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AIRBORNE PART THREE
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Anyone
taking our Normandy sky tour finds it helpful to have an idea of the
scale of Operation Overlord. Their
Finest Hour, Map Table and
The Special Relationship are worth a glance to understand some of
the events before America's entry into the Second World War. Many
visitors to our website probably know much of what is set out below.
Please grant us your forbearance. We try to ensure that those less
familiar with the background to D Day, particularly the young, start
their tour with a sound conception of what was at stake thereby making their time with us all the more worthwhile and
enjoyable.
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For some time
we have felt the website lacked enough detail on two topics - airborne
forces, and the role of the French Resistance during the Battle of
Normandy including the politics among the main resistance groups. We're
still working on the latter but hope our readers
find this page and its photos explain some of the basics about airborne
forces. There is a vast amount of information on the Internet and
several good sites are linked to ours. Many excellent books have been
written about airborne forces, the best always by those who took part.
Therefore the material on our site provides most detail on the early
parachute operations which are less familiar to our regular readership
before offering a critique on the better known operations and some
thoughts on future operations. We've also tried to bring alive what it's
like to take part in a mass parachute landing.

This
photo of a C 119 shows how the wartime American parachutes - still used
in Korea - opened canopy first. Two airborne operations took place in
Korea, both carried out by the 187th Regimental Combat Team. The first
was in October 1950 during the advance to the Yalu River, intended to
cut off the escaping North Korean leadership while rescuing American
prisoners. On Easter Sunday 1951 over 120 C 119s and C 54s dropped 3500
Americans and a 12 strong Indian medical team near Munsan-ni in North
Korea. This was part of an operation to trap the Chinese forces driving
their spring offensive between the Han
and Imjin Rivers - later during the same battle 800 Gloucesters held a
hill against the Chinese 63 Army for over three days. Only one company
escaped and reached the 29 Brigade lines but the Chinese lost 10,000
from an original 27,000 and the 63 Army was withdrawn from the
battlefield.
Those of us
who served with airborne forces during the 1950s used exactly the same
equipment as our seniors employed on D Day. Most of our
officers and NCOs were veterans of D Day, Holland and the Rhine
Crossing. One sapper in my squadron was a German Fallschirmjaeger
veteran of Crete who still wore his Luftwaffe issue leather belt! Our
weapons, equipment, uniforms and rations had 1944 stamped prominently on
them. Our parachutes were the wartime X type although we
jumped ' American ' style with a reserve parachute - our veteran
leadership were quick to dismiss this trans-Atlantic ' softness ' and
stressed that reserve parachutes
had no place on combat jumps. This was nonsense but we kept our mouths
shut.
Helicopters
were still in their infancy and employed for small passenger numbers
such as medical evacuation. The big change
during the dozen years after 1945 was that aircraft performances greatly
improved, so much that an airborne force no longer required
gliders to deliver whole platoons, artillery, vehicles and light tanks
onto the battlefield. Heavy drop parachutes had been perfected with platforms
to carry bulky equipment. Moreover, the aircraft that we jumped from had become more
spacious - the C 47 Dakota of wartime fame carried 19 paratroops, the
early 1950s Hastings carried 36 paratroops, the later Beverley carried
the same number in her tail boom and 70 paratroops in total. Once above Netheravon
on a very hot day those of us riding in the tail boom were told to climb
down - wearing our parachutes and loaded with 80 pounds weight kit bags
- into the freight bay. I can still hear 40 plus paratroops similarly
loaded and sweating, lined up along either side of the freight bay,
baa-baaing like sheep as they waited for us all to scramble down and
join the twin steaming lines waiting to jump. Once through the door,
never had the summer sky felt so cool.

An
American officer gazing at a Beverley for the first time remarked, '
Well, she swallows a fantastic variety of loads, but can she
fly? ' The aircraft was equipped with a piece of equipment known as the
' elephant's foot ' to stop it sitting down as a heavy load boarded. Its
wings owed much to the Hamilcar glider. The photo shows how the X type
parachute let the rigging lines pay out first before the
canopy streamed. The last break-tie snapped on the bag as the parachute
blossomed. This gave a much softer deployment. Strops and
static lines plus deployment bags can be seen flying beyond the aircraft door in the
slipstream.

