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Airborne Assault Blog
Force C130 Hercules with parachute jumping
Featured Author:
Peter Padley
Former Warrant Officer Class One (Garrison Sergeant Major) Peter A Padley MBE
Served in the British Army from 1962 until 2000 as a member of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME).
Served with a variety of units including Parachute and Commando Forces on active duty and operations in many theatres around the world.
Former Parachute Instructor and founder member of 3 military Parachute Teams.
It was pitch black outside the aircraft and those inside the heaving interior of the Royal Air Force C130 Hercules had been airborne for nearly 4 hours when the Parachute Jump Instructor told them to stand up and fit equipment. En-route to the drop zones each aircraft had been carrying nearly 100 paratroopers, sitting on canvas ‘para’ seats in four rows down the length of the aircraft, with their equipment and weapons bundles placed on the deck in front of them. With no ‘floor’ space available moving around in the hold of the aircraft could only be done by climbing over all the equipment belonging to the paratroopers. Where you sat was where you stayed – trips to the sparse toilet facilities, except in dire emergencies, were not an option. If you felt air sick, as many did, you either used the ‘issue’ sick bag or threw up on the aircraft deck – or if the bloke sitting next to you was lucky enough to be sleeping and you knew he could take a joke – used his helmet!!
Special Forces Detachments had been on the ground for some time and had been busy passing intelligence on ‘in depth’ enemy strengths back to the Joint Force Headquarters and the Pathfinders had been inserted by a tactical HALO insertion from 25,000 feet only 36 hours ago to mark the drop zones we were to jump onto.
There were over 1,000 paratroopers and heavy drop equipment in the air armada flying tactically at 300 feet en-route to two objectives, an old airfield and a nearby bridge. With approximately 20 minutes to go until the green light came on all the obvious fears of an airborne soldier were going through the minds of all those in the assault force: would they get a ‘good’ canopy outside the aircraft, were the enemy dug in in strength, were the Battle Groups already at the start line going to take longer than 5 days to reach them and so on.
We were all sweating and slipping and sliding on the vomit strewn aircraft deck yet managed fit our own equipment before carrying out the checks of each other’s equipment. Standing with over 80lbs of kit attached to their parachute harnesses – and ultimately their bodies – the turbulence played havoc with their knees and insides as they all tried to keep their balance. Everyone in the aircraft just wanted to get out of the stinking heaving interior of the C130.
