When I reported to Parachute School, the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment had been filled up for about a month, and they were beginning to assign graduates to the 507 PIR. We were assigned to a student company with three or four platoons, with at least one platoon of officers for every class. They were billeted separately but went through the same training we did and took the same harassment.
The school consisted of A, B, C, and D stages, which each lasted for one week. In “A Stage,” everyone endured four hours of solid physical training daily—one hour of running, one hour of jujitsu, one hour of endurance calisthenics, and one hour of gym or other physical training. The goal was to screen out the soldiers who would not have enough guts and motivation to jump out of a plane.
Our jujitsu instruction took place in a large sawdust pit where we learned hand-to-hand unarmed fighting tactics—how to throw our opponents and so on. It was September 1942, and very hot. The instructors took delight in picking out smaller, lighter students like myself for demonstration purposes. Many times, we hit face down and got a mouth full of sawdust. We had to choke back our normal reaction to spit it out, because the instructors, who worked in the sawdust pit day in and day out, tried to keep it as clean as possible. Anyone caught spitting had to run around the pit with his arms held high as possible, repeating the chant, “I will not spit in the sawdust pit. I will not spit in the sawdust pit.” We soon learned to keep our mouths shut on a hard fall.
The last instruction period for my platoon was always calisthenics, which took place around noon, the hottest time of the day. All sergeant instructors seemed to look like Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy. They wore jump boots, trousers and white T-shirts that showed their bulging muscles and slim waists to good advantage. We started calisthenics with a platoon of about forty-five men, and by the end of the hour, if ten or fifteen of us were still on our feet, it was considered a good day for the instructors. The rest would have passed out from heat or physical exhaustion. After a physically hard training period, we lined up at the drinking fountain. When we got up to it, we opened our mouths and the instructors popped in a salt tablet. We had to take a drink of water and swallow it. Some students got sick on them, but there was always a second instructor to ensure that the tablets went down.
During “A Stage” we also practiced exiting the plane door. This taught us how to be in the correct position when the parachute opened. A plane fuselage was mounted about six feet off the ground, with steps leading up to the open front, or pilot’s end. We climbed up the steps, shuffled to the rear side door, turned right through the door, and jumped out, turning to the left after leaving the fuselage. On leaving, we counted: “One thousand, two thousand, three thousand.” Although we hit the ground before we reached three thousand, this taught us the interval needed for the main chute to open. If it didn’t open, we were instructed to pull the ripcord on our reserve chute. We started practice at a low tempo and increased to a very fast pace as we repeatedly jumped, ran back to the front end, and jumped again.
It was repetition, repetition, repetition. Two or three instructors were positioned to correct and constantly harass us. The officers’ platoon trained as a separate group and took even more verbal abuse than we did. Their ranks weren’t recognized as long as they were assigned as students, which gave free reign to the sergeant instructors. In other areas, too, it seemed that the officers received a lot more push-ups for any infraction of the rules. We were often close enough to observe their jujitsu instruction, and it appeared that the instructors always picked the most senior officers to demonstrate the throws, and threw them harder than they did the rest of us. They especially enjoyed making officers run around with their hands in the air, repeating the ridiculous spitting chant. Some of these sergeants later regretted their deeds when they were transferred from the Parachute School to tactical units and ended up serving under the very same officers they had ridiculed.
By the end of four hours of physical training, we were drenched in sweat, soaked from the collar to the hem of our coveralls. We went back to the barracks on the double, emptied our pockets, and stepped into the showers fully clothed. We tried to wash ourselves and our coveralls at the same time, because they had to be clean for the next morning. We changed into clean khaki pants and shirts, then fell out and double-timed down to Lawson Field, where we learned to pack our parachutes.