The
Argosy was a graceful aircraft and carried 40 paratroops with a rear
door and ramp for heavy loads. Paratroops exited through the doors or
from a large aperture through the rear deck. The RAF also operated a
much larger freighter called the Belfast for heavy loads and long
distance flights. During the 1960s the C 130 gradually replaced all
three aircraft.
The era of mass parachute attack,
certainly in Vietnam, had ended with France's 1954 disaster at Dien Bien Phu.
The French plan was for a mass drop into the enemy's back yard among the High
Country along the Laos border. An airhead would be established and the
Viet Minh Army led by General Vo Nguyen Giap drawn into the waiting
firepower. Giap surrounded the airhead, brought up flak and artillery to
the shock of the French generals, then strangled the life out of Dien
Bien Phu. The surviving paras surrendered on the 8 May 1954 and were
marched north, some in chains. France sued for peace. One of the survivors was
Marcel Bigeard, a battalion commander in those days, later the most
respected Para General in France.
The last time
a British parachute assault took place was 1956 when 3 Parachute
Battalion captured the airfield at Port Said. The French 2 Colonial
Parachute Regiment jumped onto a tiny DZ close to the Suez Canal during
the British/French attack on the Canal Zone. Both operations were
successful but the political fall-out with the Eisenhower administration
brought the intervention to a swift end. Since then the French and the
Belgians have made parachute interventions in their former colonies in
Africa. During their 1965 war with India the Pakistan Army parachute
battalion launched a slightly reckless operation dropping small parties
to sabotage the Indian airfields on the Punjab Plain. Fortunately my
personal friends were quickly captured and returned unharmed after a few
weeks as POWs. The Russians have maintained strong airborne forces but
these have not attempted airborne operations.
I never jumped
from a C 47 until serving in Vietnam. They really were perfect jump
aircraft. Comfortable and steady in the air with a big door. We used
them for free-fall training and operations. We once took a Huey up to
11,500 feet for a jump, partly to see if it would go that high. The
Vietnamese
regularly practised battalion mass drops and their senior airborne
officers regarded this as a much less complex and costly means of
vertical envelopment than helicopters. Although there were parachute
operations - including the US 503 Parachute Regiment and other elements
of the 173 Airborne Brigade jumping near the Cambodian border in 1967 -
the helicopter soon dominated the battlefield. By 1969 the 173rd was an
airmobile brigade that knew how to mount parachute operations but all insertions were made with helicopters.
N Company 75th Rangers constantly inserted patrols into the mountains
inland from LZ English, the 173rd Airborne Brigade base at Bong Son on the
coast.

