OUT OF THE SKY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 124, 28 May 1941, Page 11

OUT OF THE SKY

PARACHUTE TROOPS

A BAND OF BRITISHERS

N.Z. OFFICER

(0.C.)

LONDON, April 24.

Raining down out of the darkening twilight sky came British parachute troops. Swiftly, they snapped up the equipment that other parachutes had dumped, for them. Within a very short time they had located and captured an "enemy" headquarters and destroyed all the telephone communications.

This all happened during the realistic full-scale mock invasion staged in East Anglia, writes Paul Bewsher in the "Daily Mail." I have just been given the first inside story of this newest branch of the Services —hitherto their work has been kept almost a secret.

One of the leaders in this mock attack from the air was a tall New Zealand officer who always floats to the ground with a monocle screwed firmly in his eye. Normally he wears spectacles, but the monocle does not fall out if he hits the ground with something of a bump. "We are tough—but we are not toughs," he told me. "An idea has got about that our men are a lot of gangsters. That's not true. "On the job our men have a hard task. They must work quickly and know how to kill a man swiftly and silently if necessary. But. war apart, they are just a very decent crowd of men. RESOURCE AND INTELLIGENCE. "All are volunteers with a very high standard of physical fitness. We do everything to make them as hardy as possible. "But they must be men of much resource and intelligence, too. "The men "are supposed to be under 30—a number ai'e about 22 or 23— and we prefer them to be unmarried. "They are of all sorts—miners, grooms, car salesmen, racing motorists, youngsters of independent means. "Quite a number are good linguists —and they are encouraged to learn German. "It is not compulsory for them to be able to ride a horse, and swim a mile, and do a number of other things, as rumoured. But many of them can do it all. PERFECT TIMING. "We wear special boots. On a fairly calm day it is possible to land on the ground without even falling over. "A major problem is ensuring that the men land at exactly the right spot. "Our methods for doing, this must re-; main a secret, but I.can give you the general picture. "As we near the landing point the j men are warned to get ready. Each man is on the alert. At a signal, out they go—one after another —at rapid speed. "Usually there is a man who counts, calling 'One-two-three-four,' and so on, till the whole 'stick' is dropped. (Each plane-load of men 'is called a 'stick,' just as if they were bombs!) "Once on the ground, you release your parachute, and dash to the arms and equipment container which has drifted down near you, on its own parachute. "This is opened in a second." BUT HOME GUARD EFFECTIVE. The men who landed in the mock invasion had only a vague idea where the rear headquarters they were to attack were. They found it, some of them racing along the roads in a car which they had seized. I While a number of them attacked the headquarters openly, and attracted everybody's attention, the main, body got through the barbed wire defences elsewhere, came upon the sentries from behind, and overpowered them. They found maps showing the position of the advance headquarters, and set oft" to attack that. But here the Home Guards and police .showed their efficiency. The parachutists wore rounded up and put cut of action.