Bayonet Training 1918

The heroic war poet Siegfried Sassoon gives an unforgettable description in his ''Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'' of a bayonet instruction course he attended - and the fierceness of the training given. This 1916 booklet - re-issued in 1918 - which details all aspects of bayonet training, bears out his emphasis on the importance the Army still placed in this simple but trusty weapon. ''The bayonet is an offensive weapon,'' it instructs. ''Go straight at an opponent with the point threatening his throat and deliver the point wherever an opening presents itself.''