PARACHUTE TROOPS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20259, 29 May 1940, Page 2

PARACHUTE TROOPS

MANY BREAK LEGS NO CHOICE ABOUT DROP LONDON, May 15. Many of the German parachute troops who landed at The Hague when the invasion began on Friday were boys aged 16 and 17, said Mr. William McCann, one of the Australian refugees from Holland. Mr. McCann, who is the son of the South Australian Agent-General in London, has arrived in London. •‘Many of the boys believed they were helping Holland to fight England.” he said. “The Dutch people were horrified to find such young troops arriving. I think this upset them more than anything. “The first parachutists jumped from a low altitude, and almost all of them broke their legs' on landing. Even those who landed without harm were shot down without much resistance. The Germans dropped the next batch from a greater height. Dress of Clergyman “Many of these went into farmhouses and seized Dutch clothes. They then stopped.motor cars 1 and got lifts into the city, where they began shooting. I saw a man dressed as a clergyman arrested in the streets of The Hague. “There was one report that the German’s had dropped a small car by parachute. Mr. O’Down Gallagher, special correspondent on the Western Front for the Daily. Express, reports that Nazi parachute troops have no choice about jumping from German aeroplanes. The floor drops automatically and they fall out. When the aeroplanes are above their objective, the pilots in charge pull a lever, which opens the floors of their machines. The parachutists are equipped with folding cycle, rifle and maps. A young German parachutist found tampering with important communications near a railway junction was assaulted by French civilians of both sexes. Armed with knives and other weapons, they rushed at him and knocked him off his feet. He was rescued by French Moroccan troops.