The buildings were hangars filled with long, narrow packing tables. We spent four hours a day in these packing sheds in each stage of the school. The first three weeks we learned how to pack a chute, and the last week we packed the chutes we actually used on our qualifying jumps. We all had to pack our own chutes for the first five jumps. That way, we would be confident the chute had been correctly packed, and so would correctly open. We also knew that we really had to learn how to do it, because we were going to jump the chute we packed.
The buildings had high ceilings, but they were still very hot in the afternoon Georgia sun. There was strict discipline during instruction. If we didn’t know the answer, or even murmured something under our breath, the instructor would say, “Give me five,” “Give me ten,” “Give me twenty-five,” or “Give me fifty.” This meant push-ups. We had to assume the push-up position immediately and do the designated number, all the while trying to keep up with the instruction of a very critical skill.
The “B Stage” of Parachute School taught correct landing procedure. We also practiced jumping from a ten-foot platform and were tested for reactions to jumping from a thirty-four-foot tower. We learned landing procedures in a wide shed with a fifteen-foot platform at one end, where we stood and put on a harness. This was rigged to an apparatus with roller wheels and a quick-release mechanism; the whole was attached to an I-beam rail mounted at an angle running from fifteen to eight feet above the ground. We jumped from the platform with forward momentum and moved at quite a speed as we came down. We could be released at any time, so we always had to be ready to land. We were supposed to come down on the balls of both feet, then go into a left- or right-front tumble, and come up unscathed in the upright, standing position. Such a landing was hard enough to perform when we were not wearing combat equipment, but when we were combat-loaded, it was impossible.
The ten-foot platform was equipped with a set of stairs. We jumped off, went into a front tumble, immediately got up, double-timed around to the stairs, and climbed back up. An instructor constantly critiqued us. If the jumps weren’t to his satisfaction we’d get fifteen to twenty push-ups.
On the thirty-four-foot tower, we climbed up a ladder to a little shed built on a platform with a door at the edge. Outside, a heavy cable was fastened on both ends to poles about one hundred feet apart. The cable was about forty feet high at the cable end and angled down to about eight feet. The instructors rigged us up in a parachute harness with an eight- or ten-foot static line; we snapped the line on the cable, and stood in the door. When they hollered “Go!” we jumped. We assumed the correct body position and dropped free until we hit the end of the static line with a terrific jolt. We then slid down the cable, got out of the harness, and did the exercise again. Odd as it may seem, almost as many men refused the thirty-four-foot tower as refused the first parachute jump. Just the idea of climbing thirty-four feet into the air, standing in the door, and jumping was more than enough for some of them.
“C Stage” consisted of training on two types of 250-foot towers, a controlled tower and a free tower. This got us used to heights and taught us how to be in the correct position when we hit the ground. Each tower had four arms extending from the top of its center. On the controlled tower, four cables served to rig open parachute canopies, holding them on the outer edge. We climbed into the harness on the ground and were mechanically lifted by a cable running through the apex of our parachute. Once we got to the top they released us, and we dropped straight down. We hit bottom fast, and had to land on the balls of both feet if we wanted to escape injury. We also learned to pull down on all four risers on im
pact, an action that was supposed to reduce the stress of landing.
I much preferred the free tower. Most often, only two of the arms extending out at the top could be used at one time. The number depended on the velocity and direction of the wind, which could blow a man right into the tower. A cable attached to a winch on the ground ran up the vertical part of the tower, then horizontally to the end of the arm and down to the ground. That end of the cable was attached to a 28-foot-diameter ring. The chute was attached to the ring with quick releases. We got into the chute, were pulled up by the winch, and then automatically released when we got to the top.
We drifted rather than fell straight down. On our way down, the instructors would tell us to perform various procedures like slipping and preparing for landing, giving their commands through a bullhorn. We hit the ground with about the same speed as on a real jump. The instructors checked our names off and constantly harassed us. Everything was always on the double. Again, the slightest error resulted in fifteen or twenty-five push-ups.
