Col Doug Swanson

Every paratrooper can tell you tale of his exploits on exiting an aircraft.  But how many walk off the drop zone thanks to their reserve chute being deployed by yanking the red handle?

Many more non paratroopers also have similar personal experiences, but they are parachutists – not paratroopers.!  They have not been through “P” Company, one of the toughest and unforgettable lifetime experiences.  A harsh reminder of the difficulty is that the other two officers who started pre para training at the same time as myself died during the course – one died on a run and the other drove home at the end of a day and died when parking his car in his garage.  Nor do parachutists generally jump in groups ranging from 5 or 6 up to 64 using both aircraft exits – and often in the dark.

Back in 1992 whilst leading the Royal Mail sponsorship of the Olympic and Paralympic Teams for the games in Barcelona (no I did not go as my 2 weeks TA Training coincided with the games).  Inverness for Barcelona, which, on reflection, I would not have exchanged.  Anyway, I spent a weekend with the Paralympic Team at Keil University.  At a meeting of the Blind Team, I was mighty impressed when the Chairman announced that he was going to make a parachute jump to raise money for his team.  Looking at his face, his eyes were completely white, totally blind.  In response to a question from the meeting, asking how he would know when he was about to hit the ground.  Calmly he said, “That will be easy, as the lead on my guide dog will go slack just before the impact!” I have told this tale to many groups to howls of laughter.  One of my granddaughter’s blind friends, who worked on the stage as a comedy act, told that tale at the start of his act forever after I told it in his company.

But then some of us are here today after having had to deploy their reserve.  There is not a lot of time to achieve this, as jumping from 800 feet by day and 1200 by night, it does not take many seconds to hit the ground if one’s main chute fails to open.  Accelerating at 120 feet per second per second means less than seven seconds from leaving the aircraft to hitting terra firma.  But one does not think about this.

On leaving the aircraft it is “Check your canopy”.  If this is okay, then it’s “All round observation” to make sure no one is in your air space and that you are not in theirs.  Next, assess your drift and steer, pulling on the appropriate rigging lines to slow your drift driving into any wind to make your landing safer.  Incidentally I once got this very wrong in the pitch-black night over Chalk Farm on Salisbury Plain.  I felt the wind in my face so assumed I was being blown backwards and steered to drive into the wind.  When I landed it was feet first followed by the front of my helmet and almost knocking myself out.  I had been drifting forwards and accelerated this with my misjudged steering.  You live and learn!

In the mandatory ground training with the RAF in the week before parachuting we always had a spell in the harnesses stepping off a platform and swinging as one would under a parachute.  There was always a shout of “Chute not deployed” which meant we had to yank out our red handle to notionally deploy our reserves.  In the training hanger the reserves did not open, and the red handles were tied to the parachute.

On our Parachute Training Course at RAF Abingdon, we spent four weeks learning how to parachute and how to ensure our own and others safety.  One must admit the training was excellent, as were the accommodation and meals.  During the training we would start with two jumps from a balloon cage from 800 feet on two different days.  As the only regular officer on the course, it was my “honour” to be first at doing everything that was new.

The first four aircraft drops were made clean fatigue which meant we did not carry any equipment.  The first one was on 11 November 1965, and this was now real.  First out the door and looking up saw I had a blown periphery which meant one or more rigging lines were over the canopy giving me less support that needed.  But hang on a second the guilty rigging line was moving, and it slid off the canopy giving me a full chute.  On landing the DZ Safety Officer asked what had happened.  When I explained he said I had done the right thing although I could have opened my reserve, but by actions were fine.

In September 1967 I was lucky enough to be selected to complete an exchange with the French Para by spending two weeks at their Parachute School near Pau in the Pyrenees.  We went in pairs for this, and my partner was a coloured Gunner officer who spoke English with a posh Oxford accent and French with a Parisian accent.  With travel and admin this meant eight days when we could parachute.  Week one we joined what is their equivalent of Sandhurst students and we learned how to operate all their airborne kit (and that their normal training parachuting height was 1200 feet) we joined them on an evening exercise parachuting onto scrubland to set demolition charges on a railway bridge.  As an “Officier du genie” it was my “honour” to inspect the demolition charges and their positions on the bridge (glad of my physics and mechanics A Levels).  The second week was with a group from the Légion étrangère française.  Men from all over the world – and pretty hard too.

