Army - The Soldiers' Newspaper

Only Joking

"say again over"
CAPTION COMPETITION

If you can think of a clever, witty caption to this picture, email armynews@defencenews.gov.au (put "caption competition" in the subject line and include your name, rank, unit and location with your entry).

Keep entries under 25 words. Entries must include the sender's name, rank, unit and location. The winning entry will be published in the March April 21 edition.

LAST EDITIONS PHOTOGRAPH

And the winner is ...

The golf war started to hot up at the FORE ward edge of the battle area.
Gene Negro, CSI-WA

Army newspaper staff also liked:

Defence wishes to thank the PGA Tour for their contribution to the grenade launcher project.
Maj Dave Jenkins, HQJOC

Incriminating photographs put paid to Sgt Smith's Tier 1 field allowance claim.
Pte Andrew Riddle, SFTC Singleton

Listening Post

Padre parade

Chaplains join the Army to care for soldiers' welfare - a Padre was recently heard dismissing a course parade with "Course, leave here and retire gratiously."

Sandhurst ethos

The SM in charge of cadets at Sandhurst will have a princely trainee in his charge.

He is quoted as saying "Prince Harry will call me sir. And I will call him sir. But he will be the one who means it."

Send your submissions for Listening Post to armynews@defencenews.gov.au (sec: unclassified)

It's a fact

Friendly fire incidents

Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was fatally shot by three of his own troops after the Confederate triumph at Chancellorsville in 1863.

In his first engagement during the First World War, Lawrence of Arabia shot his own camel in the back of the head.

Over the course of the First World War, up to 75,000 French troops were killed by their own artillery. The Germans suffered similar problems, their 49th Artillery Regiment being re-christened 48½th for persistently firing short.

Italy's Marshal Italo Balbo, Mussolini's commander in Libya, was shot down by his own antiaircraft defences at Tobruk in 1940.

The highest ranking American to die in the Second World War was Lt-Gen Lesley McNair, killed by a stray bomb dropped by the US Army Air Corps.

Following a massive naval bombardment of the Aleutian island of Kiska in June 1943, 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore. 21 troops were killed in the firefight before it was found there were no Japanese forces on the island.

Bad predictions

Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
- Gen Ferdinand Foch, 1911. Later Marshal and supreme commander of Allied forces in 1918.

Hard pressed on my right; my left is in retreat. My centre is yielding. Impossible to manoeuvre. Situation excellent. I am attacking.
- Foch again during the battle of the Marne 1914.

In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.
- Marshal Petain, 1940.

Prompting Churchill's later remark - Some chicken, some neck!

Extract from the book Essential Militaria, by Nicholas Hobbes, Atlantic books.