The
503 Parachute Infantry heading for the paddies along the Cambodian
border in 1967 and the right to wear combat jump wings.
America fought
the second Vietnam War with helicopters and the ultimate expression of
such grand tactics was the airmobile division. Two fought much of the
war - the First Air Cavalry Division in the Central Highlands, DMZ and
then Cambodian border and the 101 Airborne Division based near Hue
fought in the mountains both sides of the Laos border.
These formations went into battle by helicopter - some 450 helicopters
were on the divisional TO&E - with small scouting helicopters, gunships,
troop carriers, heavy lift, and medical evacuation choppers. This gave
incredible tactical mobility but the infantry's job is to seize and hold
ground. You can't hold ground with helicopters and while insertion
benefits from surprise - extraction is a another story. At least two
repeats of Dien Bien Phu were narrowly avoided: Ia
Drang on a small scale and Khe Sanh on a big scale before in February
1971 - which I
witnessed - the South Vietnamese inserted their Airborne and Marine Divisions
onto the Ho Chi Minh Trails through Laos. Instead of keeping mobile the
South Vietnamese set up fire bases. This gave the North Vietnamese fixed
targets and they soon strangled the firebases one by one. After weeks of
bitter fighting the South Vietnamese needed all the US air support
available to extract their beleaguered troops from Laos. The battle
bought them a year but cost many of the best officers and soldiers
in their strategic reserve.
Colonel John
Waddy predicted twenty years ago that airmobile forces eventually would
resemble a combination of airborne forces and an air force armed with
helicopters. Second World War fighter bombers such as the Spitfire,
Mustang and Typhoon would be replaced by hunter-copters and dog-fights
would take place to clear the way for sky trains of troop
carrier-copters. Others would provide air-strikes and direct fire
support. Airborne commandos would ambush enemy armour and launch raids
on headquarters. John would have returned the Parachute Regiment to the
Army Air Corps - where it started - and merged the Armoured Corps and
Army Air Corps. Some of his tactical ideas came about in Iraq but as in Vietnam and
Laos, ground fire proved the dangerous threat to airmobile forces.
Since withdrawal
from Vietnam the US Army has kept the 101st Airborne and
1st Air Cavalry Divisions as airmobile forces with the
82 Airborne Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade as
parachute assault formations. This is a very powerful
and balanced airborne force. Airmobile forces have
fantastic tactical mobility but require huge resources
to move strategically - normally by sea!
During late
October 1983
the 75th US Rangers made a combat jump onto Salines
airfield on Grenada. In March 1988 a brigade task force
made up of two battalions from the 504th Infantry
Regiment and 3rd Battalion (Airborne) 505th Infantry
conducted a parachute insertion and airlanding operation
into Honduras. The deployment was described a joint
training exercise, but the paratroopers jumped combat
ready. This deployment of US paratroopers to the
Honduran countryside caused the Sandinistas to withdraw
back into Nicaragua. Operation Golden Pheasant prepared
the 82nd Airborne Division for future combat in this
unstable world.
A year later the US 82 Airborne
Division made its first combat jump in over 40 years
when the 2nd battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry
Regiment secured Torrijos Airport with a night assault
during the invasion of Panama. The jump was made within hours after the 75th Ranger
Regiment conducted two separate combat jumps. M551
Sheridan tanks were dropped by parachute - the only time
this capability has been employed on a combat assault.
On the 19 October 2001 during the opening moves of
intervention in Afghanistan 3rd Battalion and a small
Command and Control Element from the Regimental
Headquarters of the 75th Ranger Regiment jumped near Kandahar to secure an airfield. There was a great deal
of Special Forces activity - Green Berets on tribal
ponies calling in B 52and B1 strikes on the Taleban and
Saudi Arabians plus various hangers-on had a strategic
impact out of all proportion to their tactical numbers
and showed absolutely the way airborne forces should operate in
hostile territory. We should be doing more such
operations and raising a new force of North West
Frontier Scouts although this time perhaps based on both
sides of the Durand Line. We should certainly raise a
force in Swat Valley and wipe out the Taliban. Further
south the Wazirs and Mahsuds are
regarded as the dregs of the North West Frontier by all
the other tribes and we British could learn a lot from
our forefathers, not least Winston Churchill who served
on the North West Frontier and whose reports for the
Daily Telegraph give lively accounts of numerous
skirmishes.
The British
and French have kept parachute forces but the US 82 Airborne Division is
the only one left within the armies of the NATO nations. It's task is to
' Go anywhere at no warning ' and the division operates company,
battalion and brigade sized packages. One company is always on 2 hours
readiness. Packages are constructed for the job in hand. If a battalion
has to move fast another battalion packs their equipment. The 173rd
Airborne Brigade provides another quick reaction force. On the 26 March 2003 the 173rd
Airborne Brigade made a combat jump into Northern Iraq
to seize Bashur airfield.
Photos below
are courtesy of the US Army and US Air Force and the author's
collection. During the early 1980s while serving in North America I
spent a week with the 82 Airborne Division as guest of its Commander,
General Sandy Meloy, and his Deputy Commander for Operations, General Dick Shultes
and Deputy Commander for Logistics, General Leroy Suddath.
We went into all the options for deploying airborne forces and beefing
up their firepower and tactical mobility without loosing strategic
mobility. The Rapid Deployment Force had just been activated and its
first Commander, General PX Kelley USMC, with whom I became friends in
Vietnam, when asked how the force was getting along, replied, ' That at
that moment it was neither rapid nor deployable.'
 