This week we would do many different things including pulling the red handle to open our reserves.  This was serious, as not doing the correct things one could break one’s nose or even collapse both parachutes.  Attention paid!!  Routine for the practice was checking our main chutes were open and then left hand over the reserve and keep it there, and with right hand pull the red handle and place it in the leg pocket of our trousers.  Blast and double blast!  British jungle greens only have a pocket on the left leg whereas the French have one on each leg!  So, holding the reserve without letting it open and changing hands with the red handle and pocketing it.  Then, legs tight together and chuck the reserve out in front of me and shake its rigging lines to get it open and prepare to land.  Apparently if you let the reserve pass between your legs and deploy behind you, you land horizontal and are guaranteed a broken nose!!

We did two other interesting things in this week first was to parachute after a Jeep and try to land near it.  For this the rear end of the Nord Atlas aircraft was removed and rollers fitted to the floor for the Jeep on its platform to roll out the back and would be followed by us.  What I did not know, nor realise, is that when you chuck something as heavy as a Jeep out of an aircraft it suddenly rises in the air.  I nearly fell to the floor but recovered in time to run out the back, stepping between the rollers.  Following the French Major who had told us just to make a normal exit by running out the back of the plane.  As an expert he did a freefall style exit spreadeagled in the slipstream.  Me being heavier and more compact in my usual exit shape I passed under him and threw him off his usual route to land beside the landed Jeep.  Once I landed (beside the Jeep) the Major arrived shouting “Vous cochon, vous cochon” which, even with my O Level French, I realised was not a compliment!!

The next bit of excitement was to make a jump into water on 14 September.  The “water” being the Lake at Lourdes where those of the Catholic Religion go on a pilgrimage to be immersed.  So, my companion and self were out the door of the aircraft and clear sight all round and only the two of us in the air.  I spot our recovery boat and start to steer to land near it.  Looking at my pal I realised he was not going to land in the lake, so I shouted at him to steer for the water.  He did not and landed on a concrete path at the lake edge.  I landed in the water, went under, came up with my hand above my head (to prevent the parachute from sticking to my face) and remembering NOT to inflate my life jacket as I “did NOT have fear”.  The safety boat collected me quickly and I observed my exchange partner standing on the lake edge shouting in his perfect French for the team to collect him.  The group of Legionnaires on the boat shouted something in unison, which roughly told him to walk back round the Lake and not to forget his parachutes and lifejacket!

And so ended our short stay with Les Paras, who were immensely hospitable and kind to their two Brits.  Wonderful food and mighty fine Mess life with free wines with meals and terrific company. French Paratrooper brevets and home to Blighty after 12 excellent days with our French Comrades.  Managed 14 jumps in 8 days and awarded French wings and made Honorary members of 2 RAP – Second Airoporte Regiment.

 Two more tales about operating reserve parachutes. On my final night drop in the Brigade, we were bound for Everleigh DZ on the Salisbury Plain for a night descent in the dark from an Argosy aircraft.  Over the DZ and second out the port exit looked up and saw my parachute looking like a bundle of washing.  A real blown periphery, so pulled the red handle and threw it over my shoulder and my reserve fully deploys immediately.  Just then a voice calls “steer away, steer away” and a body passes through my rigging lines from behind.  It is followed by his parachute.  (What he should have done was to spreadeagle and bounce off my rigging lines.  But too late for that.). I realised that we were safe with my one and a bit chutes up and open, and not wishing for my new friends chute to open under me and collapse my chute, I grabbed hold of his chute as it tried to slip from behind my shoulder.  I shout to him how we were and to lower his container and confirm he had.  (The containers held our kit and rifle all weighing between 60 and 80 pounds and when lowered was held by a 20 feet long rope attached to our parachute harness)

I then told him to watch his head as I was about to lower my container.  This done we glided to earth, and then he hit the ground, my container hit the ground, my parachutes breathed, and I landed gently.  I find that my interloper was in some pain as he had forgotten to pull the leg release on his container. So, when it was released, it slid down his leg and stayed there for his landing and damaged his ankle – no one has ever managed to lift their container when it had slid down to their ankle.  The DZ medics were quick to arrive and the Military Police Sergeant (my new pal) on the stretcher in the ambulance was joined by we six posties, driven off the DZ, and united with our transport and taken to the nearby pub where our tradition demanded a beer or two after another safe night parachuting.

