G11

Lee Haldeman attended the December course in 1971. He writes:

We arrived by train from Pretoria late morning. Taken to Greystone. Had lunch and then were put on the floor of an old beaten up Kombi. We were blindfolded with socks and driven around in circles for quite a while. Then dropped off with a map and a compass. I had some exposure to map reading before so started on analysing where we were, but nothing made sense. So we asked a farmer and were pointed in the right direction. After a couple of hours of walking/jogging, we got back to Greystone – about 4 in the afternoon. The instructors eventually sent out search  parties about 8 in the evening to find the last guys and bring them back. I found out that the compass no longer worked and we had been dropped off the edge of the map that they provided to us. Now I know their intention was to deliberately fool us. And that was just the start!

I attended with Michael Sunshine – we were both sent by our school, Clapham High in Pretoria. I lost contact with Michael – think he went into medicine. I think the patrol leader for Dick King was Bobby Hartslief – I think he was the head boy designate for King Edward School. Can’t remember the names of the instructors. Have some memories that the map reading instructor was a land surveyor and the PT instructor was a staff sergeant PT instructor from the army.