FOREWORD

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by BRIGADIER-GENERAL (RETIRED) S.V. RADLEY-WALTERS, CMM, DSO, MC, CD

“They left a trail of triumphs behind them and did honour to their country wherever they set the print of their hobnailed boots.”
Colonel C.P. Stacey,
History of the Canadian Army 1939-45

Personal experiences generally end up as our best teacher. Such “lessons learned” should be passed on to succeeding generations so that they might benefit by using this information to better interpret and understand their own circumstances.

Already more than 50 years have gone by and the battle experiences that were gained by Canadian soldiers in World War Two, Korea, and elsewhere have, in many cases, been irretrievably lost. Fortunately, much of this hard-won wisdom has been preserved, including General Worthington's comments on success in battle. “The father of the Armoured Corps,” speaking many years ago to a group of officers at Camp Borden, said that success in battle depends on three vital and interdependent essentials which have stood the test of time, including: the quality of our leadership, the quality of our equipment and military organizations, and the quality of our training.

These essentials are easy to lose sight of in peacetime, but they are absolutely vital to our profession. Training supervision and direction begins at the top of our military structure and works its way down to the lowest levels of the chain of command: it doesn't work the other way around. General Montgomery, for example, always insisted that his training directives were distributed down to the level of junior leaders training in the field. I remember those pamphlets contained simple diagrams and were easy to understand, covering both the aim of a particular operation and the training factors to be considered under battle conditions. The pamphlets were made small enough to stick in a battledress pocket, which made sense to soldiers training in the field. As a result they were more likely to be consulted and used than some of today's bulky and voluminous products.

My Canadian Army experience spans the Second World War, the Korean and NATO eras, and Unification. In World War 2, we discovered that you learn the “Tricks of the rule” a lot faster when someone is shelling at you, but the cost in casualties is high - unacceptably high. Training to support the NATO brigade and the Korean War had a similarly stimulating effect on our schools and training objectives with the introduction of new equipments and the recruitment and mobilization of units and reserves which all had to be trained quickly. The possibility of nuclear war also had a profound impact on training and tactical doctrine. Finally, Unification created new challenges to training organizations and methods. Tactical doctrine and “all arms” training standards were centralized under a tactics wing of the Combat Training Centre. When I retired from the Combat Training Centre I was concerned that the new tactics wing was the weak link in the Centre's organization, and to this day I vigorously support the establishment of a Tactical Battle School to train our Army under realistic battle conditions up to the brigade group level.

The history of the Canadian Army reflects the highest standards of learning and adaptability. Brigadier Generalen Beno's booklet is part of this continuing tradition, and it is a great privilege to he asked to contribute this foreword to his work. I encourage commanders at all levels, Regular Force and Reserve, to read and study this booklet, and to put into practice the fundamental principles and training concepts which are so well articulated. Training for war is the raison d'etre of a peacetime army. Canada, and especially her young men and women, deserve nothing short of the highest standards of training, proficiency and professionalism in their army. Their leaders owe this to them. I believe that this booklet will help foster these ideals.

Rad
March, 1999