And finally, the real need for the red handle safety of my reserve.  Parachuting onto Hankley Common in April 1968 with 5 of the unit including Sergeant Dave Gladwin.  One of the few Seniors who graced the unit and left as highly experienced paratroopers.  Out the door over the DZ and almost casually look up to see my parachute fully deployed.  But no!!  There was a knot under the main canopy, and it prevented the chute from opening.  Just enough time to shout “F*cking H*ll” before pulling my red handle (and throwing it over my shoulder, as trained) causing my reserve to open fully in an instant. Brakes on at 300 feet and just enough time to flick the quick release hooks and drop my container on its rope attached to my harness and on I go to a soft landing as my opening reserve had knocked the knot off my main chute.  What I did not know at the time was thar Sgt Gladwin had seen me hurtling towards the ground and shouted “Goodbye, Sir”.  But justice was delivered in another form.  Dave had loaded his container, not with military kit, but neatly folded mail bags which gave bulk without the weight of kit.  Unfortunately, when he landed, his container had come to earth in one of the many puddles on Hankley DZ.  Now his container was full of soaked mailbags, which I believe were heavier than the kit normally carried.  Anyway, good reason for Unit laughter and a comradeship celebration.  Oh, and I went to Hankley Common DZ the following weekend and found what I have always believed to be the red handle that saved me from not being here by less than 3 seconds!!

1967 proved a terrific year for the Unit.  We had taken ourselves from being known as The Postal Balloon Unit to being the Unit with the very best parachuting record in the Brigade for the year with 250 aircraft jumps between the 12 of us and 87 of those by night – AND not a single injury.  Proud or what??  Everyone now knew the 16 Parachute Brigade PCCU RE; often chalk commanders with 50 Para Regiment members on board – and behind us in the queue to exit over the DZ.

(I think somebody  did not much like parachuting from aircraft and so the unit then only parachuted from balloon cages!)

Col Doug Swanson

Well what more could a young officer want to make him look different from the rest and be considered elite by many?

The only difficulty was passing something called ‘P’ Company, and then completing a four-week parachute course where you would need to master the art of parachuting and complete two descents from the cage beneath a moored balloon and six more from an aircraft, one of which would be at night.

The ‘P’ Company bit was very hard – as was the training to get to it. The other two officers on my pre training died during this spell. It sure made for plenty of leg pulling by the lads on the course with me. “Come on Sir, you ain’t going to die on us, are you?” they would shout.  Well I didn’t!  It all passed with a great degree of difficulty and quite a lot of pain.  That is until we arrived at RAF Abingdon for our four weeks parachute training.  It should have been called Abingdon Holiday Camp, as that was what the luxury Officers’ Mess and training was like after ‘P’ Company’.

It all ended with a lovely little ceremony where some RAF officer presented you with a set of wings and shook your hand. Crap Hat no morel Hurray!

Once in the Brigade it struck me that I had moved from an Infantry Brigade in Germany with a Parachute Commander to the Parachute Regiment with a similar chief.  That is as if one considers Frank King and Tony Farrar-Hockley similar.  One had parachuted into Arnhem and survived their aircrew boing killed and getting his men out of their plane safely into the cauldron of Arnhem.  And the other had surrendered the Gloucesters in Korea and spent time being interrogated in prisoner of war camp.  Both were terrific commanders and wonderful, if tough, leaders and inspirers of people.

To join the short list of Postal Officers who had commanded an airborne unit was a great honour, with a pile of inspiring examples to follow. So, best to make sure we knuckled down, trained hard, played hard and proved a unit worthy of our Formation and Commander.  This meant a good deal of background activity.  Things like finding who needed what course, finding what courses were available and preparing our training schedule four months in advance and also finding how to get seats on aircraft to parachute.  It was all in the manuals and folks’ records and to get seats I became the unit’s air Adjutant as well as OC.

