Major Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard was an explorer and adventurer who revolutionized the training of British Army snipers during the First World War. In this richly-detailed book, he explains his constant efforts to improve sniping standards, which finally resulted in the First Army School of Scouting, Observation and Sniping. Drawing on his experience as a big-game hunter and marksman, he emphasized the importance of camouflage, careful observation, the ability to shoot quickly and accurately, and above all the necessity of out-thinking the opponent for as he noted, sniping in the trenches was "really neither more nor less than a very high-clazz form of big game shooting, in which the quarry shot back." The book includes many anecdotes of his times on the front lines, the various ruses and counter-ruses employed by the snipers on both sides, and his musings on the responsibilities of the sniper in future wars in which he accurately predicts the role of the scout-sniper teams of today. Detailed appendices reproduce the early curriculum of his sniper school. A contemporary estimated that Hesketh-Prichard's training saved the lives of over 3,500 Allied soldiers: this book explains how he did it.
Table of Contents:
I. The Genesis of Sniping
II. The Sniper in the Trenches
III. Early Days with the XI Corps and First Army
IV. The First Army School of Scouting, Observation and Sniping
V. Some Sniping Memories
VI. An Observer's Memories
VII. The Curriculum and Work at First Army School of S.O.S.
VIII. Wilibald the Hun
IX. The Cat
X. The Training of the Portuguese
XI. The Modern Scout
Appendix A. Programme for Training Observers.
Appendix B. General Course at First Army School of S.O.S.
Appendix C. Care of Arms, Grouping and Range Practices