into the ankle-deep mud of the glens.

Landing Party. On the loch below an ancient clansman's castle (which is headquarters), Rangers armed to the teeth paddled toward shore in longboats. From the crags a rifle spat and a pair of Bren guns began a frenetic stutter. Water spurted up alongside the boats. A bullet shattered a paddle blade.

As the longboats came into shallow water the fire increased. Bullets ricocheted off the water with angry whines. "Toss out grenades," shouted an instructor. Grenades lobbed out, boomed dully, throwing up geysers that broke over the boats.

Now the Rangers were over the side in the icy loch and splashing ashore. Mud-coated from the day's earlier work, they formed in three waves, headed up the hill, one wave advancing while a second fired bullets and mortar shells over their heads at dummy targets, and the third swung wide in a flanking movement.

Instructors set off electrically controlled mines, which sent up pillars of smoke and mud among the advancing troops. Bullets from the Brens and rifles spat at their heels and cracked overhead. No man had to be told to use every bit of cover he could find.

Hiking Party. Finally the objectives were overrun. The sweating Rangers reformed; the day's work was not over. It is never over. Toughest of all are the noncombat exercises sometimes sprung on the men when they have just finished exercises under fire. And toughest of those is the "speed march."

For the first week the speed march is only seven miles, but it takes tired men through mud, up crag and down hill. After the second week it is lengthened out to 15 miles, and it is made without stop in two and a half hours, or the insistently casual British instructors are displeased.

At night Rangers are often summoned from their tents and Niesen huts, sent off through the eternal rain on compass marches over unmarked, blacked-out terrain. On these marches they wade creeks, slosh through mires, sleep wet and muddy on open ground without bedroll or tent. They live off the country, learn how to kill a sheep by cracking its neck with a quick twist (so that its bleat will not betray them), how to butcher it and start cooking within seven minutes.