BAPTISM OF FIRE
Snt,—I read with interest janos's remarks on the training of the French conscript. Now that National Service in this country is to be cut from eighteen to twelve months, may I express the hope that, as in France, time and ammunition will still be found to give every man at least one opportunity of expzriencing small arms, mortar and artillery fire? Many of us who in May, 1940, suddenly found ourselves under heavy fire for the first time, without previous training and without the more gradual indoctrination of trench warfare, found our abrupt baptism of fire ex- tremely frightening, not to say paralysing. Had we previously learned that loud bangs and whining bullets are frequently more noisy than dangerous, we should have behaved, if not with equanimity, at least with a more convincing show of bravery, and the temptation to withdraw prematurely to "previously prepared-positions " would have been easier to resist.—Yours, &c., PETER HADLEY. Garden Cottage, Holtnbury St. Mary, Surrey.
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