Exercise Cambrian Patrol

Exercise Cambrian Patrol is an annual international military patrolling exercise that makes its participating units cover a 50-mile (80 km) course in less than 48 hrs while performing numerous types of military exercises placed throughout the rugged Cambrian Mountains and swamp lands of mid-Wales.

Cambrian Patrol was first set up in August 1960 by Welshman Maj Gen Lewis Pugh DSO, to feature long distance marching over the Cambrian Mountains from Tonfanau on the west coast of Wales. Since then, the exercise has been rigorously updated to meet the challenges faced by modern soldiers. (Lewis Pugh was a professional soldier, commissioned into the Royal Horse Artillery. After serving in Germany between the wars and on the North West Frontier of India, he answered an advertisement for men with knowledge of India to join the Special Branch Intelligence Department of the Bengal Police. At the outbreak of WW2 he returned to the army, and by 1943 was Director of Country Sections with SOE’s Force 136, one of their most successful units, based in Calcutta and specialised in placing agents and trained saboteurs deep behind enemy lines inside Burma and Malaya. At the time Lewis Pugh was a Lieutenant Colonel, but he subsequently became a Major General with a CB, CBE and three DSOs. This wartime incident was published in 1978 as “Boarding Party – The Last Action of the Calcutta Light Horse” by James Leasor, and was subsequently portrayed in a 1980 film, “Sea Wolves”, starring Gregory Peck as Pugh, and including a host of other well known names. As the film makers noted, during the first 11 days of March 1943, U-boats sank 12 Allied ships in the Indian Ocean. After the Light Horse raid on Goa, only one ship was lost in the remainder of the month.)

In 2006 the event which ran from 27 October to 5 November 2006, attracted 95 teams from the British Army (regular and territorial) and Royal Air Force. Foreign army teams from Pakistan, Canada, Lithuania, Latvia, Denmark, India, France and the Czech Republic also took part. A total of 64 teams completed the exercise.

The competition consists of teams of eight men patrolling across some of the most unforgiving terrain. It's a test of leadership, self-discipline, courage, physical endurance and determination. The exercise usually starts with teams arriving at a rendezvous before having their equipment checked to make sure they have everything required. Missing equipment will be replaced by dead weight and will mean points will be deducted. From there the team leader will be taken to orders while the rest of the team set up a quick hide, start their battle prep and prepare to receive orders i.e. prepare a model of the ground which will be covered during the patrol. Many of the teams that enter do not finish, those that do earn one of four distinctions; gold medal, silver medal, bronze medal, or passing.

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