As regular readers may have noticed, recently I have been perusing several World War Two British manuals. Both the official and the commercially published manuals for the army and home guard place a considerable emphasis on fieldcraft. One aspect of fieldcraft was training the soldier to use his ears more effectively. Langdon-Davies describes a number of demonstrations and exercises a squad may conduct for this purpose.
For the individual he suggests listening to music and trying to follow individual instruments. He also suggests that troops must become familiar with the normal everyday noises of an environment. The noise of sheep cropping grass, the singing of telegraph wires, the noise of cooling stones and so on. By doing this the soldier will better distinguish noises that are out of place, such as a buckle tapping a rifle stock, a branch slapping a steel helmet or a spade biting into dirt.
Aspects of using and training the hearing may be the subject of a future blog. Today I am going to pass on a video sent to me by a regular reader. It is an excellent demonstration of how your hearing may already be giving you far more information than you realised!
The Books
