The Elite

by Ranulph Fiennes

  In 1935, as part of manoeuvres in the Kiev military district, the Soviet Red Army invited foreign military attachés to watch a force of 1,200 military parachutists jump from a number of Tupolev aircraft. The visitors were subsequently treated to the spectacle of masses of parachutists tumbling off the wings of the large six-engine transports and landing in the fields around them. However, while the watching British guests believed the act to be nothing more than a novelty, the Germans were captivated. They instantly grasped the potential of using speed and surprise to defeat an enemy by attacking him in a manner and location least expected.

  By the outbreak of war in 1939, the Germans had a complete parachute division of 9,000 Fallschirmjäger and a separate division of troops who could land by glider or transport aircraft. In 1940, they would embark on their first major mission, when small numbers of parachute troops were dropped to capture strategic targets in Norway and Denmark. While success was mixed, it was in the Low Countries shortly afterwards that their ability would really be demonstrated.

  The heavily defended Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael occupied a strategic point on the Dutch–Belgian border, with its 120mm and 75mm guns dominating three bridges over the Albert Canal. These bridges were deemed critical to the success of the German invasion, but the fortress was considered impregnable. On the night of 10 May 1940, seventy-eight Fallschirmjäger achieved what many felt to be impossible.

  Landing silently by glider on the flat grass-topped roof, the small force used shaped charges to cripple the guns and blasted their way inside. Before the garrison could react, they were trapped. After thirty hours of fighting, the garrison of 600 was forced to surrender, having suffered over 100 casualties. Losses to the much smaller German force amounted to six men killed and nineteen wounded. Meanwhile, other troops landing by parachute had captured two of the three bridges intact.

  To their north, the Germans used the rest of their airborne forces to capture strategically important bridges over the Maas, which led to the rapid capitulation of Rotterdam and the defeat of Holland. This spectacular feat confirmed Hitler’s faith in his paratroopers’ effectiveness; it also stirred the imagination of Britain’s new prime minister.

  On 22 June 1940, Churchill wrote a memorandum to the chiefs of staff and directed them to raise a corps of at least 5,000 parachutists. This was a tall order. It had taken Germany four years of trial and error to get its paratrooper regiments to reach this high standard. Britain was now trying to match them within a few months. Unsurprisingly, not everyone at the War Office or Air Ministry was convinced of such an idea.

  Conventional thinking in the senior echelons of the military believed all efforts should be directed towards preparing the army to meet the imminent threat of a German invasion, while also building up the strength of the RAF to defend the country’s skies. They also viewed the success of German airborne operations in Europe as a one-off. But still, the prime minister had issued his directive and it needed to be satisfied.

  As such, the War Office distributed army circulars to units calling for volunteers. To secure sufficient numbers of volunteers, recruiting teams also visited units throughout the UK. Many men jumped at the opportunity, quite literally. The Parachute Regiment seemed to offer an exciting diversion from home defence duties, with a greater opportunity for making an appreciable contribution to the British war effort. The extra pay – two shillings per man and four shilling per officer per day – was a further incentive.

  All prospective candidates initially underwent a rigorous selection process and instruction at the Airborne Forces Depot at Hardwick Hall, near Chesterfield in Derbyshire. Everyone was required to undergo a strict medical, which weeded out all those who had previously broken a leg, had false teeth or needed spectacles. A test to determine whether men were susceptible to airsickness was also carried out by placing candidates on a stretcher suspended from the roof and vigorously swinging it through the air for twenty minutes. As you might be able to tell, the recruitment methods were still relatively crude but much of it was still trial and error in these early days.

  For those who passed these initial tests, army physical training instructors then put candidates through a gruelling course lasting a fortnight. This included intensive physical gym tests, assault courses and repeated road and cross-country marches throughout the surrounding area, while carrying full arms and equipment. This tough course ended with seven difficult tests, including running 2 miles in sixteen minutes in full battle order. Only those judged as having sufficient stamina, self-discipline and physical and mental resilience passed the selection, with many potential recruits – normally the majority – ‘Returned to Unit’.