Another exercise during this stage used the wind machine, a propeller about five feet in diameter enclosed in a safety wire cage and driven by a gasoline engine. It was mounted on a chassis with four rubber tires. We lay down in front of it, rigged in our complete parachute, while students picked up the canopy so it would fill with wind. Next they started the machine up, and the air caught and fully extended the canopy. As we were dragged along, students pushed the machine after us, keeping it close in order to maintain wind velocity. We had to learn how to get to our feet while being dragged. The trick was to get enough slack in our lines so we could run around and get in front of the chute and collapse it. If we landed in high winds, it was probable we would be dragged and hurt, so it was crucial to learn how to get out of our chute in these conditions.
Of course, our weight had a lot to do with how hard we were dragged. A big man was never blown around as fast as someone like me. I had difficulty, but I managed to get to my feet, run around, and collapse my chute after many attempts. The exercise left me with many scrapes, scratches, and bruises from head to foot. The instructors showed no mercy and accepted no excuses; we just had to do it. At the same time, they kept feeding us the old line of BS that ran, “One paratrooper can easily handle five men.” They’d say this to build up our morale and keep us making progress.
This theme was kept up all throughout our schooling. The instructors always presented the toughness of our training as a personal challenge: “What are ya gonna be, a wimp or a man? Are ya good enough to be a trooper or not?” Sometimes when we groaned with pain and discomfort, they yelled, “What am I hearing? Crying and whimpering! What are ya? A man or an aging baby?” In the early 1940s, we were not exposed to any of the modern-day ideas about challenging authority, nor had we become cynical at an early age. We responded to their propaganda fully by pushing ourselves beyond our limits. It was a good thing we did. Once we got into battle, we would need every ounce of that extra strength, endurance, know-how, and confidence.
On the last day of “C Stage” we packed our parachutes. Bright and early Monday morning, “D Stage” would begin. We picked up the chute we had packed, moved to a hangar, and waited our turn to make our first qualifying jump. They assigned us into “sticks,” a group of men who occupied one plane and jumped together. For qualifying jumps, the stick was divided in half. First one half would jump, then the plane would circle the field, and the other half would go out.
I didn’t get much sleep the night before my first jump. I always had doubts about being successful. I told myself, “You’ve taken all the crap so far without quitting, even though others have failed.” My main motivation was to not become less than the men around me. Personal pride, ego, self-esteem—all of it entered into it. What would my friends think if I failed? I had to succeed, I told myself, because failure would be more than I could handle. I wanted to be a paratrooper, to walk with the pride and self-confidence of a man who had proven himself to be a notch or two above the ordinary. But I was scared, very scared. I believe 95 percent of us were, and the other 5 percent were maybe liars.
Chapter 6
First Assignment: 507 Parachute Infantry Regiment
In “D Stage” we made one jump a day. All we had to do was pack our parachutes and jump out of an airplane for five days in a row. A truck picked us up and returned us to the packing shed where we packed our chutes for the next day’s jump. “D Stage” thus was comparatively easy—except for one little thing. Most of us had never flown before. Here I was, going up in a plane for the first time, and I had to jump out. I think I made eighteen jumps in my life, including three combat jumps, and I was scared on every one of them.
The night jumps at Fort Benning were particularly problematic because it was so difficult to judge the distance to the ground. Even more seriously, it was hard to tell ground from water. The Chattahoochee River divided the military reservation, running close to a blacktop road. If we were dropped to one side of the drop zone on a moonlit night and weren’t real careful as we descended, we could mistake the moonlight shining off the blacktop for the river. There were cases where people made a water landing, releasing their straps at a height of twenty to one hundred feet, and hit the road instead of water, resulting in serious injury.
For the life of me, I cannot remember the specific experience of my first qualifying jump. We had received so much training, and it had been so repetitious, that the first actual jump just blended into the process. All I can figure out is that I, like all my fellow soldiers making that first jump, was completely on automatic. If anything, the first jump may have been the easiest, because we acted almost like robots.