So, we settled into a routine of military fitness and parachute training as well running our Field Post Office (FPO) and supporting overseas exercises and operations, mostly with one or two away on trade or education courses.  Exercises and operations were mostly for two or three personnel, although we did all manage a 3-week exercise in Germany in 1967 on which we did much postal work and a fair bit of soldiering.  We also took part in several Brigade exercises in the UK.  We did organise a good task in the summers when we ran the FPO at Earl’s Court for the Royal Tournament and each December we decamped all those not needed in Aldershot to Mil Hill to help with the Christmas post.  Hard work – but also a ton of fun!

Our reputation grew as our sportsmen played or fought better in Brigade competitions. Several units got to know us better by parachuting with us.  There may have been 8 of us on a drop along with 40 Parachute Regiment members, but the chalk commander was ever the senior service.

So, as Sappers we held the job.  In 1967 we managed to hit the top spot in parachuting by completing more jumps per person with zero injuries than any other unit and all were from aircraft and 30% by night!  Proud or what!

But as we celebrated the 70^th anniversary of Airborne Forces, I thought of our two wartime officers; Capt. JCG Hine who went to Normandy with 6 Airborne Division. He and 5 other ‘Posties’ went by glider and another 4 by parachute whilst the rest of the unit went with the sea tail. One of the glider party received a broken arm and leg on landing and two of the parachute group were wounded by mortar fire whilst crossing the bridge over the River Ore. The rest carried out their postal duties. Lt JE Morris with 1st Airborne Division was either luckier or less fortunate, depending how one looks at it.  He and his unit were left to get to Arnhem with the sea tail and so missed all the fighting there and stayed in the UK.

I did several memorable things in the Paras – like having lunch with The Queen (twice) and doing an exchange au pair with the French Paras when we did one week parachuting and training with Les Paras and the second week with the Les Étrangers (The Foreign Legion), including a drop into the Lake at Lourdes.  Bless me! Best of all were the men in the unit and the camaraderie of being a member of Britain’s Parachute Brigade.

One officer and 12 men made up the unit. There were six soldiers who made WOl eventually and 3 of those were commissioned – Don Bramley, Eddie Lyons and Jack Bullen.  Not bad from no more than 40 soldiers.  The WOls were Paul Stoddart, Dick Inkpen and Brian Lee.

My own parachuting days were now over as in 1972 I spent 4 months in Northern Ireland.  After lunch with 1 Para one day I was given a parachute helmet and told to be at Aldergrove Airport on the Thursday to jump with them.  And so started my Thursday afternoon recreation breaks! Dropping on to Slemish Mountain from 800ft. More great fun!

6 Airborne Divisional Unit RE

The 6^th Airborne Division Postal Unit RE was formed in 1943, under the command of Captain JCG Hine RE.  Although at first there was little enthusiasm among the Divisional Staff for the Division’s ‘Postmen’ to take part in the actual airborne assault on the Continent, it was however finally decided in the interest of administrative efficiency and the maintenance of morale that elements of the unit should accompany the assault forces prior to ‘H’ Hour.

In the lead up to the invasion when the Division was sealed in its marshalling camps the postal unit provided the only official link for the private soldier to the outside world – the last delivery of mail to assault troops was made on D-1 (5 June). To maintain security all private outgoing mail was collected by the postal unit and forwarded to holding offices where it was not released into the postal system until the news of the landings had been made public knowledge by the news agencies.

The plan was that 6 ‘posties’ were to travel in the gliders and a further 4 with the with the parachutists, while a follow up group of 12 men were to come in by sea on D+1 or D+2. it was intended that the first 10 ‘posties’ should set up a Field Post Office on ‘D’ Day which was to be located near the Division Headquarters (Div HQ) and to be operational by D+1 (7 June).

Captain James Hine RE travelled with the gliders, he later wrote of his experiences:

“It did not seem long before we were on our way to the airfield.  We took our seats in the glider and then we were off.  With nothing to do, my imagination began to run riot, and after a time I began to wonder where we were.  I had worked out that wo must have been in the air for something like three hours, when suddenly someone shouted that we were over the coast.  I felt cold.  A few more minutes and the towrope went and then we were down to a rough landing.  The glider was groaning, cracking and splitting open.  Someone was shouting, “Out!”.  There seemed to be a hell of a noise going on.  I grabbed my tin hat, and marvelled at the sense of security it seemed to give me.  Then I was out!