  But just passing through Hardwick Hall didn’t necessarily mean that a candidate had been accepted. The real acid test was still to come.

  Those who passed this first stage then had to undertake a fortnight’s parachute training at the Central Landing School, located nearby at the former civil Ringway airport near Manchester. As the idea of a paratrooper unit was so new, the army and RAF instructors had to learn the basics of parachuting themselves. Moreover, suitable parachutes, equipment and techniques for jumping from aircraft also had to be developed. As military historian Julian Thompson has written, ‘Despite the total lack of practical knowledge of parachuting techniques, text books, special equipment, and in some cases, the basic inability to impart knowledge to others, the RAF and Army instructors of all ranks shared a boundless enthusiasm and great courage.’

  Quickly putting together a ‘curriculum’, the parachute phase of training began with a week of ‘synthetic’ ground training. This saw trainees learn how to exit from different types of aircraft, and then how to control their parachutes in the air during descent and landing. Mock-ups of various planes’ fuselages were subsequently constructed in hangars and these were used by recruits to practise dummy jumps. Other types of training apparatus helped men learn flight drills and correct methods of landing. These included trapezes, from which recruits were suspended, and wooden chutes, down which men plummeted and then dropped from some height, learning to fall and roll, an important skill to prevent injury.

  At the end of the first week, recruits made two descents from a tethered, static barrage balloon at a height of 700ft. For many, this provided their first terrifying experience of parachuting to the ground. It was not a popular stage of training, with many extremely nervous men suffering bouts of acute nausea while ascending in the balloon as it was buffeted to and fro in the wind. From a hole in the middle of the balloon’s basket, men then fell a distance of 120ft before a static line made the parachute snap open. This actually sounds more terrifying than jumping from an actual plane.

  During the second week at Ringway airport, trainees progressed to making a series of parachute descents from aircraft. These were in fact converted bombers, with holes cut in the floor. Casualties were not uncommon. For instance, on 25 July 1940, Private Evans plummeted to his death when the rigging lines of his parachute twisted round his canopy.

  I once had a very similar experience when preparing to join the SAS. Attending a parachute school at Pau, near Lourdes, I was already very apprehensive due to my fear of heights. My worst fears weren’t helped when a fellow student explained why the school was near the holy city of Lourdes. ‘You see, those men who are crippled here at Pau,’ he helpfully explained, ‘they can seek recovery in the holy waters just up the road.’ Shortly afterwards I embarked on my first jump from a Nord Atlas transport plane. Closing my eyes, I threw myself out before I had the chance to become afraid. However, a few seconds after my parachute had apparently successfully opened, I looked up to see a knotted tangle, which met in a bunch around my neck. I experienced instant panic. The ground was fast becoming uncomfortably close.

  In fact, I was merely experiencing a common problem called ‘twists’, usually caused by a poor exit from the aircraft. The normal process of elasticity slowly unwound the tangle, but I was spinning like a top on landing and hit t
he ground with a wallop. I would count myself fortunate to escape with just a few bumps and bruises. A few years later, when embarking on an expedition to explore Norway’s Fabergstolsbre Glacier, I would again have to jump out of a plane. Once more all did not go well. Upon jumping out of the Cessna, I almost hit the fuselage and fell into a body spin. As I did so, a camera came loose in my anorak and lodged itself against the ripcord bar, preventing me from opening my chute. In a blind panic, I frantically grasped at the camera, as the freezing air blasted my face and I plummeted towards the solid ice down below. With seconds to go, it came loose and allowed me to open the chute, and I watched with relief as the orange canopy now fluttered above my head.

  However, at Ringway, many were not as fortunate as I was. By the end of 1940, at least three men died during the first 2,000 descents. Such was the terrifying nature of this training that, in 1940–41, over half of the candidates failed to pass the two-week course. For those who did, they received their coveted parachute wings and distinctive maroon berets. Incidentally, this happened to be the favourite colour of the novelist Daphne du Maurier, the wife of Brigadier Frederick Browning, who was the commander of the airborne forces.

