TOO FAR? A Jump

BY JON TYLER

Ping! The email arrived in October 2018 asking if ex members of 21 SAS would like to join a group of mainly veterans to carry out a commemorative parachute jump from a Dakota C47, WWII plane in June 2019 for the 75th anniversary of D Day. And then to also do the same in September at Arnhem.

What a ridiculous idea, I would be 64 years old by then. And they said it would involve 5 jumps in Holland beforehand to qualify for Dutch Military B Parachuting Wings, whatever they are. The thought of ground training and all those practice PLFs (Parachute Landing Falls) with my very dodgy knees (14 operations on them so far) sounded even more far-fetched. Besides which, I have always been scared of heights. So I ignored the email. Various of my mates talked about the prospect of perhaps parachuting again, and we all said it was insane and no-one would allow it. Then in April, a photo arrived via Facebook of 10 of my old regimental friends, all having re-qualified as military parachutists using MC-1C round parachutes. Their average age was 62, yet in the photo they were all grinning!

I didn’t sleep that night. Old memories of jumping out of Hercules C130s and Chinooks at night, loaded with my own body weight of weapons and equipment, caused the adrenaline to surge through my body. I thought, if those old bastards can do it, surely I still can.

There was one final course in early May that I could creep on to as long as I completed a long list of administrative details, made the payments and persuaded a doctor to sign a certificate that I was not likely to die. We had to have military equipment from our era, or WWII kit. After digging around in my loft, garden shed and garage I found my old 1970s/80s kit. The leather on the boots DMS had gone too hard, so they were binned. My beloved jungly trousers seemed to have shrunk by about four inches around the waist over the thirty years they had lain in the garage, but strangely they were still the right length! In fact, the only items that seemed to still be useful and that still fitted were my 40-year old para helmet, the socks and the camouflage scrimnet scarf. When you open a trunk after such a long period of time, the unique smell of the army kit still takes you right back to the day you were issued with it – what is it that they put into army kit to make it have that distinctive odour? Anyway, a quick trip to the local military surplus store sorted me out. We also had to have special life insurance. My wife seemed suddenly to be strangely enthusiastic about my ridiculous and perilous adventure once she was sure that was in place.

So, all preliminaries taken care of and I booked a B&B just by Teuge airfield, half an hour north of Arnhem in Holland, and drove there the following Sunday.

The course began on the Sunday evening with the normal admin. From the course intake of 24 students there were four of us from the Regiment; we had all served in the same Squadron together so we looked forward to a week of reminiscing and mickey taking. The other students were from eight different countries, including Australia, Canada and Poland. I was the oldest.

Sunday and Monday were taken up with learning to pack parachutes, a totally new experience for all of us. Amusingly. we had to wear our military kit whilst trainingno insignia nor rank. It was extraordinary as once we were dressed it felt, for all of us, as though we had never been away. All the drills were familiar to us, as indeed was almost all the equipment, and we found we ended up helping to train some of the students. At our age, we all found falling was easy; getting up was just much harder than it used to be!

By Tuesday we were ready to jump. I was renowned for getting airsick in the days of low-level Hercules flights so, not knowing what to expect, I doped myself up and took a plastic bag with me, much to everyone else’s amusement, and slight concern.

Teuge is the Dutch International Parachuting centre and also an “International” airport, although the whole time we were there we saw only a few small local private planes. Hence, with air traffic control permission we were to be jumping onto the DZ which is right beside the runway – but which is also bounded by trees and drainage ditches and some very cowpatheavy fields! Our plane was a Cessna 208 “Caravan”. It normally takes 12 jumpers, which is a tight fit, and climbs very quickly to 2000ft. I found that there was no need to worry about airsickness; there is no time! We got in, hooked up, sat down and within a few minutes of take-off we were back over the airfield.

In a Cessna you don’t exit from a standing position but sit on the floor, with the static line attached to a cable on the floor, and you sort of bottom shuffle out of the door. I went out as No 3 of the first stick. We all exited with no twists and were significantly spaced out that there were no mid-air incidents. As so often happens, the first was easy, old experience kicked in, I assessed my drift, and instead of aiming for the big DZ cross I aimed for the recovery vehicle and landed softly. I checked the rest of the stick were OK, bagged my chute and was first into the vehicle. However, the second stick were not so fortunate and one of them ended up in the trees, from where the local fire brigade had to come and rescue him, and embarrassingly ending up on the local TV station news!

The second jump of the day was not quite so straightforward. You are always more nervous for the second jump; there seem to be more things to remember to worry about! This time I was No 1 in the stick. My colleague Paul somehow misjudged his drift and ended up a long way away, landing in a very large pile of cow dung, which I thought was enormously funny until I realised I was driving him back to our B&B in my car. I, however, had the embarrassment of losing both my helmet as I exited the aircraft. We can only presume I hadn’t fastened the chin strap properly, something that had never happened before. Luckily, I had another good landing. Some of the guys had seen my helmet fall, from 2,000 ft, and indicated very roughly where it came down. However, the vegetation was about 12 inches high in this area so we decided to write it off at that point, only to recover it later.

I went to get my log book signed and realised, looking back at my recorded jumps, that it was 30 years since I last jumped (when on exercise with the Portuguese army) and exactly 43 years, to the day, since my first ever jump at Para school in Aldershot.

That evening, after repacking chutes four of us headed out for a quick drink, still dressed in our camouflage uniforms. As we sat nursing our beers we started to giggle as we realised the locals were looking at us in wonder. They must have questioned why four overweight, balding, grey haired old men were still in the British Army; was Dad’s Army reforming?