173
rd Airborne Brigade troopers in clean fatigue - no baggage - and right
photo loaded with as much gear as possible on their way to make a combat
jump onto Bashur airfield in north-eastern Iraq. After nearly 36 years a
new generation of the 173rd earn the right to wear combat jump wings.
Right
below the sticks are jumping from both doors. Ten minutes before jump
time the order is given to stand up, hook up. Each man clips his strop
onto the cable running down the aircraft - shown below - slides in the
safety pin then each man checks the man in front. The stick then calls
off from the rear - twenty okay, nineteen okay..... Two minutes before
jumping a red light comes on by the door. The first men ' stand in the
door ' ready to jump when the green light comes on over the exit point.
Whereupon the whole stick shuffles forward until all have jumped.
 
Today's airborne infantry still
jump loaded with 100 pounds or more of weapons, ammunition, equipment.
The troops themselves weigh more and some American paratroops can tip
the scales at near enough 400 pounds when wearing their main and reserve
parachutes as well. The old
kitbags used during World War Two and by my generation have given way to
ruck-sacks which are at least easier and more comfortable to porter off
the drop-zone.
 
Parachute training school resembles a disciplined fun-fair with all
manner of slides and rides. Nothing beats that first leap from a big
aircraft and one's legs snatched by the blasting slipstream before
riding solid wind. A gentle tug at the shoulders warns of the opening
canopy. Stretching towards the horizon, float two scattered lines of
khaki mushrooms. Beyond, the aircraft flies level with oneself, nothing
is higher.
Modern parachutes have much slower descent rates than wartime canopies
but once on the ground today's paratroops have to move whatever, wherever required. As a young paratrooper
I often jumped loaded with a 100 pound weight kit bag - filled with
everything from machine gun ammunition through plastic explosive and
wire cutters to shovels! The kit bag - see photos on previous page - held by a pair of snaphooks at waist height, carefully released once the
main parachute canopy deploys, swings on the end of a long rope and
lands first. Its weight gone, the canopy tends to take in a breath,
slow, and give its burden a soft landing.
 
Cargo pallets going over the tail-gate over Afghanistan and a C 17
releasing flares to confuse heat-seeking missiles. All Weather Delivery
System - AWADS - allows men, equipment or supplies to be delivered in
bad weather only within a few yards of the destination on the ground.
Container Delivery System - CDS - refines this capability so that a
single aircraft can drop many tons of supplies onto several DZs. Foul
weather nowadays can help airborne operations.
 
Two
kinds of military training jumps - static line from 1000 feet and High Altitude
Low Opening - HALO - from 12,000 feet. These jump heights change
dramatically under combat conditions. A mass descent could jump from
below 500
feet to reduce time in air when paratroops are vulnerable to ground
fire. HALO jump heights can reach over 35,000 feet
to disguise the aircraft's purpose.
 
A
third method - High Altitude High Opening - HAHO - from 12,000 feet. This
allows a parachutist to jump many miles from the target and steer the
open parachute before landing thus concealing the DZ and target. Modern
parachutes come in various shapes - flexible wings are the most flyable -
above is the classic round parachute with a British invention, the net
skirt around the canopy, which makes the parachute steadier in the air.

The
latest parachute for static line jumps by the US paratroops - ATPS -
Advanced Troop Parachute System designed for
a very gentle opening and slow descent rate. Over the last four
decades the space programme and sport parachuting transformed parachute
design and performance. Below are the RAF Falcons display team flying in
formation.