  When the newly qualified paratroopers joined their battalions, they then needed to learn the skills required of airborne light infantry. It wasn’t enough for them to just fall out of planes. Such airborne soldiers would normally be fighting against superior odds, and against an enemy equipped with heavy weapons, artillery and tanks – all of which they would lack.

  Cultivating the right attitude was seen as something of the utmost importance. This included the development of courage, aggressiveness, self-discipline, self-reliance, and, in turn, a high level of esprit de corps within each unit. Particular attention was paid to developing and maintaining a high standard of individual military skills – marksmanship, skill-at-arms and fieldcraft. A high degree of physical fitness was also deemed essential. Recruits spent much time on seemingly endless route marches and repeated assault courses, carrying full arms and equipment. Indeed, the ability to cover long distances at high speed became a particular matter of pride in the Parachute Regiment.

  Exercises were also held to replicate potential operations. These usually involved descending by parachute to a target, followed by intensive tactical training, often using live ammunition, with a particular objective in mind, such as establishing bridgeheads by capturing road and railway bridges and coastal fortifications. Invariably, they ended with a long march back to base at a considerable pace.

  On 31 May 1941, with the initial batch of recruits ready, the military chiefs of staff issued a joint paper outlining plans to raise two parachute brigades and an airlanding brigade, as well as to start production of troop-carrying gliders. In December, the War Office announced the formation of the Army Air Corps as the parent regiment. This would include the newly formed Glider Pilot Regiment of army pilots trained by the RAF to fly the wooden Horsa gliders that were beginning to come off the production lines. These could carry a pilot and a co-pilot, plus twenty-eight fully armed men, or two Jeeps, or a 75mm howitzer or a quarterton truck. Most who saw the glider described it as a ‘big black crow’. The first forty candidates would begin training at the RAF Elementary Flying School at Haddenham near Oxford the following month. Within two years, the strength of the trained glider pilots in the new regiment was to grow to over 2,500.

  While Churchill’s plan to establish a paratrooper unit had initially been derided by many in the War Office, Britain’s airborne forces would soon come to play a key part in winning the war. In March 1943, Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan was appointed COSSAC – chief of staff to the supreme allied commander (designate) – and charged with planning the cross-Channel invasion, and the liberation of Europe, taking into account all of the problems that had been raised during the failed raid on Dieppe in 1942. In studying the possible sites for the assault, it soon became clear that the area of Normandy would be the most suitable location for the amphibious forces to come ashore.

  Five Normandy beaches were subsequently designated for the assault, code-named ‘Utah’, ‘Omaha’, ‘Gold’, ‘Juno’ and ‘Sword’. It was decided that Sword Beach, which stretched from St Aubin-sur-Mer in the west to the mouth of the River Orne in the east, would be targeted by British forces. Eight miles up the Orne was the city of Caen, and from the city a network of roads linked it to all parts of Normandy. Taking Caen was therefore seen to be of huge strategic importance.

  However, it was clear that there would be two main obstacles to this advance. The German gun battery at Merville could decimate any British seaborne landings and end the attempted invasion before it had even reached the shore. Meanwhile, securing the bridges over the River Orne and Caen Canal before the landings would be crucial. They not only provided the most direct route to Caen, but they would also enable Rommel’s panzer divisions to cross and head off the left flank of the British invasion force on Sword Beach. And if Rommel’s tanks were to do this, they might very well roll up the entire invading force, division by division.

  It was therefore imperative that the guns be silenced, and the bridges taken intact, before any such invasion could even begin. Suddenly, all eyes turned to the paratroopers.

  Neither task would be easy. Not only would the bridges and the battery be under guard, but intelligence suggested that the bridges were fitted with explosives. Should there be any attempt to take them, then the German guards were ordered to blow them up. Yet both objectives had to be completed if the Allied invasion of Europe was to get underway.

