Snargate Patrol

Took place at The Garth at weekends. The Patrol also trained in the area around Snargate and practiced with local military units on the odd occasion.

Sergeant Dick Body remembered his role as Patrol Leader in great detail:
"Soon the Patrols were kitted out and training began at The Garth. Most of the practical work with explosives was done under Captain Field and a Royal Engineer Corporal, and for weapon training, field craft, etc. under a Sergeant MacDonald and Corporal MacKenzie of the Lovat Scouts. At times we handled captured German weapons so that we had a certain working knowledge of them. We were expected to practise in our own areas what we had learnt at The Garth.

For the first year, no importance was put on dress and drill. Various members of Patrols went on a weekend course at Coleshill. There everything was intensive, with the first lecture taking place during the Friday evening meal. The officers running the HQ had all their meals with us; at the first meal the Colonel sat himself next to me. On the Saturday, lectures and practice went on all day with a night scheme that finished about 1 am., more lectures and demonstrations on the Sunday morning: unarmed combat with men from the Army Physical Training Corps, etc. After a quick meal we were trucked to the station and train back.

Every Patrol which went to The Garth was marked for competence with explosives, weapon drill, cleanliness of weapons, firing and grenade throwing. After the first selecting round, Patrols were graded A, B and C. Mushroom found themselves in C and something had to be done. So all weapons spent Saturday evening on the kitchen table being cleaned before going up to The Garth. As only five points were awarded for full turnout, and twenty for drill and turnout, there were occasional absentees. As a result of gamesmanship, Mushroom climbed by two steps from C to Number 4 in A.'

We would practise with live ammunition, firing against a thick bank, and on one occasion the bank was so hard the bullets ricocheted over the top and a farmworker in the next field shouted 'Oi ! These bullets are flying around everywhere!' We also made up a target like a man's head on a string, lay in the dyke, and one man would pull on the string so that the head came up and you would use a revolver to fire at it. We would all take it in turns. That was our training with the revolver on a moving target. After a while we were quite good at it.

On one or two occasions training took place between Goudhurst and Cranbrook, rendezvous at The Peacock Inn, where a waiting army truck led to a place where live ammunition could be used safely and also primed hand grenades could be safely thrown." 

George Elvy; “I was given a full saboteur’s training with live explosives and ammunition. We were trained to operate in darkness. Our orders were to do as much damage as possible and if we were cornered and couldn’t fight our way out, we were to shoot ourselves. The reason was we knew we’d be tortured and no-one wanted to give away our secret bunker.

On Sunday mornings we would go up to The Garth for special training with live explosives. We learnt how to blow a tree so it fell across and blocked the road and the speed at which the different fuses burnt. We would often attack Regular Army units and place dummy charges on lorries, guns and tanks where they would do most damage. Sometimes we would tell the units to expect us and then try and creep up on them at night to see how far we could get.

On one particular night I was in a dyke creeping up on the searchlight battery near The Bull at Newchurch when I was spotted by a lady passer-by. She thought I had been in an accident. That put the kibosh on the exercise.

We would meet once a week for training at Dick Body’s house, stuff like map reading, night movement, stripping weapons blindfolded, live firing against a nearby earth bank and pull-string targets using our revolvers."