Modern techniques allow a student parachutist to jump tandem - this also
provides a way of delivering anyone by HALO or HAHO. Modern parachutes
can fly amazing distances when opened at high altitude. Some years ago
Ted Lewington and the Red Devils team from the Parachute Regiment flew
across the Dover Strait and touched down near Cap Gris Nez in France.
AIRBORNE
VERSUS ARMOUR
Until recently
the 82
Airborne Division had 54 light tanks for reconnaissance. These were
Sheridans, veterans of Vietnam, paradrop and LAPES capable, indeed
paradropped in Panama and very effective. The 82nd urgently requires a
replacement. And that replacement should have tracks, a large calibre
gun, rounds against armour and structures. For the moment the division's main
anti-tank defence is provided by long range missiles and man-portable
missiles - during the Cold War the squad protected its Dragon missile
team. Longer range missile teams are deployed at company, support
company and brigade level. The division has four brigades supported by
strong artillery and a large number of AAA and SAM teams. All are
parachute drop capable. Attack helicopters are an integral part of the
division. Strong engineer, signals and logistics are built into the
divisional TO&E - Table of Organisation and Equipment.

Low
Altitude Parachute Extraction System - LAPES - a Sheridan light tank
delivered onto Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg. The C 130 already climbs
away.
 
Left
photo shows the Sheridan with its big gun for block house busting - very
similar to the D Day mortar and petard tank employed by the Royal
Engineers. Right photo shows the Scorpion tank - British - about the same
vintage as the Sheridan. The Scorpion is made from aluminium and weighs
8 tons. The chassis would make an excellent start for a modern version -
this one has been modified in Belgium with a 90 mm gun. A light body on
wide tracks gives the Scorpion a softer footfall than an infantryman.
Scorpions could travel over bogs on the Falkland Islands that the Paras
found sticky going on foot.
 
A great idea that never got off the ground. During the 1980s Ivan Barr's
AAI Corporation designed the HSVT(L) with a multi-purpose 75mm high
velocity gun that could shoot through the front armour of most heavy
tanks - the barrel was longer than HSVT(L). Rather like a knight of old
the HSVT(L) could wear its own suit of armour for protection from heavy
weapons but take it all off when facing only light weapons. Fully
armoured against tough opposition the tank weighed 14 tons. Barr's
company designed a two man crew version but the Army wanted a tank
commander - rather than a commander/gunner. So a three man version was
developed but, of course, weighed 17 tons. The tank could withstand a
hit by an 85mm round though used its speed - twice that of the fastest
known tank - as the prime defence against big gun tanks. Barr, rightly,
pointed out ' How many heavy tanks can take a hit from one of their own
kind? '
 
Above
photos show the M 8 Airborne Gun System. Although the M 8 resembles a
tank it's really a modern version of the wartime assault guns deployed by
the German armoured forces. Fully armoured the M 8 weighs about 20 tons
- a little on the heavy side for a C 130 but well within the capability
of a C 17. Only four have been built and these grudgingly released to
the 82nd Airborne for testing. At least the M 8 has tracks. As a design
it's nowhere near as versatile nor as punch-proof as HSVT(L) and my
advise is to track down Ivan Barr and AAI.