  As such, glider-borne D Company, led by Major John Howard, was selected to secure the bridges. Its orders read:

  Your task is to seize intact the bridges over the River Orne and canal at Benouville and Ranville, and to hold them until relief . . . The capture of the Bridges will be a coup de main operation depending largely on surprise, speed and dash for success.

  The operation was code-named Deadstick and had been designed by General Richard Gale, who commanded the 6th Airborne Division. Just a few hours before the invasion commenced, the Horsa gliders would fly into France and set twenty-eight fighting men beside each bridge simultaneously. For success to be achieved, the gliders would have to arrive like thieves in the night, without noise or light, unseen and unheard.

  With preparations for Operation Deadstick underway, Gale now turned his attention to the Merville gun battery. He looked to the 9th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, for a mission code-named Operation Tonga.

  However, destroying the guns was a difficult task. They were protected by 2-metre-thick concrete walls and overhead cover, with another 2 metres of earth banked up at the sides and on top of the structure. The guns and their crew could also be secured from the outside world by heavy steel doors to the rear and steel shutters over the gunports. An air-filtration system was also installed to guard against a gas attack. In short, the bunker was strong enough to withstand anything but a direct hit from the heaviest of Allied bombs. The operation would require extensive intelligence, and intensive training, if it were to stand any chance of success.

  As such, preparations for Operation Deadstick and Operation Tonga were aided by detailed overhead photographs, as well as information gleaned from the French resistance. This allowed for models of the bridges and the guns to be built to assist with planning. Lieutenant Henry Sweeney said of this treasure trove of intelligence: ‘I don’t think there was a bush we didn’t know the height of, a ditch we didn’t know the depth of or whether it had any water in.’

  Intelligence indicated that the garrison of the two bridges consisted of about fifty men, armed with four to six light machine guns, one or two anti-tank guns and a heavy machine gun. While it was believed that the bridges had been prepared for demolition, resistance intelligence had pinpointed the pillbox where the charges were contained. If the British could get to the pillbox before the Germans, then they could save the bridges. But, to achieve this, they would have to move
with real speed and stealth.

  However, the photographs revealed a problem. Near the bridges, small holes were being dug across the glider landing sites in order to erect anti-glider poles. These were 8–10ft high and often enhanced by tripwires and topped with explosives. If they were erected before D-Day, then this represented a significant hazard to Operation Deadstick. Getting the gliders down undetected, in the dark and in a precise location, was already hazardous enough.

  There were also issues for Operation Tonga. The Merville guns were not only defended by a garrison estimated to be in the region of 160–180 men, with dug-in machine-gun pits, but they were also surrounded by extensive minefields and a coiled barbed-wire perimeter several metres thick. There was also the difficulty of the surrounding area being marshy with a large number of drainage ditches. If a paratrooper should be unlucky enough to land in one, then he would drown due to the weight of his equipment, with each man estimated to weigh around 250lbs.

  Still, despite these significant hurdles, preparations continued and orders were finalised. D Company was tasked with securing the bridges, intact, within minutes of landing. Meanwhile, the 9th Battalion had to destroy the Merville guns before the coming of first light at 0525 hours. Upon achieving this, they were to send the codeword ‘Hammer’ to HMS Arethusa. If they were unsuccessful, they would send the codeword ‘Hugh’. If the Arethusa heard this codeword, or did not hear from the paratroopers by 0525, its orders were to fire at the guns, in a last desperate effort to secure a direct hit, before the troops landed on Sword Beach. Should communications fail, there was also a back-up signal: yellow smoke to denote success, while a carrier pigeon would be on hand to send word if all else failed.

  D Company, the 9th Battalion and their respective reinforcements were soon training under the strictest secrecy for what would be the most vital operation of the war. Failure was not an option. Not only did the lives of thousands of British troops depend on them, so did the fate of Europe. They trained repeatedly in all conditions, learning to master every weapon that might be available to them, including German ones, and going over their respective operations again and again, in locations that were made to resemble their targets as much as possible.