The next two days reminded us of what parachuting was all about. The weather was not kind to us, with high winds and low cloud, so there was an awful lot of sitting around, drinking coffee, teasing each other and lying about how damn good we were when we were young! However, in between rain squalls, etc. we managed to squeeze in another three jumps, some in winds of 12 – 15kms on the ground, which exercised our steering abilities and PLFs. Luckily, we four regimental friends all survived unscathed, although a few other students were quite bruised. We also witnessed the rather worrying sight of two of the Polish lads descending so close to each other that they alternately stole each other’s air until they finally separated just before they hit the ground, what could have been a quite dangerous incident.

So that was that, we were now qualified to jump in Normandy for the D-Day celebrations. We had a brief wings ceremony and celebratory beers and then headed out, via a sightseeing trip to Arnhem, back to Blighty.

The D-Day 75th anniversary celebrations were taking place all through the 1st week of June, with the main jump for us all to be on Wednesday June 5th, with further jumps over the next two days. On the 5th one group of 24 parachutists from the Pathfinder group eventually managed to jump out of a WWII Dakota, escorted by two Spitfires. The Dakota even had about 50 bullet holes in it, all patched up.

We were told we had to jump in WWII uniform. Most of us opted for reproduction Para smocks. I was honoured that the widow of my first sergeant major asked me to jump with his helmet, which was an original SAS para helmet from 1943.

I arrived in Troarn late on Thursday 6th with half an hour to spare to quickly draw and fit a parachute, to be prepared to move early the next day. There was just time, in the local gym where we were based, to be given a quick briefing on how to hook up and then exit from a Dakota, as I had never been inside one before.

We got on the buses for Caen

Carpiquet airport early the next morning but halfway there we got the signal that the jump was off. Sadly, the Gods were not on our side and the heavens opened as a large storm progressed through from the South and totally wiped out parachuting activity for all the various units. The following day opened with the Met forecast suggesting that at some point the winds would drop. Caen Carpiquet is a small international airport with very few facilities, so we ended up hanging around all day as we watched the windsock mock us by being permanently stretched horizontal by the winds. After waiting 10 long hours, at around 18.00hrs we received a message that the winds were expected to drop and very soon the DZ party phoned to say that that was indeed the case. We immediately received the order to kit up and then we waddled out through the security barrier to wait on the tarmac. As usual, there was a lot of “hurrying up and waiting”, some of which was taken up watching the US President’s helicopter being towed in, accompanied by dozens of, we presumed, CIA operatives, all lined up each side of it in case anyone dared to approach. Finally, our Dakota C47, named “Dumbo Express” taxied over to us. What an iconic sight, complete with RAF roundels on it. I was one of the last to board and needed a hand up as I was too short to get myself, from the box we stood on, into the plane! Eventually 24 of us emplaned, all as excited as little school kids. The

Dakota is really quite small and it must have been very crowded for the lads 75 years ago, loaded with all their kit, ammunition etc.

We were to drop on DZ Sannerville, which is about 15K east of the airport, just the other side of the famous Pegasus bridge. My main concern was that, despite being fields, the DZ was bordered on three sides - by the town of Sannerville on the East, a power line on the West and, to the North, a tree lined road that would have civilian traffic on it. There was also a cement factory located by the road.

The plane only had about an hour of air clearance left to drop 48 personnel in two flights (chalks) with two 12 man sticks in each, so speed was of the essence and there was very little time to be in the air and be ready.

Within minutes the order came to “Stand up” and “Hook up”. Followed by the familiar cry of “Check Equipment”, as we checked our own kit and then checked the person in front of us. The adrenaline really started coursing as the Jump Master yelled “Tell off for Equipment Check” and the rear man started the count “12 OK” slapping the shoulder of the man in front who yelled “11 OK” and it progressed to me at No 5 and onwards to the front man who yelled “1

OK, Port stick OK!” Any ex Para hearing those commands will immediately feel his heart racing. We were jumping in daylight with no weapons nor extra equipment, and with no bullets and no flack coming through the plane – imagine how scary it must have been 75 years before.

The Red light went on and the No1 man stood in the doorway, one arm braced against the side to prevent him falling out, the rest of us shuffled forward in line. “Green On, Go!” and we exited in a well drilled line out through the door, like Lemmings.

“1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, Check Canopy”; it’s amazing how the training from 43 years ago is still deeply ingrained. We all exited well; my helmet stayed on my head this time and I quickly kicked out of a couple of twists in my rigging lines and assessed where I was. I couldn’t see the DZ cross, so I looked around for a landmark and I, like the other jumpers in the stick, realised we had dropped above the DZ but the winds at 2,000 ft were much stronger than anticipated and we were rapidly drifting North.

I landed perfectly and having taken the obligatory photos, packed our chutes in the special bags, hoisted them on our backs and started walking the 500 plus metres back to the DZ. I remember when that would have been a pleasure – however at 64 years old and with two dodgy knees I was sweating buckets by the time we all assembled at the DZ RV.

The pilot with the next three sticks learned from our drift and navigated a line such that the jumpers landed nicely close to the DZ marker. I was amazed that in the two days of jumps over 20 ex (old) members of the reserve SAS managed to jump, together with about another 70 jumpers from numerous countries and military backgrounds. And, it seems, no serious injuries.

Over 4000 Allied Jewish soldiers took part in the D Day landings, around 100 of them died in those first three days. “May their memory be a blessing”