The procedures, though, are indelibly engraved on my memory. We were seated in the plane approaching the drop zone when the jumpmaster hollered, “Stand up and hook up!” We stood, grabbed our large metal fastener on the static line, and snapped it onto the anchor cable that ran overhead the length of the plane. The next command was: “Check equipment!” We then checked the jumper in front of us, making sure he was holding the static line correctly in his left hand, and wasn’t in danger of entangling his arm in it. Next, we made sure the static line was in place, strapped crisscross with rubber bands across our main chute pack, and checked the other equipment. The “push out,” the last man in the stick, turned around, and the man ahead of him checked his equipment. At the third command, “Sound off for equipment check,” the last man in the stick hollered out his number: “Sixteen okay!” And on it went, right on down the line.
There was a light panel on the right side of the door that almost everyone could see. A red light came on about four minutes from the drop zone. Green was the signal to go. Shortly before, the jumpmaster ordered, “Close up and stand in the door!” At this, we shuffled forward. We were taught not to lift our feet, for anyone who tripped would slow down the jump. The number-one man stood with his right hand on the right doorjamb, his left hand on the left jamb, and got ready to exit the plane. Then came the green light. The jumpmaster shouted “Go!” and we started jumping, counting “one thousand, two thousand, three thousand” as we went out the door.
Safety regulations now require intervals of a specific number of seconds between jumpers. But in our day, they got us out as fast as they could. If you were the fifth man, when the command to go was given there was immediately an empty space four men deep in front of you. Those first four men went out the door like a compressed spring.
As soon as we started out, the prop blast caught us. The first thing we saw was the tail of the plane going over our head. Procedure called for the pilot to slow down to about 90 miles an hour, and go into a slight descent that raised the tail of the plane to give us more clearance. If the main chute didn’t open by the count of three thousand, it meant we had a “streamer.” We then pulled the ripcord on the reserve chute strapped across our torso, caught the chute, and cast it out in front of us to ensure it filled with air and deployed properly. Any trooper who got panic
ky and pulled the ripcord prematurely was in trouble. There would be two chutes trying to open, the main chute overhead and the reserve coming out in front, and one would steal the air from the other.
The opening shock was something else. In a good position, it wasn’t too bad, but in a bad one—with our feet up and our head down, for example—the shock was unbelievable. It was even worse when we were heavily loaded, as we always were in any tactical or combat jump. Yet no matter how bad it was, we always welcomed the shock, because at least we knew our chute had opened.
Then there was the shock of landing. They used to say it was the equivalent of jumping from a height of fifteen to twenty feet. Even though I was in good physical condition, this caused me considerable pain in my joints and lower back. I suffered from a lot of back pain because of my days as a trooper, and eventually had to have two operations. That said, I was lucky enough never to break any bones.
I was up in a plane seven or eight times before I ever landed in one. I’ll always remember the heavy odor of aviation gas and oil we got when we started loading. Even the smell of it raised my fears. After we sat down in the bucket seats and the plane taxied to the end of the runway, the pilot checked his engines by revving them up to maximum RPM, then slowly released the brake and started off. When I heard the engines revving up, and knew I was about to go into takeoff, my fears mounted higher still. We did have refusals on all of the first five jumps. The policy was that we could refuse at any time up to the fifth jump without being court-martialed. Those who did refuse were hurried back and out of the company barracks before the rest of us returned from our successful jumps.
I don’t think we had too many hot-shot pilots. Given the efficiency and training of the Air Transport and Troop Carrier commands, the experience of landing in a plane was almost as exciting as jumping out of one. I made a vow to myself that if I survived the war, I would never climb into another plane. I flew home after VE-Day, then kept this vow until my youngest child was born on August 26, 1953, while I was at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation. The regimental commander graciously offered the services of a two-seater plane to fly me home to Erie.
Descending from the Clouds Page 5
