Howard's own family was growing. Joy, living with relatives at Church Stretton, was pregnant. During the war Howard was a virtual teetotaller, partly because he wanted to keep a clear mind, partly because 'I saw the mess a lot of people were getting into, making bloody fools of themselves, and I wanted to set an example for my own subalterns'. The child was due in late June but not actually born until July 12. During the fortnight between the due date and the actual delivery, Howard was so irritable and bad-tempered that his subalterns found him unapproachable. When news of the successful delivery arrived in Bulford, everyone was so relieved that a huge party developed. Howard, drinking straight shots of whisky 'to wet the baby's head', got royally drunk.
By July, Howard was pretty much on his own, allowed by his colonel to set his own training pace and schedule. Initially he put the emphasis on teaching the men the skills of the light infantryman. He taught them to be marksmen with their rifles, with the light machine-gun, with the carbine and the pistol, with the Piat and other anti-tank weapons. He instructed them in the many types of grenades, their characteristics and special uses.
The basic weapons of a gliderborne platoon of thirty men included the Enfield .303 rifle, the Sten carbine, the Bren light machine gun, 2" and 3" mortars, and the Piat (projector infantry anti-tank). The Enfield was the old reliable British rifle. One or two men in each platoon were snipers, each equipped with a telescopic sight for his rifle. The Sten was a 9mm submachine gun that reflected Britain's inability to produce quality weapons for her troops. The Sten was mass-produced, and distributed to thousands of fighting men, not because it was good but because it was cheap. It could be fired single-shot or automatic, but the weapon frequently jammed and too often it went off on its own. In 1942 David Wood accidentally shot Den Brotheridge in the leg with his Sten, in fact, after forgetting to put the safety-catch back on. Brotheridge recovered, and indeed he, like all the officers, carried the Sten by choice. Weighing only seven pounds and measuring thirty inches in length, it had an effective range of a hundred yards and used a box magazine holding thirty-two rounds. For all its shortcomings, it was deadly in close-in combat - if it worked.
The Bren gun was a light machine gun, weighing twenty-three pounds, normally fired on the ground from a tripod, but also from the hip. It had an effective range of 500 yards and a rate of fire of 120 rounds per minute. There was one Bren gunner per platoon; everyone in the platoon helped carry the thirty-round magazines for him. In rate of fire, in depend ability, and by other measurements, the Bren was inferior to its German counterpart, the MG 34, just as the Sten was inferior to the German Schmeisser.
The Piat was a hand-held rocket, fired from the shoulder, that threw a three -pound bomb through a barrel at high trajectory and a speed of about 300 feet per second. The hollow charged bomb exploded on impact. Effective range was supposed to be 100 yards, but the men of D Company could never get more than 50 yards out of the Piat. Being spring-loaded, Piats were inaccurate and subject to frequent jamming. They also had a nasty habit of glancing off the target unexploded. No one liked them very much, but all got proficient with them.
They all also learned to use a Gammon bomb, a plastic explosive charge developed from the 'Sticky Bomb' and designed by Captain Gammon of the paratroopers. You could throw one with a stick and it would cling to the clogs of a tank, or even throw it by hand (as long as it did not stick to the hand). Except for the Piat, Gammon bombs were all a glider platoon had to fight tanks, and the men learned what they had to know about them. Much of the training was with live ammunition, which caused some accidents and an occasional death, but the British had learned from Dieppe that it was essential to expose green troops to live ammunition before sending them into combat.
Howard taught his men about German weapons, how to use them, what they could do. He taught them how to lay and find mines, how to take them up. He gave them a working knowledge of elementary first aid, of cooking in a billy can, of the importance of keeping clean. He made certain that they could recognise the smell of various poison gases, and knew what to do if attacked by them. He insisted that every man in his company be proficient in the use of natural and artificial camouflage, and know how to read a topographical map. His men had to know how to use a field wireless, how to drive various army vehicles. Most of all, Howard put the emphasis on teaching them to think quickly. They were elite, he told them, they were glider-borne troops, and wherever and whenever it was that they attacked the enemy, they could be sure of the need for quick thinking and quick response.
Howard's emphasis on technical training went a bit beyond what the other company commanders were doing, but only just a bit. Each of Howard's associates were commanding top-quality volunteers, and were volunteers themselves, outstanding officers. What was different about D Company was its commander's mania for physical fitness. It went beyond anything anyone in the regiment had ever seen before. All the regiment prided itself on being fit (one officer from B Company described himself as a physical-fitness fanatic), but all were amazed, and a bit critical, of the way Howard pushed his company fitness programme.
D Company's day began with a five-mile cross-country run, done at a speed of seven or eight minutes to the mile. After that the men dressed, ate breakfast, and then spent the day on training exercises, usually strenuous. In the late afternoon, Howard insisted that everyone engage in some sport or another. His own favourites were the individual endeavours, crosscountry running, swimming, and boxing, but he encouraged football, rugby, and any sport that would keep his lads active until bedtime.
Those were regular days. Twice a month, Howard would take the whole company out for two or three days, doing field\ exercises, sleeping rough. He put them through gruelling marches and soon they became an outstanding marching unit. Wally Parr swears - and a number of his comrades back him up - that they could do twenty-two miles, in full pack, including the Brens, mortars and ammunition, in under five and one-half hours. When they got back from such a march. Parr relates, 'you would have a foot inspection, get a bite to eat, and then in the afternoon face a choice: either play football or go for a cross-country run'.
All the officers, including Howard, did everything the men did. All of them had been athletes themselves, and loved sports and competition. The sports and the shared misery on the forced marches were bringing officers and men closer together. David Wood was exceedingly popular with his platoon, as was Tod Sweeney, in his own quiet way, with his. But Brotheridge stood out. He played the men's game, football, and as a former corporal himself he had no sense of being ill at ease among the men. He would come into their barracks at night, sit on the bed of his batman. Billy Gray, and talk football with the lads. He got to bringing his boots along, and shining them as he talked. Wally Parr never got over the sight of a British lieutenant polishing his boots himself while his batman lay back on his bed, gassing on about Manchester United and West Ham and other football teams.
Howard's biggest problem was boredom. He wracked his brains to find different ways of doing the same things, to put some spontaneity into the training. His young heroes had many virtues, but patience was not one of them. The resulting morale problem extended far beyond D Company, obviously, and late in the summer of 1942, General Gale sent the whole regiment to Devonshire for two months of cliff climbing, and other strenuous training. He then decided to march the regiment back to Bulford, some 130 miles. Naturally, it would be a competition between the companies.