CCF Annual Camp July 2015
William Dransfield Fourth Form THIS YEAR’S CAMP WAS HELD IN PENALLY TRAINING CAMP, TENBY, SOUTH WALES AND WE WERE HOSTED BY SOLDIERS FROM THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF WALES.
W
e arrived at School on Saturday morning at 7.30am to prepare equipment. There were 11 cadets and three officers. We arrived at Penally at 1500 that afternoon and went to our accommodation. That evening we went into Tenby, which is a nice seaside town. We were partnered for the week with cadets from a Welsh school called St Bridge’s. On the Sunday we had a watermanship activity which consisted of building a raft and racing it across a lake against another group from St Bridge’s. We built our raft the fastest, thanks to help from Major Prem, and then we were able to row the fastest across the lake. We then played a game of raft rugby and thanks to Laurence Eastman’s quick thinking (swimming out to collect the ball), we won this too. It had been a successful day! That evening, we met some cadets from Canada who we played cards with and who gave us some maple syrup that we enjoyed for breakfast the next morning. On the Monday we had a range day. We were shooting at targets of up to 200 metres away. However, due to poor weather, we were the only group to shoot that day. All of our cadets passed the shooting challenge and Ashley Evans earned a marksman award. Luckily the weather cleared, and that evening we all went clay pigeon shooting and also did some archery. The next day was also very wet but we were back on the lake in the morning on kayaks so it did not stop any activities. We were divided into two groups, red and blue. We played murder ball and kayak polo which was great fun. That afternoon we were supposed to go rock climbing, but unfortunately it was rained off as the rocks became too slippery. Instead we had a drill lesson out on the parade square. On the Wednesday and Thursday we had our field exercise. We set up a harbour area, cooked our rations, and everyone took turns on sentry duty. We then performed tasks as a platoon. We prepared an ambush site and then later that evening sprung the ambush on our opponents. We then went back to our harbour area and finally went to sleep in bashas. We woke up early the next morning, and underwent some quick training to prepare for a section attack on an enemy position. We patrolled down to the beach where the attack was going to take place and began patrolling along the sandy road before we were ambushed. We put into practice the drills we had learnt that morning, with one section providing fire support as the other section flanked, and then cleared the position. We then marched back to the airfield to our bus arriving back at camp. On Thursday afternoon we went back into Tenby, where we bought fudge, fish and chips and ice cream. That evening we played football and volleyball with St. Bridge’s. We left on the Friday morning. It was a great week enjoyed by all. Thanks to the CTT Wales and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkinson, Major Prem and Major Millbery.
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