Description
Mr. MacKay describes a couple of the more difficult target drills faced by hopefuls in the sniper school at Bramshott.
Donald Finlay MacKay
Donald MacKay was born in Indian Head, Saskatchewan, on April 2, 1897. His father was a pre-Riel homesteader, but Mr. MacKay chose to teach, at age 17, in a one room school. In March 1917, he enlisted in the 249th Battalion at Regina, Saskatchewan. He was sent to Valcartier, Quebec, where he qualified for air force service, but opted to stay in the army. Mr. MacKay was ready to ship out to England, but an epidemic on board saw him quarantined at Camp Aldershot, Nova Scotia. There he took officer training, qualifying as Sergeant. Once assigned to the 46th Battalion, Mr. MacKay served as a Signaller, primarily at Valenciennes. There is no record of his post-service experience. At the time of his interview, Mr. MacKay lived in Wolsely, Saskatchewan.
Transcript
The ordinary targets were just a bullseye. But at this, some of these special tests, if I remember right we had, at the snipers course, a lot of it was moving targets. A figure of a man that was crawling along on his hands and knees. And this was on a post of a fellow down in the trench - would be walking or running with it, to give us a moving target to shoot at, you see. Well, you were all ready with your five shells in your magazine; four in the magazine and one in the chamber. “Well, are you ready? ” Up with one of these targets and then he’d run along with it and down again. Up so long and run along with it and then down again. And you’d have to get your five shells off and see how many hits you got. Well, then it was recorded and you got the message. And if you didn’t get a hit at all, up would come a Union Jack and he’d wave it like that. That means you got nothing. But other targets that I remember was what they called the mad minute, the mad minute. This was a stationary target, bullseye. It came up for 60 seconds and then it went down again and that’s all the time you had to shoot at it. And during that time you were supposed to get off fifteen shots. You had five shells in your rifle and ten right here in clips. Five shells in a clip, you had two clips here and you had five shells in your rifle; one in the barrel, four in the magazine. And then when the target come up, away you went, you got your fifteen shells off. Well, no trick to fire off fifteen shells and see what you could hit. You had, on average, four seconds to aim, load and fire, on average you see, four seconds per shot. Well that’s what they called the mad minute, and well named to, you see. Those were two of the tests that we had, I remember. And, altogether, over a two day period, we had these tests. Total 250 I remember that. I think if you got 150 out of 250 you qualified as a sniper. And if you got 175 you got honorary mention as a marksman. And I remember I got 178 on that. So I got crossed rifles that I could put on my tunic, and wear them, you see. But, of course, I never used them. I never went in as a sniper in the army.