The
largest formation so far attempted with the C 17 - twenty aircraft -
capable of delivering over 2000 paratroops onto a drop zone. The
same number of paratroops required over a hundred C 47s during World War
Two. Moreover the range of a C 17 is much greater and its cruising speed
over three times faster. Above all the C 17 does all this
regardless of weather.
ROUND THE BAR
As the list of
US operations shows the days of the parachute assault are by no means
over. Whereas airmobile forces cannot make
strategic moves without huge support from seapower and airpower. Over
twenty years ago I proposed a new type of formation in the RUSI Journal.
I strongly urged that the right direction to take was a brigade sized
force with airborne armour, four or five parachute battalions backed by
strong parachute artillery and missiles plus a whole parachute engineer
regiment. One weakness of an airborne force is lack of heavy artillery.
This was partly redressed some years ago with the introduction of 105mm
guns but an air-portable 155mm gun would give an airborne force much
longer reach and far greater hitting power. Medium artillery can break
up tank attacks and probe into enemy back areas beyond the reach of the
present 105mm guns. Future airborne forces may control RPVs and thereby
provide an assault with aerial firepower. Meanwhile, despite the lack of longer range
firepower, I'm glad to see that the British 16 Air Assault Brigade
closely matches this concept with the addition of a strong assault and attack helicopter
force. My plan was that all line infantry brigades should convert into
such
small airborne divisions. The US Army's new brigade package structure
reflects the same idea - smaller though more powerful units allow
flexible deployment.
Modern
electronics allow small teams of airborne or special forces troops to
steer precision guided weapons onto individual targets such as armoured
forces, strong points, communications and aircraft on the ground. Today
an airborne force can alter the tactical situation and bring about a
dramatic shift in the strategic balance. Russia's intervention in
Georgia was a gamble that NATO wouldn't react with more than words and
resulted with comparatively weak and green forces left dangerously
exposed at the end of poor roads - not to mention a tunnel that's an
easy target for special forces - on the wrong side of the Caucasus
Mountains. A perfect target for an airborne coup de main. Not
surprisingly, the Russian general, didn't want to stay there very long.
The recurring
dilemma for deploying airborne forces is that first class troops are
always in constant demand. This is compounded by the inadequate size of
both the US and British Armies. Lack of reserves for the latter remains
shameful. So instead of being held back for long range
strikes - even within an operational theatre - both the US and British
airborne forces are serving very courageously on classic line infantry
operations. There simply are not enough line battalions to do otherwise.
Britain's
politicians have an appalling record for short-sighted and lousy
judgement on international affairs. Harold Wilson's Labour government in
the 1960s withdrew from East of Suez - a move completed without a murmur
by Ted Heath's Conservative government in the early 1970s. The aircraft
carrier force was being paid off and scrapped when in 1982 the Argentine
Junta saved the Royal Navy from further massive cuts by a Defence
Secretary who was unfit for the job. Since the end of the Cold War there
have been two large wars in the Gulf. The first under John Major's
Conservative government took place before the so-called ' peace bonus '
had eaten into our armed forces. Despite previous Labour policy Tony
Blair took Britain into two wars East of Suez and both show no signs of
ending - Afghanistan looks distinctly hotter. While sending our forces to these wars
the Blair government only grudgingly parted with sums of
money that were too small in peacetime. Under Gordon Brown's leadership
- if one can call it such - this attitude has worsened.
Suicidal cuts to the Royal Navy and repeated shrinking of the RAF are
clear evidence that neither government nor opposition in Britain has a
clue how to defend the
country and our interests overseas. I'm not sure whether many British
politicians are aware that we live on an island and that 95% of our
trade comes and goes in ships.
Personally I
would advocate what is done in neutral Switzerland - all important
decisions have long been removed from politicians - taxes, treaties,
strength of the armed forces, all require approval by the people in regular popular votes. And
people vote.
Why are
strategic intervention forces so important? Allied operations such
as D Day and the huge effort to create airborne forces show the price
paid when history goes wrong and tyrants rule on the Globe. Far too much
of the World's precious raw materials and energy are vulnerable to
corrupt one party, one person regimes. Our great
democracies are engaged in this struggle until disregard for human
rights becomes impossible. Strong forces are not a favour to others but our
own self-interest. Oppressed peoples cannot gain their human rights when
the only help on offer is weasel words. Sea power and air power are
required and with sufficient strength. Wherever democracy flourishes, so
do peace and prosperity.
AIRBORNE ONE
AIRBORNE
TWO
The strategic
role of airborne forces is closely tied to the amphibious and
intervention forces of the US Navy and Marine Corps, the Royal Navy and
Royal Marines. Anyone interested in such matters will find lots of
discussion about naval forces through the page link below. This page
leads to more pages - we're adding steadily - and we hope that our
readers find them both helpful and enjoyable.
WORLD NEWS ONE
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