 Nearby, a glider went up in flames and another straddled a wall. it was as though all hell had been let loose and I thought, “If I ever get out of this, I shall be lucky.  I wondered how my jumper lads had fared (later I found to my dismay that one had been wounded in the leg and thigh and another in the backside).  I’d no idea where we were, but discovered afterwards that we had come down west of Ranville, and close to one of the bridges over the River Ome, which had been seized earlier by men of the Division who had crashed landed in gliders right on target.  It seemed to me at the lime that the chances of getting a postal service started were about as good as those of winning the pools.

 Then all at once, the organisation began to take over. Someone was shepherding us of the landing zone and I remembered I’d got to make my way to Div HQ, where ever that might be. I saw a military policeman and asked him if he knew where Div HO was. Pointing to a lane, he said. “Up there”. I set out and, after walking for what seemed to be about half a mile, came to a house, which, wonders upon wonders, turned out to be Div HQ.  Standing there was the DAQMG who wanted to know what sort of trip I’d had and which way I had approached Div HQ.  He said, “You’re lucky to have made it old man.  There are snipers busy down there and they have got seven or eight chaps”.  He also said there was a lot of activity between the Div area and the coast and that it was out of the question, for the time being, to think of getting back to the beaches to collect and dispose of mail as had been planned.

 A short time afterwards, one of my corporals turned up. He’s left the UK with a stock of stamps and some other postal equipment but had become parted from it in the shock of landing. Having reported in, he went back to the landing zone, and after a search, which of some time, he came with the missing items intact.

Soon others of my lads reported in and we “set up shop” in a bar in the Div area.  Conditions were pretty primitive and we spent a lot of time in the slit trenches.  But from D+1 (7 June 1944) post orderlies called daily and we despatched outgoing mail.  How we got back to the beaches to make the despatches is another story, but we did, and I have found personal proof that the mails despatched got home for, on D+5 (11 June) my mother received some Ranville butter wrapped in cabbage leaves in my emergency ration tin that I had sent!

On D+2 (8 June) members of the unit managed to make their way to ‘Sword’ beach where they contacted the Beach Group Army Post Office S698 and with them had the distinction of making the first mail despatch from Normandy”.

Credit to “The Royal Engineers Postal Service”

On Operation OVERLORD

Working for long hours under extremely heavy pressure and often under the most trying conditions, never blessed with a sufficiency of numbers, they worked until given their first relaxation at Christmas, when, after delivery of Christmas morning they ‘downed tools’ for 24 hours.  Much of their work was perforce done behind the scene, but nevertheless efficiently and well.  Secondly the postal administration staffs, without whose work, and especially that done in the planning period, the difficulties would have increased tenfold.

Lastly, but by no means least, full credit should be given to the Home Postal Centre, truly the ‘behind the scenes organisation, without whose efforts no army Postal Centre could have been a success.

The average soldier in the British Liberation Army regarded as commonplace to have his letters from home out in his hands within two, or at most three, days of posting.  In that fact alone is abundant testimony to the quality of the work which has been done and the excellence of the results achieved.

Extract from the “Parade” Magazine

After a visit to the Home Postal Centre the correspondent wrote:

I had a particular interest in the next room I visited.  This department makes sure that no postal packet is returned to the sender inscribed “Killed”, “Missing” or “Prisoner of War” until it has been ascertained that the family in question has been properly notified of its loss.  It would be impossible to describe in full the care taken by the Army Post Office of the letters entrusted to it. At no time does it distinguish between a message of a general or to a private.  I saw a dossier of about 50 messages dealing with the problem of delivering a letter to a private soldier.  It reached him alright in the end.

They are not “soft wallahs”, these Army Postmen.

They so the same parades and drills as infantrymen.

They work with their rifles beside them.

They will use their rifles if the need arises.

They are fighting men.

To them, therefore the letters they handle are the greatest personal treasure of comrades in arms”.